ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla — Number one.
It’s hard to reach that spot.
But that’s what the St. Augustine Amphitheatre has done.
It is the number one selling amphitheater in the U.S. so far this year. And it's the second in the world.
"It’s totally surprising," Gabe Pellicer said. He is the St. Augustine Amphiteatre General Manager.
"We knew it was going to be a strong year," he told First Coast News. "We just expected that to be over the entire country."
It turns out the St. Augustine Amphitheatre has had a better year than any other amphitheater in the nation.
Pollstar Magazine just reported the St. Augustine Amphitheater sold the second highest number of tickets out of amphitheaters in the world for 2022. And it’s the first for ticket sales in the United States.
"It was pretty shocking," Pellicer said.
From January through June, the St. Augustine Amphitheatre sold more than 106,000 tickets. That’s almost double what the second place venue has sold, which is Red Rocks in Colorado.
"Part of it is we get to open our schedule earlier," Pellicer noted. "They get really busy in the summer too."
The St. Augustine Amphitheatre has a unique location next to a state park. It's in a tourist-friendly city. And Pellicer said the staff has been building relationships with the artists, encouraging them to play consecutive nights, and that is paying off.
"Coming for three nights in a row, you get to have your family join you. It’s a big deal to an artist," he said.
And so artists and their fans come back over and over again to the small to medium sized venue.
"We have 4,800 seats," Pellicer noted.
Even with this rockin’ ticket sales news, he said, "Ticket sales is not how we measure ourselves. We pay attention to overall rating, experience. We want to have the fest food, the best artists."
But seeing St. Amphitheater at the top of the list for U.S. ticket sales, he smiled and said, "It shows we’re doing something right."
Daily’s in Jacksonville also made the list at number six for amphitheater ticket sales in the United States so far this year.
