Our Tampa Rush Weekend: The Plan, the Concert, and the Unexpected
Two nights in Tampa, one legendary concert, a long-awaited dinner at Bern's, and a reminder that a great getaway doesn't require a packed itinerary.
Some trips begin with a destination. Others begin with something you want to experience so badly that you're willing to build an entire trip around it.
For us, this one began with Rush.
I'd first seen Rush perform in 1980. Forty-six years later, the prospect of seeing Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson onstage again was something I wasn't about to take lightly. When the Fifty Something Tour was announced, I signed up for presale access and started figuring out how Gina and I could be there.
What eventually became a two-night Tampa getaway didn't start out in Tampa at all. It started with a ticket-buying disappointment, a pair of resale tickets for Dallas, and a willingness to change plans when something better came along.
By the time we returned home, we'd enjoyed an extraordinary concert, checked off a restaurant we'd wanted to visit for years, explored a city that surprised us, and spent considerably more than we would on an ordinary weekend away.
Would we do it again?
Absolutely.
The Concert Tickets That Almost Took Us to Dallas
When Rush announced the tour, the first challenge was figuring out where to see them.
We compared possible cities, concert dates, hotels, flights, and transportation. Dallas appeared to offer the best combination of availability and overall travel cost, so that became our target.
I entered the presale queue for the June 26, 2026, Dallas show somewhere around number 15,000.
That wasn't encouraging.
The queue moved faster as my turn approached, but by the time I got through, the tickets available through the presale were gone. I tried again during the general sale without success.
Eventually, I bought two resale tickets for approximately $700. They weren't the seats I'd hoped for, but they were seats to see Rush. I was willing to accept the compromise.
We began looking at flights and hotels, although we hadn't booked either yet.
Then the tour added more dates.
One of them was Tampa.
Suddenly, we had another option. Tampa was close enough to drive, eliminating the need for airfare, airport parking, and a rental car.
I joined the Tampa ticket queue and entered around number 4,000. This time, I came away with two excellent seats in Section 110, nine rows above the floor, with a clear view of Geddy's side of the stage.
The total was $731.52 for two tickets, including fees.
For a brief period, we owned four Rush tickets.
I listed the Dallas pair on StubHub and eventually recovered approximately $600, taking a loss of about $100 after fees.
Was losing $100 frustrating? Sure.
But keeping the Dallas plan would have meant spending roughly another $1,000 on flights and ground transportation, and we would have been sitting farther from the stage.
The lesson wasn't that we had found cheaper concert tickets. We hadn't. It was that we had found a better overall trip.
Sometimes changing plans is the smartest purchase you can make, even when changing them costs a little money.
Finding a Hotel That Made Sense
Once we had Tampa tickets, our next priority was choosing somewhere to stay.
We weren't looking for a luxury hotel. We wanted a clean, comfortable, safe place to sleep, preferably within about a mile or so of the arena.
Concert nights can turn a simple parking lot into a lengthy traffic jam. We wanted the option of walking back to the hotel instead of paying event parking fees and sitting in a line of cars after the show.
We chose the Barrymore Hotel Tampa Riverwalk for two nights.
The total was $466.46, including room charges, taxes, and two nights of parking.
It wasn't the least expensive hotel we could find, and it wasn't the closest to the arena. But it offered the combination of price and location we wanted.
The room was comfortable, quiet, and perfectly adequate for our purposes. We weren't planning to spend the weekend sitting in it.
One unexpected benefit appeared when we checked in: the hotel offered a complimentary local shuttle. We hadn't booked the Barrymore because of the shuttle, but it turned out to be remarkably useful.
It took us to dinner on Sunday and dropped us within a few blocks of the concert venue on Monday. After the concert, we walked back to the hotel while cars were still trying to escape the downtown traffic.
That was exactly the kind of flexibility we'd hoped to have.
Our complete experience is covered in Barrymore Hotel Tampa Riverwalk: Our Review.
One City, Two Experiences We Really Wanted
The concert was the reason we booked Tampa, but we decided to arrive on Sunday for another reason.
Bern's Steak House.
Gina and I had wanted to visit Bern's for years. It was also somewhere we'd hoped to take my father. He had wanted to go badly, but unfortunately, we never got the chance.
So this dinner meant a little more to us than simply checking a famous restaurant off a list.
Dad was there with us in spirit. Or perhaps, given the weekend's musical theme, in the Spirit of Radio.
We drove down from northeast Florida on Sunday, stopping near Wildwood to have lunch with our friend Donald, who generously treated us.
We checked into the Barrymore that afternoon and had a 7:15 p.m. reservation at Bern's Steak House.
The hotel's shuttle got us there without having to worry about parking.
Our dinner was everything we'd hoped for.
We shared an 18-ounce Delmonico steak, enjoyed the included accompaniments, and finished the evening upstairs in the Harry Waugh Dessert Room.
I've eaten at some excellent steakhouses over the years, including Ruth's Chris, Morton's, and Cowford Chophouse.
That Delmonico at Bern's was the best steak I've ever had.
Our entire dinner, including drinks and dessert, came to approximately $253 for two.
That certainly isn't an everyday dinner budget. But it was a meal we'd been looking forward to for years, and it delivered.
The full story deserves its own article: Bern's Steak House: Was It Worth It?
Ask One More Local: The Best Part of Having No Plan
We had two major experiences planned: Bern's on Sunday and Rush on Monday night.
Monday daytime?
Nothing.
We intentionally left it open.
That turned out to be one of the best decisions of the weekend.
While riding the Barrymore shuttle to and from Bern's, we chatted with our driver, a Tampa resident who knew the city well.
He pointed out neighborhoods, talked about places he enjoyed, and offered several suggestions.
We asked questions. He kept talking. We kept listening.
