Concerts at Petco Park come in two sizes. A stadium show puts the stage on the field and fills the stands. A Gallagher Square show plays to the lawn beyond the outfield. Your ticket tells you which one you bought, and that changes the gate, the crowd and the whole night.
Stadium shows
The Padres opened Petco Park in East Village on April 8, 2004. The first concert came on November 11, 2005, when the Rolling Stones played their A Bigger Bang tour, and the Stones came back in May 2015 to open their Zip Code tour here. Taylor Swift sold it out in August 2015, Garth Brooks played in March 2022, and Bad Bunny did two nights in a row that September.
Stadium concerts land when the Padres are on the road or between seasons, and the biggest ones have drawn more than 40,000 people. Those nights show up on our pop, rock, country and Latin pages. The ballpark also hosts festivals and big dance shows.
Gallagher Square
Gallagher Square is the 2.8 acre lawn beyond the outfield fence. On days without a game it works as a public park, with a playground and a dog park. It was called Park at the Park until late 2019, and the Padres spent $20 million reworking it for the 2024 season, adding tiered lawn seating.
For concerts, the stage sits in front of a large video board, and the Padres put in a sound system built for the space. The team has said the lawn can hold up to 10,000 for a show, which makes it feel more like an outdoor amphitheater than a stadium. These shows often use their own gate instead of the main stadium entrances, so check your ticket for where to line up.
Getting there
Three Trolley stations are a short walk from the ballpark.
- 12th & Imperial, on the Blue, Orange and Green lines
- Gaslamp Quarter, on the Green Line
- Park & Market, on the Blue and Orange lines
MTS has added extra trains for the biggest stadium concerts, and it lists park and ride lots along every line. Old Town is popular with commuters and can fill up. If you drive, the Padres run lots including Tailgate Park and the Padres Parkade, and they push fans to buy parking well ahead of time.
The Rady Shell is on the bay behind the Convention Center, and NOVA SD and the rest of the Gaslamp are a short walk west. Browse downtown for every other room in East Village and the Gaslamp.