Long-term planning and careful strategizing are often pivotal to achieving success in the highly competitive live-music industry.
Not so for Humphreys Concerts by the Bay, which celebrates its 45th anniversary this year as San Diego’s longest-running annual outdoor concert series. The 2026 lineup at the intimate Shelter Island venue includes Pat Metheny, Ringo Starr, America, The Temptations, The Airborne Toxic Event, Judy Collins, Mac DeMarco, Dana Carvey and a few dozen more. (Tickets go on sale March 14 at 10 a.m. The full 2026 season schedule appears later in this article.)
“I’ve never had a conversation about a 5-year plan or a 10-year plan in all the time I’ve been here,” said Humphreys Vice President Bobbi Brieske, whose tenure began 40 years ago in 1986. “It would have been hard to imagine how successful this series has become.”
“There was never a long-range plan,” agreed Kenny Weissberg, who booked and co-produced each Humphreys season between 1985 and his retirement in 2006. “I had a handshake deal for 23 years. I never had a contract.”
Weissberg and Brieske aren’t the only pivotal veterans of the venue who did not anticipate its longevity and impact.
“I had no idea Humphreys would last this long or grow like it has,” said Humphreys Production Manager Tim Mercer, who is celebrating his 39th year and 40th season there this year.
“When I started here in 1987, we had a dinky little temporary stage that we took down at the end of the season. I thought I’d work at Humphreys for a summer and then go back to SDSU for my junior year and become an aerospace engineer. I’m still here!”
Saxophonist Dave Koz, center, is shown performing at Humphreys Concerts by the Bay in 2025 with his Summer Horns band. “Humphreys is one of the most beautiful spots in the world to do a concert, and it’s uniquely San Diego,” he says. (Bobbi Brieske)
‘Are you kidding?’
The list of those with little inkling Humphreys would fly — let alone become a quintessential San Diego venue with multigenerational appeal — includes at least one San Diego Union-Tribune music critic.
Or, as I wrote in a May 1997 Union-Tribune article:
“Sometimes it pays to ignore a critic’s opinion. In May 1982, I was taken to a small, grassy Shelter Island lot and told it was the future site of an outdoor summer concert series. Situated between Humphrey’s Restaurant/Bar and the Half Moon Inn, the empty 120-by-120-foot bayside lot seemed better suited for a shuffleboard court or a few picnic tables.
The chance of a concert series succeeding here was about as likely as Donny Osmond becoming the new lead singer for Twisted Sister, I told my hosts.
Oops!”
“I had the exact same reaction you did,” said Bartell Hotels President and CEO Richard Bartell. His family-owned company bought the Half Moon Inn and adjacent Humphreys restaurant in December 1984.
“I was taken to the same grassy area next to the hotel,” Bartell continued. “There was no stage or seats. There was nothing there, except a couple of kids playing Frisbee. I was told this was where the concerts were held, and I replied: ‘Are you kidding?’ It looked like a place where you’d take a chair to sit and look at the marina.”
Despite such low initial expectations, Humphreys has endured and thrived, drawing concertgoers from as far afield as England and Australia who plan their San Diego visits pegged to performances at the 1,450-capacity venue. It is a favorite of fans and performers alike, as demonstrated by Union-Tribune interviews over the years with an array of artists who have played there multiple times.
“People in San Diego should know that there isn’t another place like it in the country,” said guitarist Lee Ritenour.
“Humphreys is one of the most beautiful spots in the world to do a concert,” said smooth jazz saxophonist Dave Koz, “and it’s uniquely San Diego.”
“Humphreys is a special venue for me. I’ve always loved it,” said Ringo Starr, whose May 29 concert there is already sold out. “At times they’ve tried to put me in other venues down there in San Diego, and I’ve said: “No. I play at Humphreys.”
The allure of the venue for Starr and many of the other artists who have performed there over the decades is, in large part, a combination of the venue’s small size and its idyllic bayside setting.
