Abravanel Hall

I have never experienced worse crowd control at an event than I did attending their 75^th anniversary. Going to the airport is a better experience. Whoever decided it was a good idea to put all the cocktail tables in the middle of the main circulation path should be fired.

Love love love Abravanel Hall! This was my second year (’12 & ’14) going to Abravenal Hall to see Kurt Bestor. Abravenal Hall is absolutely beautiful & easy to navigate. I especially love the additional leg room the seating aisles have. This is a timeless performance hall, and stunning place. I just love it! Highly recommend it!

BEAUTIFUL JUST BEAUTIFUL! Me and my wife went here for the first time and it was amazing! Great place for family, dates, friends or even to go alone!

By far my favorite place in all the western land. Classy place with some of the best music you can find between the coasts. The board of directors has made a really solid choice in a conductor.
I wish Utah was more interested in the symphony but they are not.

One of the best spots in Salt Lake City for entertainment. God bless Mr. Abravanel and the sponsors — a gem in this city of surprisingly good arts and entertainment. I’ve been living here for three months and I’ve seen numerous concerts and events in this venue.
You can ride TRAX to the front doorstep of Abravanel Hall which is a great option for those living in SugarHouse (like myself). Or, you can park relatively close and pay next to nothing to go to a concert here.
From Opera to Warren Miller to the Symphony, this place does a great job. Find me hanging out here all winter long…

NEVER AGAIN!!! This place is a horrible venue for comedy shows!!! I don’t know that I’ll ever see another show here. We had seats that were so far back in the corner it was difficult to hear. Really? A concert hall that has bad seats for sound? It might have had something to do with the sound system, the microphone screeched during the performance about 4 times. They were probably trying to turn it up because we weren’t the only ones that complained about not being able to hear.
I paid $ 60 for a ticket for 1 ½ hours of entertainment and I missed about ¼ of it because I couldn’t hear. It didn’t help that there was an issue with tickets and about 30 people were trying to sit in the same 5 seats and lucky us, it was on our row!
The ushers were loud and distracting even after the show had started. We selected seats on the end because you have to crawl over everyone to sit in the middle. And we paid for that with the seemingly never ending chatter from the ushers about where to seat people that had tickets, but no seats.
After the show, in order to leave, because there was another show, there was only one exit out into the alley — for the entire audience. Classy. Good thing there wasn’t a fire and I didn’t need to use the restroom after the show.
And it was hot. While the lobby is beautiful, it must cost a fortune to cool it because everytime I’ve been there it’s hot and miserable.

Gorgeous. Classic. Classy. A fitting home for the kind of performances here – the Symphony, well-​seasoned and well-​respected performers as well as lecturers. A little bit of everything, really.
First off, the façade with the fountains and the glass wall is memorable. There was much made when the County acquired the massive red Chihuly art piece. Besides the fact that it often feels like it needs a good dusting, it’s magnificent.
The concert hall is terrific. I’ve had seats on the floor as well as seats up in the boxes and balcony and never been disappointed. It’s not totally majestic like and old, storied venue in say, New York City. But it’s cozy enough and although not brand-​spanking-​new it does have a sort of timelessness to its design.
They also make it available for rentals. Not the performance hall, but there is a room on the north side with a magnificent view of the city towards Temple Square that you can rent for receptions. Not braggin’, but I maaaay have been the first to ever rent it way back in the day. And by the day, I mean the late ‘90s.
I’m so happy we have an amazing symphony, and that they have a home at Abravanel. Whether you’re seeing an author’s presentation about the farm-​to-​table movement or Carol Channing belting out the tunes, you’re sitting in one of the best seats in the house.

The type of show I saw at Abravanel Hall (stand-​up comedy) was not particularly well-​suited for this type of performance hall, so my review isn’t going to be as great as it could be if I saw something musical performed here instead, but I will do my best to just state the facts.
There is an awesomesauce sculpture in the lobby that looks like a million orangey-​red glass octopi all mangled together that goes way up to the ceiling, probably 25 feet at least. That was definitely a highlight. After a little googling, I discovered it was created by the famous Dale Chihuly, like Betsey H mentions in her review. Guess I shoulda just consulted Unilocal first.
We sat in row 1 so we had to climb down the steep hill to get to door A so we could then climb over everyone’s legs like user Eric X. mentions to get to our seats that were front and center. Why IS it that Utahns don’t follow proper crowd behavior protocol, like everywhere else? So weird here.
Row 1 is not really a great place to sit because you end up with a neck cramp from staring up at the show the entire time. I would suggest row 3 or 4 if you want to be that up close and personal. Otherwise, it appears that just about any seat in the house is a good one and the balconies seem especially nice.
I’m really torn between 3 and 4 stars here. It’s ok, but I am not super impressed. Having been to concert halls in other cities, I feel like SLC could do a little better. It feels a little dated, a tad bit school auditorium-​ish, just not up to the standard I would expect for a city that is trying as hard as SLC is. I guess I would like to give Abravanel Hall 3.5 stars, but I will err on the side of being generous and go with 4. We had a good time.

Abravanel Hall is an amazing performance hall with beautiful architecture and stellar acoustics. The place sounds REALLY good! Last night my girlfriend and I went to see «The Blue Planet Live» with the Utah Symphony. The performance was remarkable and it was interesting to hear and see the symphony perform the soundtrack to the «The Blue Planet» video selections. We are lucky to have such a great performance hall in Salt Lake City.

Last visited in January, 2010.
A great concert hall which is home to a great symphony (Utah Symphony Orchestra). The place could use a better bathroom situation (it gets busy during the intermission), as well as a nice row cut down the center of the main floor so those of us with center seats don’t have to climb over SLCers legs (hey, SLCers, why don’t you stand up when someone is trying to get past you to their seat?), but overall the sound and sight lines in this hall parallel any other great hall.

Abravanel Hall offers a little bit of a lot of things. Although most well known for housing the Utah Symphony, many other shows and artists will perform here. You will regualarly find stand up comics and rock musicians booking shows here, playing on days when the symphony doesn’t perform.
The building itself is a very interesting design, and definitely worth an indepth look. If you can get someone to give you a tour, it can be of great interest to those with an eye for architecture and a mind for history. Even if you are just here for a random show, you will definitely appreciate the real gold leafing that adorns the walls in the performance hall, as well as the astounding acoustics, the fun fountains in the courtyard, and my personal favorite, the Dale Chiuly blown glass sculpture in the lobby.
Always a fun place to visit.