New York Event Travel Guide
New York is less one event destination than half a dozen stacked on top of each other: Madison Square Garden sits directly above Penn Station in Midtown, Barclays Center is in Brooklyn, Yankee Stadium is in the Bronx, Citi Field and the US Open are in Queens, UBS Arena is out on the Nassau County line, and MetLife Stadium -- the Giants, the Jets and most of the largest stadium concerts -- is not in New York at all but in New Jersey. Around forty Broadway theatres are packed into a few blocks of Midtown, which makes a show the easiest event here to plan around and the hardest to find a quiet hotel near. The single most useful thing to know is that the subway runs 24 hours a day and reaches almost every one of these venues directly, and that a rental car will make your trip worse and more expensive at every stage. Choose your hotel by which line it sits on, not by how many miles it is from the venue.
Upcoming New York events
The reason most people book this trip. Every date links to live tickets and a seat map.
- From about $167.00View Tickets
- From about $72.00View Tickets
- From about $38.00View Tickets
- From about $86.00View Tickets
- From about $87.00View Tickets
- From about $67.00View Tickets
- From about $63.00View Tickets
- From about $60.00View Tickets
Popular New York venues
- Booth Theatre
- Broadway Theatre - New York
- Gershwin Theatre
- Madison Square Garden
- Minskoff Theatre
- Neil Simon Theatre
- New Amsterdam Theatre
- Radio City Music Hall
- Richard Rodgers Theatre
- Schimmel Center For The Arts
- St. James Theatre
- Infosys Theater at Madison Square Garden
Hotels near New York venues
Where you stay depends on which building you are going to. These guides cover the areas, parking and transport for each one.
- Hotels near Madison Square Garden
- Hotels near MetLife Stadium
- Hotels near Broadway Theatre - New York
- Hotels near Gershwin Theatre
- Hotels near Minskoff Theatre
- Hotels near Neil Simon Theatre
- Hotels near New Amsterdam Theatre
- Hotels near Radio City Music Hall
Hotels in New York
Central New York properties, closest to the middle of the city first, priced for Oct 17 – Oct 18, 2026 for two adults.
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The Beekman, A Thompson Hotel, by Hyatt
123 Nassau Street, New York
Luxurious Accommodations Indulge in the bespoke rooms and suites at The Beekman, featuring custom beds, marble bathrooms, and elegant decor for a lavish stay. Architectural Marvel…
$793 per night
Check availability -
Moxy NYC Downtown
26 Ann Street, New York
Unique Entertainment and Dining Experience Immerse yourself in the vibrant atmosphere of Moxy NYC Downtown with its 5,000 sq. ft. bar and lounge space, offering a variety of bever…
$472 per night
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Smyth Tribeca
85 West Broadway, New York
Luxurious Accommodations Indulge in the sophistication of 100 well-appointed guest rooms and suites at Smyth. With floor-to-ceiling windows, marble bathrooms, and stunning downtow…
$820 per night
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Artezen Hotel
24 John Street, New York
Luxurious Accommodation Artezen Hotel, nestled in the heart of New York's Financial District, offers elegant rooms with free WiFi and modern amenities. Each room features a flat-s…
$660 per night
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M Social Hotel New York Downtown
55 Church Street, New York
Luxurious Accommodations The Millenium New York Downtown offers upscale guest rooms with stunning views of iconic landmarks like the Hudson River and the Freedom Tower. Each room …
$539 per night
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Residence Inn by Marriott New York Downtown Manhattan/World Trade Center Area
170 Broadway, New York
Luxurious Suites with Modern Amenities The Residence Inn New York Downtown Manhattan/World Trade Center Area offers contemporary suites with free WiFi access. Each suite features …
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Walker Hotel Tribeca
77 Walker Street, New York
Luxurious Accommodation Walker Hotel Tribeca offers 4-star air-conditioned rooms with free WiFi and city views. Each room includes modern amenities such as a flat-screen TV, safet…
$551 per night
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Roxy Hotel New York
2 Avenue of the Americas, New York
Luxurious Amenities Indulge in a complimentary glass of champagne upon arrival and unwind in a room featuring bathrobes, a flat-screen TV, and upscale toiletries. Culinary Delight…
Which area to stay in
Midtown West / Times Square / Hell's Kitchen
Almost every Broadway theatre sits inside a rectangle of about a dozen blocks here, with Madison Square Garden and Penn Station at its southern edge. It is loud, crowded and not where New Yorkers eat, but if your event is a show or anything at the Garden, nothing else comes close for the walk home afterwards. Hell's Kitchen, a few avenues west, offers the same convenience with considerably better restaurants.
