Live-music venues worth the trip in Portsmouth, New Hampshire

A summer festival founded in 1974 on the Portsmouth waterfront, now a nonprofit, whose outdoor concert series on its permanent stage brings touring headliners to the park.

An 895-seat Victorian theater on Chestnut Street that opened in 1878 as a vaudeville house and now anchors Portsmouth with national touring acts, plus a small Lounge around the corner on Congress Street.

A listening room that opened in 2021 inside the restored 1905 YMCA building on Congress Street, with a calendar of internationally known jazz, blues and soul artists.

A nonprofit contemporary arts space on Vaughan Street whose mixed-use performance space books touring acts alongside its gallery.

Downtown Portsmouth’s longest-running bar and music venue, open since 1976, with a 150-capacity upstairs room that stages local and touring acts.