Venue Preview: The Kohl Center, Madison, WI w/Mike from Madison

Hi everybody and welcome to Attendance Bias. I am your host Brian Weinstein. I’m thrilled to welcome you to today’s episode–the first of our 2026 venue preview series, as we preview each venue on Phish’s 2026 summer tour. In today’s episode, Mike from Madison reintroduces us to a venue that Phish has visited before, but not since 1998: The Kohl Center in Madison, Wisconsin where Phish will start their 2026 summer tour with two shows on July 7th and 8th. 

Mike has lived in Madison for 20 years, and knows the ins and outs of the small Wisconsin city, offering tips on how to get around, places to eat, drink, and hang out for anybody who is going to the shows from out of town. Whether its the best tavern for a brat or thin crust pizza, or losing your mind touring a Frank Lloyd Wright designed fun house, this episode is to help you discover the joys of Mad City.

More than that, we review Phish’s history in Madison. Although the band hasn’t played the Kohl Center, or in Madison in nearly 30 years, the city of lakes was a crucial building block during the band’s van years of the very early 1990s. Madison was a regular stop, usually in the fall, and you could trace Phish’s rise by looking at the different sized venues they played in Madison throughout the 90s.

But there’s so much more to it. Join Mike and I as we kick off the Attendance Bias Venue Previews with the Kohl Center in Madison, Wisconsin on July 7 and 8, 2026.