Bing Concert Hall

This place is gorgeous! The sound quality is impeccable and the bathrooms are so… smart… so to speak.
They do have a coat check, walking in here makes you feel like royalty. It’s just beautiful, simply beautiful.
I recommend any musical adventure that takes place here along with any event they host, you’re bound to have a classically fun time and dabble in some delicious snacks.

5* Bing Concert Hall
On Stanford University
Fairly new
Seasonal performances
We saw an excellent mariachi group from Veracruz Mexico. Arlo Guthrie and Bernadette Peters are scheduled.
A couple hundreds of seats; all with great acoustical reception
Staff is very friendly and helpful
Little café and beverages available
Parking is free
Highly recommend

My favorite venue by far. Such a beautiful spacious hall. No matter where you sit, you feel so close to the performers.

I went to the DakhaBrakha show here last night. it was my first visit to the Bing Concert Hall and I probably wouldn’t come to another show here because of the poor seating to cost ratio. I bought my tickets over 2 months ago and at that time there were no 2 seats available facing the stage. Even after dropping $ 55 a piece, we could only get seats along the side. When we arrived, a large speaker obscuring our view of half the band. And, annoyingly, about one-​third the good seats facing DakhaBrakha were empty (guessing they were reserved for season ticket holders, who by the way, missed an amazing show last night). Anyway, while really enjoyed the band, I won’t be rushing back to this venue.

I have seen performances all over the Stanford campus, and the Bing Concert Hall is, by far, the best performance space I’ve been in. The acoustics are wonderful, the sightlines excellent, and the seats comfortable. As a fairly regular concertgoer, accustomed to all sorts of venues, this makes a huge difference.
The design is incredibly beautiful. I must say that, apart from some of the older, original buildings, this is one of the most elegant buildings I’ve entered on the Stanford campus. The lobby area is, architecturally, head and shoulders over that of other performance spaces on campus – especially in that there’s actually space for you to stand around and wait without feeling overly crowded. I wish I had been there during the day, so I could enjoy the outdoor landscaping as well.
What’s more, the ushers were knowledgeable and gracious — not always a combo you’ll find among ushers.
And all things considered, the ticket prices are not all that crazy.
For those so inclined, the beverages served prior to performances are top notch.

As others have mentioned, Bing Concert Hall is entirely charming both inside and out. It’s architecture is so impressive and pleasing that it might lead some to expect to find the interiors of a five star hotel inside the music hall, but it’s not that kind of place and I’m certainly not one to care if it’s the essence of luxury inside. The seats are roomy and comfortable with plenty of leg room. That’s all I care about.
Oh and I also care about acoustics. I was there last night with my wife to see Shawn Colvin. I’ve seen her numerous times and last night was by a very large margin the worst performance I’ve ever seen her give. I don’t fault the hall for all of it. She definitely had an off night, but the hall wasn’t doing her or the audience (at least in my section) any favors. I sat in the third row near the right aisle and the concert sounded like it was being played back from a YouTube recording off someone’s smartphone. It was flat and full of echoes.
I seem to notice that other people who went here for something other than Chamber music also have the same kind of experience I had, except for the person who went for a Ukelele performance. I’m not too surprised by that exception though. The only thing we could hear last night were the high notes. The entire low end of the guitar was all but inaudible. We could see her strumming, but there was no rhythm guitar happening.
We can’t know how much of the poor experience was due to the hall, the sound techs, and the performer, but I have a hard time believing that even on a bad night, a performer of Shawn Colvin’s caliber would fail to realize that she was nearly doing an acapella show unless it sounded ok where she was standing at the center with the monitor speakers in front of her.
She also had extreme difficulty tuning her guitar last night too which suggests to me that even where she was, the sound may have been distorted by the acoustics of the hall.
It was a totally disappointing experience. We were really wowed with everything up until the time the first sounds came through the speakers with the opening announcements. That even sounded flat. I would advise to you stay away from anything but Chamber music and maybe Big Band type of stuff in this place.
Don’t take my amateur word for it. Here’s a professional’s review:

This is an absolutely wonderful, and surprisngly intimate and small, concert hall smack dab on the beautiful Stanford campus. I had the pleasure of attending a private event here, and we started in the common areas eating endless food and enjoying endless drink. Those common areas are beautiful, clean, open, bright… quite nice.
Later, we moved to a private concert being played be a quartet of 2x violin, viola and cello. The acoustics were just… wow. Wonderful. I sat in both the first row, mere feet from the performers, and quite far back, so as to compare said acoustics, and in both cases they were fantastic. There aren’t many seats, so any seat in the house would be great.

Having Professor Stephen Sano explain Bing Hall to you, plus listen to his ukulele, the one made from scraps from building the Bing soundstage… well, it brought the whole experience to an extraordinary level. And well, since I’m from Hawaii; his ukelele made me cry to go home. Can’t imagine that any presentation in Bing would be nothing short of outstanding. During the presentation I attended, the acoustics were wonderful. Lovely, lovely venue.

After all the ballyhoo, what a disappointment! Parking is easy, and the exterior is OK (but not wonderful). Inside, the building is quite beautiful — until you enter the hall — which is UGLY! Perhaps worse than usual the evening we attended, for the performance surface was blue carpeting. Judging from photos, the aesthetics are somewhat improved when the performance surface is white/​beige. Nonetheless, an ugly space! Acoustics were fair: more than adequate during the music, but ineffective when jazz singer Cécile McLorin Salvant spoke to the audience.

A beautiful concert hall, from both the perspective of an audience member and a performer. Stanford has brought in world-​class artists; I adored seeing Yo-​Yo Ma perform here.

