Sebastian Maniscalco Rocks New York's UBS Arena March 15, 2025

Sebastian Maniscalco performing at UBS Arena in Elmont, New York

Feature Photo: Brian Kachejian

Walking into UBS Arena on March 15, 2025, for the first time, I felt excited not just for the show, but to experience this stunning new venue that has quickly become a Long Island landmark. Opened in 2021, UBS Arena sits directly adjacent to historic Belmont Park in Elmont, New York, an iconic thoroughbred racing venue I have cherished and frequented hundreds of times since the 1970s. At the time of this show, the old Belmont Park grandstand and clubhouse had been torn down as part of the massive redevelopment. It saddened me to see the old place gone, and I looked forward to the day I could get back there and start playing my daily doubles again. The new Belmont Park reopened for live racing on September 18, 2026.

UBS Arena is the New York Islanders’ permanent home after the franchise spent years moving between Nassau Coliseum and Barclays Center. The arena was designed to accommodate 17,250 fans for hockey and up to 19,000 for concerts. For a performer who can command an arena-sized crowd, it turned out to be the perfect setting.

Sebastian Maniscalco at UBS Arena

Sebastian Maniscalco hit that stage like a rock star, brash, bold, and unapologetically funny. At times, his comedic presence reminded me of the swaggering confidence and raw energy Andrew Dice Clay brought to comedy clubs decades ago. While Clay built his act around shock humor and fearless bravado, Maniscalco delivered a similarly intense live experience through observational comedy, physical movement, and his ability to turn ordinary frustrations into huge arena-sized laughs.

The show started about 45 minutes late, with traffic problems and accidents around the arena blamed for the delay. As a New Yorker who understands the nightmare traffic we live with daily, I got to the show three hours early to avoid all that nonsense. I like to relax before a show and enjoy the fine beverages and food at these arenas, even though I’m paying 10 times the price for them. It’s all about the experience for me. Plus, I’m a longtime Jets season ticket holder who is used to getting to games five hours before they begin.

Opening the show were comedians Pat McGann and Pete Correale. McGann did a short set focused on the life of being a parent, including driving kids to soccer games and everything that comes along with it. His material was very relatable for much of the audience, and I was impressed by how clean his set was. Pete Correale followed McGann with a darker set, and the man was hysterical. He was the perfect opener for Sebastian.

When it was time for Maniscalco to hit the stage, he entered the arena from a lower-bowl corner and headed toward the center stage in the middle of the floor like Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson making an entrance as the crowd went crazy. It still blows my mind that comedians can sell out huge arenas like this, but they seem to be able to do it with ease. I guess we’re all just thirsting to be entertained. I have to tell you, my friends, this show was highly entertaining.

Maniscalco seemed to move easily between staged routines and improvisation. The man was fearless and pulled no punches. He riffed with a group in the front row from Afghanistan, joked with two masked audience members, and naturally went after married couples and all the typical front-row material that comes with crowd work. When he started talking about Elon Musk, there was a smattering of boos and cheers. Maniscalco looked at the crowd, responded with a blunt “F.U.,” and got a huge reaction. The crowd loved the fact that he simply kept moving and refused to let the room dictate where the routine was going.

I wasn’t timing exactly how long Maniscalco was onstage, but it felt like a little over an hour. He closed the set by taking a picture of himself with the crowd behind him. And that was it. No encore, nothing. As soon as he said goodbye, people jumped out of their chairs and started racing for the parking lot, which seemed like an exercise in futility because getting out of that arena after a packed event can be a madhouse.

What stayed with me most was how much the entire evening felt like a rock show. I have covered countless concerts over the years, and Maniscalco had the same type of command that great frontmen have when they walk onto an arena stage. He owned the room, worked the crowd, and never seemed intimidated by the size of the building. I could not stop laughing.

From the Comedy Store to Arenas

Sebastian Maniscalco is no overnight sensation. Born in the Chicago suburbs and raised in Arlington Heights, Illinois, he graduated from Northern Illinois University in 1995 with a degree in communication studies. He moved to Los Angeles in 1998, worked as a waiter at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, and performed open-mic nights while developing his act. He eventually became a regular performer at The Comedy Store, building the stage presence and observational style that would carry him from clubs into theaters and arenas.

His stand-up career expanded through specials including Sebastian Live, What’s Wrong with People?, Aren’t You Embarrassed?, Why Would You Do That?, Netflix’s Stay Hungry, and Is It Me?. His comedy is rooted in family life, social behavior, changing manners, parenting, marriage, and the everyday things people do that drive one another crazy. The material is relatable, but what separates him is the physical way he sells it. His face, posture, pauses, and movement are every bit as important as the words.

Maniscalco also built a substantial acting career. He appeared in the Academy Award-winning film Green Book and played “Crazy” Joe Gallo in Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman. He voiced Spike in The Super Mario Bros. Movie and starred with Robert De Niro in About My Father, which Maniscalco co-wrote and based partly on his own family experiences. He also starred in two seasons of the Max comedy series Bookie.

Beyond stand-up and film, Maniscalco has co-hosted The Pete and Sebastian Show with Pete Correale, hosted the MTV Video Music Awards in 2019, and starred in the food-and-culture series Well Done With Sebastian Maniscalco. By the time I saw him at UBS Arena, he had long since moved beyond the category of successful club comedian. He had become an arena entertainer.

That is what this show proved to me. Sebastian Maniscalco is not merely a comedian standing on a stage with a microphone. He knows how to command an enormous room and turn the little irritations of everyday life into material that thousands of people can recognize immediately. Watching him at UBS Arena felt like watching a seasoned rock-and-roll frontman work a crowd, only instead of guitars and drums, the payoff was laughter.