“Ringo comes back to play for us almost every year,” said Humphreys Production Manager Mercer.
“He travels with three huge trucks of equipment and production gear, and we can’t fit most of it on our stage. Ringo told me: ‘I love performing at Humphreys because it’s all about the music. There are no video screens on the stage, there’s no this or that. We just get out there and play the music’.”
Blues giant B.B. King, who died in 2015, performed at Humphreys Concerts by the Bay 27 times between the 1980s and the last decade. (Richard Drew/ AP)
Unlikely success story
On paper, nothing suggested a fruitful future at venue that — for its first few decades — was billed as Humphrey’s Concerts by the Bay. (The apostrophe in Humphrey’s was dropped in 2009 and it has been Humphreys ever since.)
Bartell, an avocational drummer and former public defender, had never owned or operated a concert venue before. In fact, when Bartell Hotels bought the Half Moon Inn and the adjacent Humphreys Restaurant, the company was unaware its acquisition also included a small seasonal concert venue that had quietly been launched in 1982.
“I didn’t know anything about Humphreys Concerts. I’d never been to a show there,” Bartell recalled.
“The previous owners of the hotel had entered into an agreement with a third party, Southland Concerts, to operate the venue and book concerts. Southland kept the ticket revenues and paid us nothing. The benefit for us was the food and beverage sales at the venue and from dinners people had at Humphreys restaurant before the concerts.
“We wanted the series to be successful — but really just for the benefit of the hotel and the restaurant — and if the concerts just broke even we’d be very happy. It was only over time that Humphreys Concerts began a life of its own and eventually eclipsed both the hotel and the restaurant.”
Before that eclipse happened — and a few years before Bartell Hotels got involved —Humphreys Concerts began in 1982 as a straight-ahead jazz series booked by Rob Hagey, the founder of the San Diego Jazz Festival. His tenure of just a few months overlapped with that of then-UCSD student Marc Geiger, who booked six rock shows shows that first season under the aegis of Marc Berman Concerts.
At the time, the capacity at Humphreys was just a few hundred, with chairs placed at round plastic tables. By 1985, the tables were replaced by rows of seats and the venue’s capacity was increased to 650. With or without such acts as Oingo Boingo, Men At Work and David Lindley — all of whom played early on at the fledgling venue — almost no one could have predicted that a groundbreaking San Diego concert force was in the making.
Marc Geiger is a global musical force
Hagey went on to found the San Diego Street Scene festival, which ran from 1984 to 2009 and helped transform downtown’s moribund Gaslamp Quarter into a thriving commercial and residential hotspot. Geiger moved to Los Angeles the same year Street Scene debuted. He became one of the leading music talent agents in the nation and co-founded the Lollapalooza festival. He is still 11 units shy of earning his degree from UCSD.
Acts represented by Geiger performed at Humphrey’s for 27 of the venue’s first 30 years, including Steve Martin, Jennifer Hudson, America and B.B. King, who played at the venue 27 times.
Berman had teamed with former Colorado psychologist John Lee to launch Southland Concerts, which presented 15 concerts at Humphreys in 1983. Lee brought in Weissberg, a friend from Boulder, to assist Geiger. When Geiger left for L.A. the next year, Weissberg was on his own.
“I was a rookie concert promoter, having switched careers from being a radio DJ, music critic and rock ‘n’ roll bandleader in Boulder,” Weissberg said. “In my mind, I didn’t stand a chance of competing against the established promoters in San Diego. I was ready to quit after my first year.”
When Southland Concerts went out of business at the end of 1986, Bartell hired Weissberg to be the in-house talent buyer for Humphreys. It was a move that would change both their lives.
“That was a major turning point,” Bartell said. “Because it allowed us to control who was booked. We were able to pay more for talent and get bigger acts, better acts and more acts.”
