Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts — Attraction in Pittsburgh

Updated April 1, 2018: Saw RENT and quite enjoyed the show. Had front row balcony about 3/4 over to the right and complete view of the stage. Heinz Hall is a beautiful as ever. Main doors open one hour before the show, theater seats open 30 minutes prior. Don’t wait until the last minute like everyone else to try and find your seat, the ushers may be hard pressed to get everyone seated before the show starts. If you don’t know where your seat is, head up 15 minutes before and plan to be seated ten minutes before show time.

Updated April 16, 2017: My first National Broadway Tour of a show here at Heinz Hall, "Fun Home", as most of them are done at the Benedum Center. As many performances as I've seen at this cavernous hall, most all of them by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, I can't ever recall a time during a show when there were what seems like long moments of deafening silence, and that the entire audience got so quiet and so still that you could hear a pin drop. I had my doubts how a play/musical would be pulled off here, but it was done brilliantly. I also have tickets for "Dirty Dancing" and looking forward to it! If you do see a touring Broadway show here don't get the cheap seats. Details are important and hard to see from back/up there.

Earlier review:

I've been numerous times from 2015-2017 for PSO performances. I've had seats ranging from the closest stage box seats, orchestra level mid-sections, front row balcony, and last row in the uppermost section. Depending on the personal importance of the program, I bought my seats accordingly. I've enjoyed every performance immensely, but buying seats in the upper section would be primarily to 'hear the music' and not 'watch the show' - if you want the latter, don't buy the cheap seats.

The venue as a whole is stunning: royal red carpeting, gorgeous chandeliers everywhere, and gold trim against white paint make this place an elegant gem. The seats are just a little tight for leg room, but not uncomfortable for the average sized person. I've posted a few dozen pictures as well, all prior to this review.

There are several bars to buy drinks (soda and alcohol), all have limited seating. After the latest renovation the largest lounge was cut in half and the other portion is used for contributing members. During non-winter months the outdoor courtyard is opened and a nice place to hangout before the show.

Restrooms get really busy at intermission so plan your beverage drinking accordingly. There's also a nice coat-check room on the ground floor in the chandelier atrium.

Adequate parking is directly across the street, the entrance to the garage is next to Starbucks on Penn Avenue. There are plenty of restaurants within a 10-minute walking distance, from Market Square to the east end of this section of town down towards the convention center. If your performance is on a Sunday check to see if the buffet brunch by Common Plea catering is offered. It's a nice break from the hubbub of the streets and gets you early access into the hall. This is particularly nice in the dead of winter.

Heinz Hall is a masterpiece in the Cultural District's crown jewel of venues. Make sure to go at Christmas time to...

Finding parking and getting through security wasn't too bad. The folks at the box office were very friendly as was all the staff in helping us get seated, however the location was flawed overall.

Signage to seating seemingly has no relation to seat information printed on tickets, so as someone who was not very familiar with the location, help from staff was a requirement to reach our seats. Bathrooms are in the basement and signage to find them are practically non-existent.

We had decent seats as far as view as we were in the front middle of the balcony, however the seats are very small and not very comfortable. There is no way to get out of the seats without disrupting everyone else in the row as there is less room between rows of seats than a movie theater. Low budget airlines probably have their best engineers trying to crack the code of how Heinz Hall achieves such high seating densities.

The end of the night was the most frustrating as our group became separated and some of us went outside the front doors not realizing that once you go out there is no way back in. We didn't see any signage to warn anyone about this. This created extra stress for us and the staff at the doors were rude regarding providing any help. Another woman we had no relation to had apparently accidentally left her phone inside and staff were not attempting to help her and were just rude. There was also a Pittsburgh police officer outside the front entrance who I have to imagine was somehow acting as essentially a security guard for the venue who was very aggressive and by his attitude and the fact that the location felt the need to have him there made me question the safety of the area. He literally interrupted a civil conversation inside the front entrance on Heinz Hall private property to ask people to leave despite the locations staff not asking the guests to leave or trespassing them, because he didn't like a comment someone made. This, what I can only assume is somehow a hybrid model of public police officer acting in his assumed interests of a private establishment, seems like trouble.

There is a bar with the expected overpriced drinks, but unfortunately it was out of all the nonalcoholic featured drinks and seemed to only be capable of serving bottles or shot and a mixer style drinks. Not that there were any cup holders to put drinks anyway.

Overall the actual act, view, and building were very nice, but it's hard to overlook how needlessly flawed the night felt due to...

I'll start with the beautiful building and the architecture that is amazing, in my opinion. When actually taking the time to look around at all the features from the flooring to the intricate detailing on the walls, woodwork, and ceilings, it is truly something to be appreciated. As far as the symphony goes, it was amazing and very well done. My one complaint would be that people continued to enter the show 20 minutes past the start, which was quite disruptive, in my opinion. Obviously, we had to stand up and move to allow others to get to their seats to sit down, people were standing up in front of us hindering our view, flashlights were being pointed around to find the seat numbers, there was talking as they were entering and looking around etc. I feel that you should know to get there early to find your seat and out of respect for others who want to enjoy the show uninterrupted you plan accordingly. I would have expected that perhaps a 5 minute buffer was acceptable, but by the time it was 7:20, I was actually a bit annoyed that people were still coming in, to be honest. Other than that, this was an awesome experience watching one of my all-time favorite movies along with listening to a live performance of the symphony playing the music. I would definitely recommend this experience to anyone who loves music and movies as...