Live-music venues worth the trip in Cleveland, Ohio

AEG Presents’ open-air pavilion on the Cuyahoga River waterfront at the west bank of The Flats, its own pages say, a pavilion where every show goes on rain or shine.

The downtown arena that its own about page calls Northeast Ohio’s premier sports and entertainment destination, home to the Cavaliers and the Monsters, hosting close to two million guests at more than 200 events a year.

Cleveland State University’s arena and home of the Vikings, which its history page says seats up to 15,000 for special events and hosts contemporary concerts by international recording artists as well as Horizon League basketball.

The AEG Presents hall that its own homepage stamps Est. 1966, with Suites and Opera Boxes it calls the best seats in the house, and ADA viewing on the third tier of the upper theatre.

An AEG Presents room that its own page description bills as Cleveland’s newest 1,200 capacity concert venue, also available for weddings, receptions and banquets.

Live Nation’s Cleveland club with a general-admission Music Hall its FAQ says is built for dancing and rocking out, a Cambridge Room, a restaurant and bar, and a Foundation Room.

Cindy Barber and Mark Leddy’s conversion of Collinwood’s old Croatian Liberty Hall, a venue open since March 2, 2000 that hosts nightly local and national acts per its own about page, with a 500-capacity Ballroom and a 148-capacity Tavern.

The Music Settlement’s 100-capacity room, donated to the school in late 2013, a room that bills itself Cleveland’s premier listening room, with views of Lake Erie and every show booked by the Settlement’s own staff.

A concert club whose FAQ lists cash-only door admission, free street parking, readmission, an ATM and a kitchen with vegan burgers and cauliflower wings, and whose home page is a plain dated list of upcoming shows.

A two-stage supper club on the West Bank of the flats, open since fall 2014 in the old Club Coconuts building, whose downstairs Supper Club and upstairs Concert Hall host touring and local acts nearly every night per its about page.

A Cleveland bar and show room whose FAQ says most shows are all ages, the show space is standing room only apart from a few booths, and anyone under 16 must wear hearing protection, with a calendar that tags some nights as bar shows.

The former Slovenian Workmen’s Home, whose ground-floor Social Club opened in February 2023 and hosts live music and comedy four to five days a week, with the refurbished Treelawn Music Hall ballroom and its Euclid Beach Park disco ball upstairs.