St. Petersburg entertainments for travel groups

Travel groups coming to St. Petersburg will normally want to spend their evenings exploring the city's rich cultural and entertainment scene. Getting the best out of St. Petersburg for your tour group is not always straightforward, however. At SAINT-PETERSBURG.COM, our local travel experts have extensive experience arranging entertainments programs for visiting tour groups, so let us help you put together and original and enjoyable schedule for you and your group.

Below you will find brief descriptions of some of the entertainment options available for groups in the city, although we can help to arrange just about anything your group is interested in provided its available in St. Petersburg. To find out more about how we can assist in arranging entertainment and much more for travel groups coming to St. Petersburg, please complete the Group Travel Request form.

Ballet and classical music

An evening at the ballet is an essential part of any classic tourist itinerary to St. Petersburg. While many tour groups are fobbed off with sub-standard performances by companies put together purely to cater to the tourist trade, we can help to make sure that your group gets an experience worthy of more discerning viewers, either at the Mariinsky Theatre, unquestionably one of the world's greatest opera and ballet theatres, or at the Mikhailovsky Theatre, which in the past decade has transformed itself into another world-class ballet company and is certainly worth considering if you're planning more than one evening at the theatre for your group, or if availability at the Mariinsky is a problem for your dates.

Opera at either venue is also well worth considering at either venue, and we can help you to choose high-quality productions that are either more classically staged or more innovatively avant-garde, depending on your group's tastes. Classical music concerts in the St. Petersburg Philharmonia or the beautiful Academic Cappella are also an option worth investigating for some groups, and there are many other classical musical events and festivals worth considering, especially in summer.

Folk shows and cabaret

There are several establishments in St. Petersburg offering dinner and entertainment both specifically for tourists, and for the general public. Standards can vary considerably – as can accessibility for non-Russian speakers – but among the most popular are the shows of traditional music and folk dancing in the Nikolaevskiy Palace and the Erarta Museum of Contemporary Art, evenings at St. Petersburg's atmospheric Jazz Philharmonia, and more international-style cabaret performances at the N.E.P. Restaurant and the recently reopened Olympia Palace.

River cruises

A boat trip along the rivers and canals of St. Petersburg should definitely be part of any tourist itinerary to the city, and can also be combined with dinner and evening entertainment. Several boat operators offer evening cruises with food and live music, or if you prefer you can opt simply for evening sightseeing excursions or the popular post-midnight cruise to see St. Petersburg's famous opening bridges. These options are particularly popular during the White Nights.