Southern Tier Concerts & Live Music

The Southern Tier has its own claim to rock history. In July 1973, an estimated 600,000 people descended on Watkins Glen for the Summer Jam — a single-day festival featuring the Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers Band, and The Band that drew a larger crowd than Woodstock ever did. The gorge is still there. The spirit hasn’t left.

That DIY, community-first ethos runs through the region’s live music culture today. The GrassRoots Festival of Music and Dance — held every July at the Trumansburg Fairgrounds just outside Ithaca — is the Southern Tier’s signature outdoor concert event: four days of folk, reggae, world music, and activism on a working fairground, running continuously since 1991. It’s the kind of summer concert experience that turns first-timers into annual pilgrims. Ithaca’s club scene keeps that energy going year-round, booking touring indie, folk, and jam bands in rooms where the audience is genuinely part of the show.

Binghamton anchors the eastern end of the region with real infrastructure: Visions Veterans Memorial Arena for major touring acts, the historic Broome County Forum Theatre for performing arts, and Foothills Performing Arts Center in Oneonta serving the region’s college communities. Tioga Downs Casino Resort in Nichols rounds out a Southern Tier concert calendar that’s more diverse — and more surprising — than most visitors expect.