First-Timer's Guide to Citizens Bank Park

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The quick read

Citizens Bank Park sits at the South Philadelphia Sports Complex, about four miles south of Center City, surrounded by acres of parking lots. The Phillies are one of the best-drawing teams in baseball, with 47 sellouts in 2024, so treat this as a plan-ahead ticket. Expect a full house and a Philadelphia crowd that gets loud.

The gate rules here are strict, and they are what trips up first-timers: clear bags only, a card or a phone for everything, your ticket lives in an app, and once you leave you cannot come back in. The one wrinkle that rewards planning is early entry at two of the gates, which puts you in Ashburn Alley while the rest of the park is still closed.

Verify before you go: bag rules, gate times, and entry tech change season to season. Confirm specifics against the official Citizens Bank Park A-Z guide on mlb.com/phillies within 30 days of your visit.

The bag policy

The list of what gets in is short.

• A clear bag, up to 12 by 6 by 12 inches.
• Or a small non-clear clutch or fanny pack, up to 5 by 7 inches.
• Diaper bags and medical bags are allowed.

Everything else stays home or in the car. Backpacks do not get in. Drawstring bags do not get in. A regular purse bigger than that 5-by-7 clutch is out too, no matter what it looks like, and so are binocular and camera cases.

If you show up with the wrong bag anyway, three gates have $10 lockers: the First Base Gate, the West Suite & Club Entrance, and the Left Field Gate. The lockers are cashless, like the parking lots.

One break in your favor: unopened plastic bottles are allowed as long as they are non-alcoholic, and there are 20 water stations inside, 40 fountains in all. Bags and bottles both get inspected on the way in. On a humid July afternoon in South Philly, use both.

Paying, mobile tickets, and no re-entry

Plan on paying with a card or your phone. Parking is cashless and the gate lockers are cashless. Inside, Mastercard, Visa, American Express and Discover work at the ticket windows, the concession stands, the restaurants and the merch shops.

Your ticket lives in the MLB Ballpark app. Download it, log in with the email you bought the tickets under, and pull the barcode up before you leave the hotel. The team’s own instruction is to have your barcode ready before you get to the ballpark, and a screenshot of it is not a safe substitute. A gate line is a bad place to reset a password. Charge your phone, too, since the same app holds your entry, your parking pass and the designated-driver signup.

There is no re-entry. Walk out and your ticket is done for the day. That matters more here than at most parks, because the tailgate lots and the Stateside Live! bar complex sit right outside the gates. Do them before you scan in, not in the fifth inning.

The park is smoke-free, and that includes vaping and e-cigarettes. There are no smoking sections inside and no stepping out for one, because of the re-entry rule.

Which gate, and the early-entry window

Use the gate nearest wherever you came in from. Citizens Bank Park has three main public gates, First Base, Third Base, and Left Field, plus the Darien Street entrance on the east side and Citizens Bank Way on the west. No gate is worth a hike around the building on an ordinary arrival.

The exception is the early-entry window, and it is the best first-timer perk this park offers. On Monday through Friday games, the Third Base and Left Field gates open two full hours before first pitch. On Saturdays and Sundays those two gates open two and a half hours out. The early window gets you into Ashburn Alley, the Pass and Stow bar, the team store, Coca-Cola Corner, the GHOST Energy Deck, The Yard kids’ area, and sections 140 through 148 and 101 through 103. The rest of the park stays closed until 90 minutes before first pitch, weekend included.

On a 7:10 start the early gates open at 5:10, which catches the tail of the Phillies’ batting practice and the whole visiting round from 5:20 to 6:20. Batting practice is never guaranteed here, so treat it as the bonus. What you are actually buying is the food stands before the lines form and an unhurried look around. If you plan one thing about your arrival, plan this window.

All three named gates also run Go-Ahead Entry lanes, MLB’s facial-recognition entry. Register once in the Ballpark app, open to fans 17 and older, and you walk a dedicated lane without pulling your ticket up. Worth doing if you hate gate lines; skip it and the regular lanes work fine.

The statue meeting spots

Pick a statue, not a parking lot. Robin Roberts stands at the First Base Gate, Mike Schmidt at the Third Base Gate and Steve Carlton at the Left Field Gate, all three of them ten feet of bronze and impossible to miss from across the plaza. Richie Ashburn is the fourth, and he is inside, in the middle of the walkway named after him.

If your group is arriving separately, the Left Field Gate and the Third Base Gate are the two to pick, because they are also the early-entry gates, so the meet-up puts you in the right line anyway. There is no re-entry here, so sort the group out before anybody scans in.

The retired numbers are a separate set and they are sized for photos. The Left Field Plaza holds Ashburn’s 1, Schmidt’s 20, Roberts’ 36 and Jackie Robinson’s 42, plus the oversized World Series trophies, the championship banners and the Toyota Phillies Wall of Fame. Bunning’s 14 and Carlton’s 32 are at the Left Field Gate. Allen’s 15 and Halladay’s 34 are at the Third Base Plaza. The 19-foot Liberty Bell from Veterans Stadium is on the Third Base Gate approach. A bronze of broadcaster Harry Kalas, about seven feet of him, is inside on the main concourse behind Section 141.

The alcohol cutoff

Alcohol sales stop in the 7th inning here. When the pitch clock shortened games and a run of clubs pushed sales into the 8th, the Phillies declined and kept theirs where it was.

Do not confuse it with the seventh-inning stretch. The stretch is the mid-7th singalong. Last call is the sales cutoff. If your plan is a beer run after the stretch, you are cutting it close, so get the last round earlier than you think you need to.

If someone in your group is the designated driver, pledge in the MLB Ballpark app or scan the QR code at the kiosks at the First Base, Third Base and Left Field gates. You have until the end of the 1st inning, and it comes with a free soft drink.

Bringing kids

The Yard is the main kids’ zone: a wiffle-ball field, a climbing wall, and a Phanatic hot-dog-launcher game. It sits inside the early-entry footprint, so getting there for the early gates doubles as the kid plan. Let them burn the energy before first pitch instead of during it.

King Swings Playground, new for 2026, is at the First Base Gate. It is not on the early-entry access list, so if the playground is the main event, plan on the First Base Gate at the 90-minute opening rather than the early window at Third Base or Left Field.

The Cavity Busters Mother’s Lounge is behind Section 125. The Sensory Activation Vehicle, a KultureCity partnership, is at the First Base Plaza, and it takes one family or group at a time. Guest Services on the Main Concourse and the Terrace Level also lends sensory bags with headphones, fidget toys and cue cards.

The Phanatic

The Phillie Phanatic has worked Phillies games since April 25, 1978, and the team’s official backstory says he came from the Galapagos Islands. He is the reason half the kids in the building are watching the dugout instead of the game.

The team’s guide says he traditionally works the field at the end of the 5th inning and the Phillies dugout in the bottom of the 7th. Those are the two windows to watch for. In between he turns up anywhere, on an ATV or behind a hot-dog cannon.

One last number to save: if a problem comes up in your section, text PHILLIES plus the issue and your location to 69050 and guest services handles it without you leaving your seat.

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