Downtown Brooklyn / Fort Greene / Prospect Heights
The area around Barclays Center and Atlantic Terminal, and the obvious base for anything at that arena. Fort Greene and Prospect Heights are residential and strong on food; the transit here is so dense that Manhattan is 15 to 20 minutes away, which makes this a reasonable general base even when your event is elsewhere.
Lower Manhattan / Financial District
Room rates are often noticeably lower than Midtown and the subway connections run in every direction. The trade-off is that parts of the district empty out in the evening, and you are a long way from the theatre district when a show finishes.
Long Island City / Astoria
Directly across the river from Midtown and one or two subway stops from it, with the shortest run to LaGuardia and a straightforward trip out to Citi Field and the US Open. Cheaper than Manhattan, and Astoria in particular is a genuine neighbourhood rather than a hotel strip.
Jersey City / Hoboken
Across the Hudson, connected to Manhattan by the PATH train in roughly ten to twenty minutes depending where you start. Usually the cheapest rooms with a fast ride in, and much the best base for an event at MetLife Stadium or an early flight from Newark. The downsides are a second transit system to learn and a thinner late-night service.
Flights to New York
Which airport you choose changes the rest of the trip more than the fare usually does.
| Airport | Code | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| John F. Kennedy International Airport | JFK | The largest of the three and the one most international flights use, in southern Queens roughly 15 miles from Midtown. The AirTrain is a separate paid connector (around $8.75) linking every terminal to two rail hubs: Jamaica, for the Long Island Rail Road into Penn Station or Grand Central Madison in about 20 minutes, and Howard Beach for the A train, which is much cheaper and much slower. By car, budget 45 minutes to well over an hour; the Van Wyck Expressway is reliably bad. |
| LaGuardia Airport | LGA | The closest airport to Midtown, about 8 miles away in northern Queens, and much the most pleasant to use since its rebuild. The catch is that it has no rail connection at all -- the long-promised AirTrain was cancelled -- so the transit option is the free Q70 LaGuardia Link bus to the Jackson Heights subway complex, which puts you on the 7, E, F, M and R, or on to Woodside for the LIRR. A taxi or rideshare is 25 to 30 minutes off-peak and can take twice that at rush hour. Almost entirely domestic and short-haul routes. |
| Newark Liberty International Airport | EWR | In New Jersey, about 16 miles from Midtown, and the only one of the three with a mainline railway station of its own: NJ Transit and Amtrak run from Newark Liberty International Airport Station to Penn Station in Manhattan in around half an hour. Note that the AirTrain shuttle connecting the terminals to that station is in the middle of a full replacement and has been substituted by shuttle buses, so check before counting on a tight connection. Comfortably the best airport if your event is at MetLife Stadium or anywhere in New Jersey. |
| Westchester County Airport | HPN | A small, easy airport about 35 miles north of Midtown, with limited schedules and often higher fares. Metro-North's Harlem line reaches Grand Central from White Plains in roughly 40 minutes, but you still have to cover the gap between the airport and the station. Worth a look only if the schedule happens to suit. |
| Long Island MacArthur Airport | ISP | On Long Island, about 50 miles east of Manhattan, served by a small number of low-cost routes. It sits near the LIRR's Ronkonkoma branch, which makes it a defensible choice for an event at UBS Arena or anywhere on the Island, and a poor one for anything in Manhattan. |
| New York Stewart International Airport | SWF | About 60 miles north of the city in the Hudson Valley. Occasionally very cheap, but there is no quick way in and the transfer will eat the saving. Realistically, only sensible if you are driving elsewhere in the region anyway. |
Getting around New York
Do not rent a car. New York is the one American city where that advice is unambiguous: parking in Manhattan is priced like a hotel room, a congestion toll now applies to vehicles entering Manhattan at or below 60th Street, and almost every major venue has a rail station attached to it. The subway runs 24 hours a day, charges a flat fare of about $3 regardless of how far you travel, and is paid by tapping a contactless card or phone at the gate -- after twelve rides in a week the rest of that week is free, so there is no reason to buy a pass in advance. Venue by venue: Madison Square Garden is built on top of Penn Station; Barclays Center has nine subway lines converging in the station directly beneath it and the LIRR's Atlantic Terminal in the same complex; Yankee Stadium has its own subway stop on the 4, B and D plus its own Metro-North station about 15 minutes from Grand Central; Citi Field and the US Open share the Mets-Willets Point stop on the 7 line, with extra LIRR service on the Port Washington branch on event days; UBS Arena is served by the LIRR's Elmont-UBS Arena station, roughly half an hour from Penn Station, with shuttle buses covering the last half mile. The exception is MetLife Stadium, which is in New Jersey and reached by NJ Transit to Secaucus Junction and then a shuttle train that only runs for events -- plan that leg deliberately, because it is the one journey here that does not simply work by default. Rideshare works everywhere but surges hard the moment an arena empties; walking a few blocks away from the venue before ordering usually costs a good deal less than waiting outside it.