Smooth-jazz saxophonist Kenny G performed frequently at Humphreys, starting in the 1980s, and filmed a concert special there.in 1989. (Chris Pizzello / AP)
Smooth jazz foundation
The first season at Humphreys in 1982 coincided with the debut of San Diego radio station KIFM-FM’s “Lites Out” format. “Lites Out” showcased neo-easy listening music, which the station promoted as “jazz for people who don’t like jazz” and detractors — well, me — called “jacuzzi jazz.”
The slick, predominantly instrumental music KIFM played clicked with many listeners. The station proved pivotal in creating an enthusiastic audience here for such acts as Chuck Mangione, Spyro Gyra, Kenny G, Earl Klugh, Acoustic Alchemy and other aural confectioners who subsequently became mainstays at Humphreys.
Saxophonist G recorded parts of his 1989 live album at the venue in 1989. The concert was also filmed and released as a DVD. This further underscored the symbiotic relationship between Humphreys and smooth jazz, an idiom not held in high regard by the person booking the concerts.
“It was modern-day elevator music with little soul or substance,” Weissberg wrote in “Off My Rocker,” his 2014 memoir. “But San Diego equated that music with its affluent, sailboat-steering, chardonnay-and-brie lifestyle ….”
Working closely together, the concert series and KIFM greatly boosted each other’s success. KIFM’s impact laid the groundwork for other radio stations across the country to embrace smooth jazz, which was perhaps most notable for how bereft it was of any actual jazz content.
By accident, not design, smooth jazz was instrumental in putting this budding concert venue on the map.
It made Humphreys a lucrative, must-play tour stop for acts that could only draw hundreds — not thousands — of attendees at their shows in Chicago and other cities. That success prompted rival San Diego promoters to launch their own smooth jazz concert series, most of which quickly fell by the wayside.
Humphreys’ idyllic bayside setting, relaxed vibe, intimate size and enthusiastic audiences made for a winning combination that has continued to this day, no matter what musical genre is spotlighted. The venue’s modest beginnings belie its longevity.
“During the smooth jazz era, our stage crew was basically me and another guy,” said Humphreys veteran Mercer. “Lee Ritenour would drive down from L.A. in a van with his band and their equipment.”
Mercer became the production manager at the venue after his fellow former SDSU classmate, Scott Pedersen, left Humphreys to start his own production company, Scottland Concerts.
Pedersen has been the producer of the Champagne Jazz Series at Thornton Winery since its inception in 1989 and teamed in 2005 with saxophonist and Humphreys regular Dave Koz to launch the annual Dave Koz Cruise. Koz was also a favorite at KIFM, at least until the station abandoned its smooth jazz format altogether 15 years ago.
“KIFM was huge in San Diego in the 1980s and I’d say 90 percent of the concerts we did were smooth jazz,” said Humphreys Vice President Brieske.
“We worked almost exclusively with them and they felt like a partner in the venue. They were a big part of it. Then, I’m not sure what happened with the popularity of smooth jazz declining, but it did. It was about that time when we started to branch out into other genres of music.”
Bartell agreed, adding: “We never looked at ourselves as a jazz venue, but — with KIFM’s involvement — we were able to get a lot of the smooth jazz artists they played to do shows for us. You could hear them on the radio during the day and on stage at Humphreys at night, and that really helped establish our brand.
“When Kenny booked classic-rock bands for us, or Donna Summer or George Carlin, some (talent) agents would say: ‘Huh? I thought you were a jazz venue.’ But we did everything and we never wanted to be pigeonholed with one type of music. We wanted to appeal to as many people as possible.”
Emmylou Harris has performed at Humphreys leading several different bands over the years. (Randall Michelson for Blackbird Presents)
Fats Domino, Emmylou Harris
While smooth jazz was Humphreys’ very lucrative bread-and-butter for a fair number of years, Weissberg began diversifying the musical menu at the venue soon after he became its in-house talent buyer.
