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The Warfield

The Warfield

Name: The Warfield
Address: 982 Market St, SF, CA, US
Telephone: (415) 345-0900

982 Market St, San Francisco, CA 94102

The Warfield is a mid-size historic theater in San Francisco’s downtown Theatre District, close to Market Street transit like BART and Muni. The main room is a traditional proscenium setup with a standing floor and a large seated balcony above, so sightlines are fairly straightforward. Capacity is a little over two thousand people, which keeps shows feeling full without being stadium scale.

Crowds are a mix of locals and visitors, depending on who is booked that night.

Inside, the building feels like an old movie palace. The lobby has marble, gilded details and chandeliers, and there is a wide staircase that leads up to the balcony level. The auditorium itself is ornate, with a painted mural above the stage. Most concerts use a general admission floor with reserved seating in the balcony, and the room hosts rock, metal, indie and pop shows along with standup and touring podcasts. A typical month might swing from a band like The Strokes to a power metal bill like Helloween, then over to a comedy night with someone like Bert Kreischer.

The venue has been around for more than a century, originally built in 1922 as a vaudeville and movie house and later converted into a full-time concert hall in the late 1970s. It is now operated by Goldenvoice, which runs a lot of the touring shows around the Bay Area. The name comes from David Warfield, a San Francisco native who went from theater usher to well-known stage and silent film actor.