That's something we've learned to appreciate when traveling: Ask One More Local.
A quick conversation with someone who actually lives in a place can reveal experiences that never would have appeared on your carefully researched itinerary.
Our driver suggested The Bagel Nook for breakfast, Armature Works, Hyde Park, and a drive along Bayshore Boulevard.
We ended up doing all of them.
The weather was beautiful, so we spent Monday exploring rather than rushing from one scheduled attraction to another.
We enjoyed breakfast at The Bagel Nook, wandered through different parts of Tampa, stopped at Clean Juice, and visited Joe and Son's Olive Oils.
Later, we headed to Armature Works and found ourselves at M.Bird, its rooftop restaurant and bar.
There we shared several small plates, enjoyed a drink, and took in the atmosphere before heading to the concert.
The food was excellent. The setting was fun. And because we weren't watching the clock all afternoon, we could simply enjoy being there.
Gina and I generally aren't big-city vacation people. We tend to gravitate toward smaller towns, scenic drives, and places where life moves a little more slowly.
Tampa surprised us.
We found it clean, welcoming, interesting, and easy to enjoy at our own pace.
The full account of our unscheduled Monday is in Exploring Tampa: A Day Without a Rigid Itinerary.
Forty-Six Years Later, Rush Took the Stage
Then came Monday evening.
The reason for the entire trip.
We had enjoyed Tampa, loved Bern's, and discovered some wonderful places. But the concert was still the centerpiece.
I first saw Rush in 1980. Now, forty-six years later, I was sitting with Gina in Benchmark International Arena, waiting to see Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson perform again.
I had high expectations.
I also knew that revisiting a favorite band decades later can be risky. Sometimes the memory of an old concert is better than the new experience.
That wasn't a problem this time.
The band delivered two substantial sets, separated by an intermission, followed by an encore.
Geddy's voice was strong, his bass playing was extraordinary, and Alex sounded fantastic.
Anika Nilles brought incredible energy and musicianship to the drums while honoring the legacy of Neil Peart.
Two video tributes to Neil, during "Bravado" and "Time Stand Still," were especially moving.
And Gina, who hadn't arrived with my forty-six years of Rush history, left with a new appreciation for the band. She particularly loved "The Garden."
When the show ended, I could barely put the experience into words.
"WOW. What a show. I can't believe what I just experienced."
We were astonished.
Geddy and Alex are in their early seventies, performing an incredibly demanding show on a busy tour schedule.
You would have thought it was opening night.
The concert exceeded my wildest imagination.
We walked back to the Barrymore, passing vehicles caught in the post-concert traffic, still talking about what we'd just experienced.
For the setlist, the performances, the emotional moments, and our complete assessment, see Rush Fifty Something Tour: Our Concert Experience.
What Did Our Tampa Weekend Actually Cost?
This wasn't an inexpensive getaway.
We knew that going in.
The concert tickets were a major expense, and Bern's was a deliberate splurge. We also bought a couple of concert shirts and a hat because, well, sometimes you want the souvenirs.
When we added up the hotel, dining, concert tickets, merchandise, dog boarding, transportation, and other expenses, our two-night Tampa getaway came to approximately $1,930 for two people.
That's about $965 per person when the total is divided in half.
The approximately $100 loss on our original Dallas concert tickets was a separate cost of changing our plans and isn't included in the Tampa weekend total.
Could we have spent less?
Absolutely.
We could have skipped Bern's, passed on the merchandise, chosen a less convenient hotel, or eaten less expensive meals.
But those choices would have changed the trip we actually wanted.
The goal wasn't to spend the least possible amount of money. It was to spend intentionally on experiences that mattered to us.
And by moving the concert trip from Dallas to Tampa, we avoided roughly $1,000 in additional airfare and ground transportation expenses while getting better concert seats.
That's the difference between looking at the price of one item and looking at the value of the entire experience.
The Drive Home Was Part of the Plan, Too
On Tuesday morning, we checked out early and headed home.
Our Tesla Model X had plenty of charge to get us started, and we stopped at an Ocala Supercharger for a brief charging session that coincided with our coffee, snacks, and restroom break.
The charging stop cost $12.06 and took about thirteen minutes.
In fact, the car was ready before we were.
That's how we prefer to handle road-trip charging: combine it with something we already need to do instead of treating it as a separate chore.
We picked up our two dogs, Cooper from boarding, and Amber from my mother in laws house, and were home before noon.
Just like that, the concert weekend was over.
The mail was waiting. So were the bills. We had returned to our normal adulting routines.
But we had plenty to talk about.
We Didn't Set Out to Win Tampa
There's a temptation when traveling to squeeze every possible attraction, restaurant, and activity into the time available.
After all, you've paid for the hotel. You've made the drive. Shouldn't you make the most of every minute?
Not necessarily.
We had a few things we really wanted to do.
We wanted to see Rush.
We wanted to finally experience Bern's.
We wanted a comfortable place to stay, a manageable drive, and enough free time to enjoy ourselves without rushing.
Everything else was a bonus.
A conversation with a shuttle driver introduced us to places we might never have visited. A beautiful Monday gave us time to explore. A rooftop restaurant became an unexpected highlight.
And the concert?
That alone would have made the trip worthwhile.
We didn't see everything Tampa has to offer. We didn't try to.
We didn't set out to WIN Tampa. We came to enjoy a few things that mattered to us. We did exactly that, and came home content travelers.
Sometimes that's the best measure of a successful getaway.
Explore More From Our Tampa Rush Concert Weekend
Bern's Steak House: Was It Worth It?
Exploring Tampa: A Day Without a Rigid Itinerary
Barrymore Hotel Tampa Riverwalk: Our Review
Uber vs. Lyft vs. Waymo in Tampa: A Real-World Price Comparison