The 1986 season boasted rock ‘n’ roll pioneers Fats Domino and Jerry Lee Lewis. And while the 1987 lineup featured such smooth jazz stalwarts as Mangione, Ritenour, Ronnie Laws and George Howard, it also included the Righteous Brothers, Emmylou Harris, Donovan, Leo Kottke and jazz legend Miles Davis, who memorably performed during an almost nonstop downpour.
“Among my favorites of the 2,000 or so concerts I booked at Humphreys,” Weissberg said, “were Roy Orbison, Aretha Franklin, Bonnie Raitt, Lyle Lovett, Whitney Houston, Ringo Starr, Willie Nelson, B.B. King, Ray Charles, Chris Isaak, James Brown, George Carlin, Dana Carvey and David Byrne.
“‘And I’m especially grateful to have also been able to showcase some of my personal favorites, including Richard Thompson, Johnny Clegg, Nanci Griffith, The Everly Brothers, Buena Vista Social Club, Poco/Richie Furay, Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes, Los Lobos, John Lee Hooker, Leo Kottke, Michael Hedges, Milton Nascimento, and Al Green.”
It’s not a coincidence that Weissberg’s list does not include even a single smooth jazz act. But he was savvy enough, even as a neophyte concert promoter, to seize on smooth jazz and Humphreys’ close relationship with KIFM as a pivotal combination that put the venue on the map.
“At the height of the smooth jazz period, we’d open a season with Hiroshima playing for two nights and close the season with Hiroshima,” Humphreys Production Manager Mercer said. “In between, we’d have Grover Washington Jr., Spyro Gyra and other smooth jazz acts, and it was pretty much the same crowd coming to each show.
“Then we moved past doing what were mostly KIFM shows and started featuring more diverse talents. Kenny was really good at that and he’d bring in artists like (the all-star Cuban band) Buena Vista Social Club, who were phenomenal musicians. Those kind of bookings brought a much wider audience to Humphreys than the wine-and-cheese crowd that came to hear KIFM acts. Opening people up to all these different types of music is what really made Humphreys successful.”
Humphreys Concerts by the Bay will celebrate its 45th anniversary this year. The first season at the intimate venue on Shelter Island took place in 1982. (Courtesy Humphreys Concerts by the Bay)
Expanding the venue
In 1989, Humphreys installed a permanent stage that was larger and had a roof. The venue’s capacity grew from 650 to 850, then to 1,250. The expansion also saw the opening of 40 hotel rooms that face the stage, along with a second-floor banquet room and viewing deck that is available to corporate sponsors.
“It was in 1989 that things just took off,” Bartell said. “The new stage looked great and we then had the capacity to bring in much bigger acts.”
How much bigger?
To cite one example, the rock band Boston took the stage at Humphreys one day after performing in Los Angeles at the 17,505-seat Forum. To cite a few more, Chris Isaak, Andrew Bird and Iron & Wine’s 2014 tours included stops at Humphreys and at the 17,376-seat Hollywood Bowl. Six other Humphreys artists that same year, including Ringo Starr and Tori Amos, played the 5,900-seat Greek Theatre in Los Angeles the same weeks they performed at Humphreys.
The 2026 Humphreys’ lineup features several acts that are also performing this year at the Hollywood Bowl, including Cheap Trick and “The Concert: A Tribute to Abba.”
“The goal is always the same,” Brieske said. “We want to consistently put together the best and most diverse lineups we can, go after the biggest names we can and keep the prices as low as we can so that everyone can find something they want to see here.”
The most recent turning point for Humphreys came in the wake of Weissberg’s 2005 retirement.
To the surprise of many music-industry veterans, including Bartell and Brieske, they hired John Wojas and Steve Redfearn. At the time the two co-headed Viejas Entertainment and booked Viejas Concerts in the Park, Humphrey’s biggest competitor.
“Our decision to meet with John and Steve was strictly a courtesy,” Bartell said in a 2010 Union-Tribune interview. “There was no way we were going to let our competitor book our concert series, so I expected nothing to come of it.”
