Live-music venues worth the trip in Cincinnati, Ohio

MEMI’s outdoor amphitheater on the Ohio River, an amphitheater that its own homepage says brings Cincinnati roughly 35 major contemporary music events a season, sharing its grounds and calendar with the adjacent 4,100-capacity PNC Pavilion.

A downtown theater that operator MEMI’s venues page says has hosted entertainment since 1928 in a blend of neo-classical and Art Deco architecture, a theater renovated in 2011 with a 500-capacity Ballroom that showcases live music and comedy and that the page calls a premier space for emerging artists.

The indoor arena on the downtown riverfront, an arena that its own site describes as a first-class facility hosting over 100 events each year and that serves as home for the Cincinnati Cyclones between concerts and family shows.

MEMI’s year-round venue near The Banks, an indoor hall with an outdoor stage, the ICON Festival Stage, a stage that the operator’s venues page says debuted in July 2021 with Foo Fighters.

Live Nation’s Cincinnati club, whose Our Story page recounts an 1890 vaudeville house, a 1980 reopening as Cafe Americain before the room became a full-time music venue, and a secret 1984 Prince show that served as a rehearsal for the Purple Rain tour.

A Cincinnati venue whose events page lists touring bookings tagged to an indoor stage or an outdoor stage, a venue still reachable through the old Riverfront Live web address, which now redirects to it.

A Clifton concert room with a restaurant attached, a room whose show listings tag every date by genre and post an age policy, all ages on every listed show.

An Over-the-Rhine hall built in 1908 that overlooks Washington Park and neighbors Music Hall, a hall renovated through December 2016 whose 556-seat Annie W. and Elizabeth M. Anderson Theater books the Longworth-Anderson Series alongside its own concert calendar.

A Walnut Hills room billing itself as Cincinnati’s premier jazz lounge, designed with close seating and warm lighting for the music, a room that serves as home stage of the nonprofit Jazz Vivace and sells ticketed sets by the table.

An Over-the-Rhine barroom stage that its own shows page says has booked live, original music and comedy since 2010, claiming first Cincinnati-area appearances by Alabama Shakes, Lord Huron and Margo Price.

A Northside bar that bills itself as a Cincinnati staple with free, original, live music almost every night, local craft brews on tap and a year-round outdoor patio, posting multi-band bills on its own calendar.

An Over-the-Rhine club billing itself as Cincinnati’s only Euro-style jazz club, founded by pianist Ed Moss as an underground room in 1995 and now run by his daughter, with a public calendar of dated live jazz.

A Northside bar with indoor and outdoor seating, a bar whose own events feed carries dated bookings, most of them live music, alongside a Comedy At The Comet series, a Sunday brunch and a standing Sunday bluegrass slot.

MOTR’s bigger sister room across the street, a 1913 Beaux-arts silent-film house that the owners bought and renovated for a year around its 2013 centennial, now running live shows, film and private events per its about page.