It makes me sad to write this review, but it is what it is. I attended my 4^th musical event at Bing last evening, a performance of the terrific Stanford Jazz Orchestra. It was a pleasure being in the visually beautiful new hall. Unfortunately, the acoustics are no match for the visuals. I sat in the middle of the A section, centered both side to side and top to bottom. I found the sound muddled and muddy. The instruments of the orchestra were difficult to distinguish from one another and the low frequencies were over-​emphasized. I think the problem is in both the hall and the electronic sound reinforcement system. The bass viol was miked way above the piano and the lows of the bass were way too strongly reinforced. The music director’s voice was muddy and lacking in high tones and sibilance — it was hard to understand him. The male singer’s voice was clearer but there was definitely too much bass reinforcement.
To the extent that the problems are electronic, they can be fixed. Stanford has obviously already spent goodly sums of money trying to do this because the performance floor was littered with huge loudspeaker assemblies. Unfortunately this isn’t working well at all.
The bigger problem is the hall. The «vineyard» 360 degree surrounding seating makes it impossible to create an even, high quality listening experience throughout the hall. Resonances within the cavernous hall are very obvious and may be impossible to tame.
I’m afraid Stanford has a white elephant here, $ 75 million spent on an acoustically inferior hall when a truly world class facility could have been built instead.
Bottom line — everything about Bing is wonderful — except for the very poor acoustics. And this is most unlikely to change because the problem is so fundamental — a flawed concept for the hall itself.

Beautiful hall. The part where the orchestra plays raises from the ground and is a fun site to see.

Gorgeous addition to the Stanford campus. I was able to get tickets to a Music Department show case on opening weekend. The design of the interior is sleek and modern with natural wood and stone touches.
Later I was lucky to get a behind the scenes tour of the hall since our department works with Stanford Live (the group that runs the hall). Everything is state of the art and every part of it was thought out to the nth degree. I can’t wait to experience more performances here.

I completely disagree on the acoustics of this hall. Been there twice, once for Los Lobos (loud-​ish rock) and just today for the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain — rather quiet acoustic string and vocal.
Yes, the building is beautiful and the staff friendly and helpful. The seats are comfortable. Physically it is top-​notch.
Acoustically this place is dead as a doornail! For Los Lobos we were front and center and I thought the sound was muddy and thick and the high, loud guitar notes were jangly and harsh. Today we started in section D, looking at the performers’ back left shoulders. Here it sounded exactly like the world sounds, when you leave a 3-​hour Bruce Springsteen concert, or an afternoon with a chain-​saw. In other words, there were no highs! The UOGB does a lot of amusing banter; we couldn’t get the punch-​lines to any of the jokes. We couldn’t understand any of the lyrics of the songs. The bass Uke was clear and smooth, the vocal mid-​ranges were boomy and fat and muddled, and there were no highs.
We complained at intermission, and the friendly and helpful staff gave us new seats upper center (sect B row M). Here the high-​end roll-​off was less pronounced, and we could actually follow the speeches and lyrics.
Speaking from a little experience with amps and speakers, I’d say the Bing’s response curve has a bump around 120Hz, which makes the bass all boomy and fat, there’s a hump centered on about 400Hz that makes the midrange sound like yelling into a barrel, and then it rolls off hard about 4KHz to give you that ears-​stuffed-​with-​cotton feeling. That’s in the good seats, in front facing the performers. Around to the side the highs roll off faster and harder.
When I stepped out of the hall after the performance, just stepping into the pretty windowed foyer made it feel like I’d just pulled Q-​tips out of my ears. I could hear again!
I would prefer not to hear music at the Bing ever again. At stanford I’d far rather attend at little Dinkelspiel or Mem.Aud. I certainly do NOT recommend the Bing unless your seat is in the front facing the performers, where it is just tolerable.

Pretty impressive concert hall. Just went to watch the Beethoven Project performed by the Stanford Symphony Orchestra and I was really entertained. Since I love all kinds of music and my father had an extra ticket (he’s huge classical music buff) I thought I would check this place out. There’s plenty of parking (getting out after the concert can be a bit tricky be forewarned) but I thought the place was elegant and acoustically top notch. It’s something you definitely should check out. I’m sure plenty of great performances will come there. Check out:

I had the pleasure of seeing the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra play Vivaldi’s «Four Seasons» here right after they opened. The building is gorgeous inside and out, and the acoustics are amazing. I give five stars even though they haven’t quite perfected their logistics. For example, I ordered tickets months in advance and they hadn’t arrived by showtime. I went anyway, hoping for the best and joking with my girlfriend that we might get turned away and have to watch the Hobbit movie instead. But they promptly printed replacement tickets and all was well. A week later, my actual tickets arrived in the mail.

Try the warm chocolate chip cookies. 2 for $ 3! Really good!
The concert hall is top notch. Gorgeous interior, friendly staff, and no expense spared. I’m looking forward to attending my next concert at Bing. I was there for a solo piano concert with Emanuel Ax and the acoustics were impressive.
Parking is really easy. I recommend the lot on Campus Drive near Galvez. It was recently paved.

I was fortunate enough to tag along to the second public performance held at this newly built concert hall. The Stanford Symphony Orchestra performed Beethoven’s 5^th Symphony with Jon Nakamatsu.
The inside of the hall is beautiful. It has a «vineyard» layout which lets the audience sit all around the performers in the middle, similar to a coliseum. We sat in the B/​Center 3 section of the hall, which was on the second level. Even though we weren’t the closest to the performers, the acoustics during the symphony was amazing. The music was alive and full.
If you have a chance to attend a performance in this intimate hall, don’t pass up the chance!