Neither did Wojas, who in the same interview said: “We’d had animosity, because at Viejas we’d cherry-picked (for more money) a lot of the top acts away from Humphrey’s. What’s funny is, at the end of our interview, I said ‘If you don’t hire me, one of the things going against you is that you’ll still have to put up with me as a competitor.’ ”
The brashness paid off. Wojas and Redfearn got the job.
They booked Humphreys together for three years until Wojas began doing so alone in 2010.
John Wojas books great season for Humphrey’s by the Bay
“This is my 20th year at Humphreys,” said Wojas, who is now the San Diego vice president of concert-industry giant AEG/Goldenvoice.
“Had anybody told me in 2005 that I would still be booking Humphreys, I would have said: ‘No way!’ Just because Humphreys was most known as a jazz venue and that music really wasn’t my forte. So, I thought it would last maybe 5 years.
“But there was a huge shift when we started. KIFM was not the powerhouse radio station it had been and we were changing. We brought in more contemporary acts like Sabrina Carpenter, Rainbow Kitten Surprise, Garbage, Liz Phair, PJ Harvey, Chris Cornell and Tori Amos, and mixed them in with the acts that played at Humphreys every year, like Boz Scaggs and Chris Isaak.”
Stevie Wonder, Sheryl Crow, Diana Ross and Robert Plant & Alison Krauss are just some of the other artists Wojas has brought to Humphreys as its exclusive talent buyer.
His fulltime position with AEG/Goldenvoice has enabled him to book such acts as Chromeo, Miguel, Fleet Foxes and alt-J Humphreys just before or after their performances in Indio at the annual Coachella festival, which is produced by AEG/Goldenvoice. Doing so has helped draw a new generation of concertgoers to a bayside venue that has consistently defied expectations.
“I’m absolutely amazed Humphreys is still thriving after 45 years,” Weissberg said. “I attribute that mostly to Richard Bartell overseeing it so well and to his acumen in hiring me and John Wojas, who has done some really good things, to present music there.”
The 34 concerts announced thus far for the 2026 Humphreys lineup are considerably fewer than the 58 shows initially announced for its 2025 season. But the venue expects to add at least 20 or more dates, with the majority being likely for the fall.
“We used to have the majority of our shows in June, July and August and now it will be in September, October and November, which is not the norm,” Wojas said.
“The concert market here is definitely more competitive this year and there are only so many acts on tour that are available. And 50 shows is a sweet spot for us, because after a certain point with certain musical genres, you start to compete with yourself.”
John Wojas books great season for Humphrey’s by the Bay
But competition is nothing new for Humphreys, which has seen rival concert series here come and go, along with the demise of such venues as downtown’s California Theater and 4th & B.
“The market in San Diego has always been extremely competitive,” said Bartell, who is the chairman of the San Diego Tourism Marketing District.
“We’ve weathered the ups and downs of competition for 45 years here and we plan to be around for another 45. But we take it one year at a time, and we don’t think about the next year or the year after that.”
But what about about 2031, which will mark Humphreys Concerts by the Bay’s 50th anniversary?
Bartell laughed.
“To be honest,” he said, “I’ve never thought about it!”
Hawaii-based reggae and pop-soul singer Fia will open the 2026 Humphreys Concerts season with a pair of show on April 4 and 5. The first is already sold out. (Courtesy Humphreys Concerts by the Bay)
Humphreys Concerts by the Bay 2026 schedule
Humphreys is located at 2241 Shelter Island Dr, San Diego. humphreysconcerts.com.
All shows begin at 7:30 p.m. and are reserved seating unless otherwise indicated. Concerts marked GA/SRO are general admission, standing room only. Tickets for concerts marked ** went on sale prior to today’s season announcement.
