Starland Ballroom

The Starland Ballroom is a concert venue located in Sayreville, New Jersey, USA. Opening night was December 6, 2003 and featured a performance by former Van Halen lead singer David Lee Roth, The venue was formerly known as the Hunka Bunka Ballroom, which operated as a dance music club in the 1980s and 1990s, though throughout the 90's it often hosted concerts, specifically punk and ska lineups.

In its first year of operation, over 150,000 tickets were sold to Starland events, enough to make the venue as one of the 10 largest concert nightclubs in the world, according to Pollstar magazine. Over 75 different acts have sold out the Starland Ballroom, including Streetlight Manifesto, Danzig, Avenged Sevenfold, Reel Big Fish, Say Anything, My Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday, Disturbed, Staind, Yellowcard, Thursday, Brand New, The Bouncing Souls, Hanson, Velvet Revolver, Marilyn Manson, Methodical, Godsmack, Slayer, The Deftones, Zakk Wylde's Black Label Society, Flogging Molly, Alkaline Trio, Bad Religion, Social Distortion, New Found Glory, The Used, Matisyahu, Badfish, Mindless Self Indulgence and others.

In its second year of operation, Starland sold over 205,000 tickets, qualifying it as the fourth-best ticket-selling concert nightclub in the world, according to Pollstar magazine.

On August 20, 2004, Coheed and Cambria filmed a concert at Starland Ballroom and released it as a DVD entitled Coheed And Cambria: Live At Starland Ballroom. Heavy metal band Anthrax, and Godforbid, has also filmed a DVD at Starland, while bands like My Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday and The Starting Line have filmed performances at the venue for broadcast on MTV, Fuse and elsewhere.

In January 2005, the Starland Ballroom hosted a pair of concerts to raise money for victims of the December 26 tsunamis. My Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday, Senses Fail and dozens more performed over two nights, raising over $150,000 for UNICEF and the International Red Cross. In September 2005, Dashboard Confessional and Coheed and Cambria co-headlined an event at Starland to raise $80,000 for Direct Relief International's efforts to assist victims of the Hurricane Katrina disaster.

The Starland Ballroom is also the home office of Concerts East, one of the nation's largest independent concert promoters. Concerts East has booked venues in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Washington DC and New York, including The Stone Pony, The Webster Theatre in Hartford, CT., Town Hall in New York City, Nassau Coliseum and more.

The building is believed to be the place where hometown stars Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora (lead singer and guitarist of Bon Jovi) met in the early 1980s.

On April 13th, 2007, the building was purchased by AEG Live, one of the largest producers of live concert and sporting events in the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starland_Ballroom