Things to do in New York
The practical problem in New York is not finding things to do but not over-scheduling. Build the trip around one neighbourhood per day rather than one landmark: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim and the eastern edge of Central Park make one day; the Museum of Modern Art and Rockefeller Center another; the Brooklyn Bridge walk, the Financial District and the 9/11 Memorial a third. A surprising amount of the best of it costs nothing -- the Staten Island Ferry is free and passes the Statue of Liberty in both directions, the High Line is a free elevated park along the West Side, and Central Park will absorb an entire afternoon. The things that do require booking genuinely require it: the observation decks, the Statue of Liberty crown and the major special exhibitions all sell timed entry and sell out. If you are here for one game, another is often worth a second night -- the Yankees, Mets, Knicks, Nets, Rangers, Islanders and Devils all play within the metro area, and in autumn so do the Giants and Jets.
Where to eat in New York
The famous New York foods are all cheap and all worth doing properly: a folded slice of thin pizza eaten standing up, a bagel with cream cheese and lox, and a pastrami sandwich at a Jewish delicatessen -- Katz's on the Lower East Side has been serving the last of those since the 1880s. Beyond that, the city's real strength is its immigrant neighbourhoods, and they are not in Manhattan: Flushing in Queens for Chinese food, Jackson Heights for South Asian and Latin American, Arthur Avenue in the Bronx for Italian cooking of a kind Little Italy stopped doing decades ago. Near the venues, plan ahead. Restaurants in the theatre district run pre-theatre sittings that fill weeks out, and the streets immediately around Madison Square Garden and Barclays Center are mostly chains and sports bars. The halal carts and the late-night slice shops exist precisely for the hour after an event ends.
Plan the rest of the trip
Frequently asked questions
How do I get back to my hotel after a late event?
The subway runs 24 hours, which is unusual among American cities and is the single biggest reason not to rent a car here. Expect the station nearest an arena to be packed for twenty minutes or so after the final whistle; walking one stop further along the line is often faster than queuing. Rideshare surge pricing immediately after a sold-out event at any of these venues can be severe.
How early should I leave for an event in New York?
Longer than the map suggests. Subway journeys within Manhattan and out to Brooklyn, Queens or the Bronx are usually reliable, but weekend and overnight engineering works reroute lines constantly and the signage about it is poor. Allow an hour door to door for anything in another borough, and for MetLife allow two.
Do you need a car in New York?
No, and you should actively avoid one. Parking is extremely expensive, a congestion toll applies to vehicles entering Manhattan at or below 60th Street, and every major venue except MetLife Stadium is reached directly by subway or commuter rail. The only real case for driving is a trip that continues elsewhere in the region afterwards.
Is MetLife Stadium in New York?
No. No. It is in East Rutherford, New Jersey, roughly 10 miles west of Midtown by road, and it is home to both the Giants and the Jets. The transit route is NJ Transit to Secaucus Junction and then a shuttle train to the Meadowlands station beside the stadium, which runs only for events -- confirm it is operating for your specific date rather than assuming it.
Where should I stay for a Broadway show?
Midtown West, either inside the theatre district or in Hell's Kitchen just west of it. The theatres are clustered so tightly that almost any hotel in those blocks is a short walk from any of them, which matters more than it sounds when a show comes out at eleven on a wet night.
Which airport should I fly into for a New York event?
For anything in Manhattan, Brooklyn or Queens, LaGuardia is the closest and JFK has the most flights. For an event at MetLife Stadium, or if you are staying in New Jersey, fly into Newark -- it is the only one of the three with a mainline train station of its own. All three are connected well enough that price and schedule should decide it.