Saturday, April 4: Fia, (GA/SRO), Sold out**
Sunday, April 5: FiA, (GA/SRO), $41**
Wednesday, April 15: Devo, 8 p.m., $102**
Friday, April 24: Cheap Trick, with James Hatem, Sold out**
Friday, May 8: Pat Metheny, 8 p.m., $82**
Tuesday, May 19: Paul Anka, 8 p.m., $102**
Income tax-paying fans of Devo can celebrate at the band’s April 15 performance at Humphreys. So can tax dodgers. (Jay Spencer)
Thursday, May 21: Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening, $74.50**
Saturday, May 23: Mac DeMarco, with Tex Crick, (GA/SRO),Sold out**
Friday, May 29: Ringo Starr and His All Starr Band, 8 p.m., Sold out**
Saturday, May 30 & May 31: Yacht Rock Revue, $47**
Wednesday, June 10: Jake Shimabukuro, with Henry Kapono and Pure Heart, $66
Tuesday, June 23: Matteo Bocelli, 8 p.m., $65**
Friday, June 26: The Fab Four: “USA Meets The Beatles,” 8 p.m., $52.50
Friday, July 10: Revisiting Creedence, $44
Saturday, July 18: Tower of Power, $76.50
Saturday, Aug. 1: Josh Tatofi, (GA/SRO) $37.50
Singing legend Judy Collins will perform at Humphreys on Aug. 6. (Sam Hough)
Thursday, Aug. 6: Judy Collins, $62.50
Friday, Aug. 7: Little Feat, $76**
Wednesday, Aug. 12: George Thorogood & The Destroyers, with The Robert Cray Band, $91
Veteran blues and soul guitarist and singer Robert Cray has performed multiple times at Humphreys over the years. He returns for an Aug. 12 doubleheader with George Thorogood. (Courtesy Humphreys Concerts by the Bay(
Thursday, Aug. 13: The Australian Pink Floyd Show, $70**
Sunday, Aug. 23: Toad The Wet Sprocket with Steve Poltz, $82
Friday, Aug. 28: Brad Williams, $57.50**
Saturday, Aug. 29: Lost 80’s Live, featuring Men Without Hats, Big Country, The Vapors, The Icicle Works, Dramarama, China Crisis, Musical Youth, B-Movie and Katrina (formerly of Katrina & The Waves), 6 p.m., $112.50
Friday, Sept. 11: TajMo — Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’, $87.50
Saturday, Sept. 12: The Airborne Toxic Event, (GA/SRO) $42.50
Saturday, Sept. 19: A.J. Croce “Croce Plays Croce,” $66
Sunday, Sept. 20: The Temptations and The Four Tops, $84
Sunday, Sept. 27: The Concert — A Tribute to Abba, 8 p.m., $61
Saturday, Oct. 3: Air Supply, $96
Saturday, Oct. 17: 10,000 Maniacs, $50
Grammy Award-winning blues, rock and soul guitarist and singer Gary Clark Jr. and his band will close the 2026 Humphreys season with concerts on Nov. 27 and 28.. (Will Bucquoy / for The Press Democrat)
Saturday, Oct. 24: America, $122.50
Saturday, Nov. 7: Dana Carvey, $91.50
Tuesday, Nov. 27 & Wednesday, Nov. 28: Gary Clark Jr., (GA/SRO) $69.50
All shows not marked ** go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Humphreys Restaurant box office, 2241 Shelter Island Drive or online at ticketmaster.com.
For most of the concerts there will be a first-day sales limit of 12 tickets per show, per person, with a 10-show maximum. The exceptions are noted on the Ticketmaster website.
Premium hotel and dinner packages are available through Ticketmaster and at Humphreys Restaurant box office. The box office will be open from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 14, and Sunday, March 15. After March 15, the box office will be open Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
The restaurant’s box office charges a $3-per-ticket service fee, but all Ticketmaster charges are waived. Ticket prices listed include a $2.50 facility fee. For more, visit humphreysconcerts.com.