Live Entertainment in Saint Petersburg

Gazprom Arena (formerly Zenit Arena) is the most technically sophisticated football and concert stadium in Russia — a spectacular 68,000-capacity retractable roof and sliding pitch stadium on Krestovsky Island that hosted 2018 World Cup matches including a semi-final, and serves as home to Zenit Saint Petersburg (Russia's most successful contemporary football club and multiple Russian Premier League champions). The arena's extraordinary architectural design and its World Cup heritage create a concert venue of considerable Russian sporting significance.

Gazprom Arena is Russia's most technologically advanced football stadium — a 68,000-capacity retractable roof stadium on Krestovsky Island that cost $1.1 billion (making it one of the most expensive stadiums ever built) and represents Russia's most ambitious sports infrastructure achievement of the 21st century. The arena's remarkable engineering achievement (the pitch slides in and out of the stadium on rails) and its World Cup legacy create a sports venue of considerable Russian sporting infrastructure significance.

The Mariinsky Theatre is the greatest opera and ballet theatre in Russia and one of the supreme performing arts institutions in the world — a 1860 Saint Petersburg theatre where Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker received their world premieres, and where Chaliapin, Pavlova, Nijinsky, and Nureyev were formed into artists of world historic importance. The Mariinsky's extraordinary role in creating the Russian classical music and ballet tradition that dominated world culture in the 20th century creates a concert venue of singular world performing arts significance.

Oktyabrsky Concert Hall is Saint Petersburg's largest concert hall and most important popular music venue — a 3,800-capacity venue built in 1967 that has hosted virtually every major Russian pop and classical music artist in the post-Soviet era, from Soviet-era favorites to contemporary Russian artists. The hall's remarkable scale and its extraordinary history as the site of Saint Petersburg's most important popular music concerts create a venue of considerable Russian entertainment significance.

Petrovsky Stadium was the original home of Zenit Saint Petersburg — the historic club whose faithful (the "Blue-White-Sky Blue" supporters) created some of the most passionate football atmospheres in Soviet and Russian football at this compact 21,000-capacity stadium beside the Neva River. Zenit's extraordinary rise from Soviet-era mid-table obscurity to Russian Premier League dynasty (backed by Gazprom and winning multiple championship titles) and Petrovsky's atmospheric old-world setting create a sports arena of considerable Russian football heritage significance.

The Saint Petersburg Philharmonic's Bolshoy Zal (Grand Hall) is one of the world's great concert halls and the most historically significant in Russia — a 1,500-seat hall in the magnificent Mikhailovsky Palace complex where the Leningrad Philharmonic performed Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony (the Leningrad Symphony) by candlelight during the Nazi siege of Leningrad, in one of the most extraordinary acts of cultural defiance in history. The Philharmonic's remarkable Cold War musical diplomacy and its extraordinary acoustic quality create a concert hall of singular world classical music heritage significance.

SKA Saint Petersburg is the KHL's most glamorous ice hockey club — a Russian Continental Hockey League franchise with the largest budget in the league, backed by the power of Gazprom, that has won multiple Gagarin Cup championships and regularly attracts the world's best Russian NHL players (including Ilya Kovalchuk and Pavel Datsyuk) to return and play in Russia's most beautiful city. SKA Arena's extraordinary atmosphere and the city's passionate hockey culture create sporting events of considerable Russian ice hockey significance.

Saint Petersburg's sports and concert arenas serve the second largest city in Russia — a city whose extraordinary cultural ambitions and 5.4 million population create demand for major international concert experiences. Saint Petersburg's remarkable cultural prestige (it was the first Russian city to develop a significant international tourism industry after the Soviet era, drawn by the incomparable Hermitage Museum and White Nights festival) and its outstanding concert infrastructure create venues of considerable Russian entertainment significance.