First-Timer's Guide to Wrigley Field

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Take the Red Line to Addison. Backpacks are not allowed, including clear ones. Pay $5 for a 1-Day Pass on the Ventra app. Check your assigned entry gate on your mobile ticket before walking up. Read the scoreboard flags before first pitch to know if it’s a slugfest or a pitchers’ duel. If an opposing player hits a home run into the bleachers, throw it back. Stay for “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” in the middle of the 7th and “Go Cubs Go” after a win. Get a photo at the marquee at Clark and Addison and a Statue Row photo at Gallagher Way. Alcohol sales stop after the 8th inning at day games. At night games, they stop after the 7th inning or at 10:30 pm, whichever comes first. After the game, walk to one of the two rideshare pickup zones or just take the Red Line.

Bags, gates, and the Ventra app

Bag policy. Backpacks of any kind, including clear backpacks, are prohibited. Other bags smaller than 16 by 16 by 8 inches are fine. Wrigley does not offer bag storage. If you arrive with a backpack, you carry it back. Plan ahead.

Flying in? CTA trains run from both O’Hare and Midway, and the Cubs do not store luggage, so plan where to leave a suitcase before the game.

Mobile ticket gate assignment. Each Cubs mobile ticket lists an assigned entry gate. Check it in the MLB Ballpark app before you start walking, and remember that only bleacher tickets get in through the Budweiser Bleacher Gate.

Ventra app. Download Ventra before you fly in. Buy the $5.00 1-Day Pass, activate it when you ride. Apple Pay, Google Pay, and contactless credit cards also work at the turnstile if you’d rather not deal with the app.

Layers for night games. Lake Michigan is less than a mile east. Lake winds can drop game-time temperatures into the 50s even in May or September. Bring layers for any night game from April through May or from mid-September on.

Getting to and from Wrigley

Take the Red Line to Addison. From the Loop, ride north about 20 to 25 minutes to the Addison stop. The station is at 940 W. Addison, one block east of the park, a short walk along Addison with the gameday crowd. From O’Hare, take the Blue Line to Jackson and transfer to the Red Line north. From Midway, Orange Line to Roosevelt, then a free transfer to the Red Line north.

If you have to drive, reserve on SpotHero. The Cubs link to SpotHero from their own parking page. Reserve a spot before you leave the hotel, lock in the price, and drive in with a barcode.

For a night or weekend game, use the free remote lot. The Cubs run free parking at 4650 N. Clarendon Avenue for night and weekend games, with a free shuttle that drops you on Irving Park Road between Clark Street and Seminary Avenue. It starts two hours before first pitch, and return shuttles run for about 90 minutes after the game.

Post-game rideshare is rough. Everyone who came by rideshare wants a car at the same time. There are two ways around it:

1. Walk to one of the two rideshare pickup zones before you request a car.
2. Wait out the rush at a Wrigleyville bar, then request.

The rideshare pickup zones are Addison Street between Broadway and Halsted, and Irving Park Road between Clark and Seminary. Anywhere else immediately around the park is a no-stopping zone, and hailing on Clark or Addison at the final out is the one thing to avoid.

Shade, bleachers, or a rooftop

Day game in peak summer (June, July, August)? Shade is the thing worth buying for. The bleachers (left, right, and center 500 level) are uncovered and face roughly south to west, so they take full afternoon sun. Section options:

• Best shaded for day games: the Terrace (the 200s, tucked under the upper deck) and most of the Upper Reserved seats in the 400s.
• Sunny all day: the bleachers, the Club Box (sections 3 to 32, the rows closest to the field), and the right field corner of the Field Box (129 to 134).

Night game in summer? The lower bowl is already in shade at a 7:05 first pitch. The bleachers and the right field end of the upper deck (about sections 322 to 331 and 425 to 431) face the setting sun and get glare for the first hour or so. If glare bothers you, sit somewhere else for evening games.

Want the bleacher experience? For regular-season games, the bleachers are general admission, first come, first served, and you enter through the Budweiser Bleacher Gate at Sheffield and Waveland. Show up early to claim a specific spot. Bench seating without backrests.

Want a rooftop? Rooftop tickets are entirely separate from Cubs tickets. A rooftop ticket gets you onto the rooftop building across Sheffield or Waveland; it does not get you into Wrigley Field. Sheffield rooftops face right field; Waveland rooftops face left field. Rooftops sell tickets in advance only, not on the day of the game.

Read the wind before first pitch

Wrigley sits less than a mile west of Lake Michigan, and the wind shapes the game as much as anything in the park .

• Flags pointing toward home (from center to home) = wind blowing in. Pitchers’ duel. Fly balls die on the warning track.
• Flags pointing toward the bleachers (from home toward the outfield) = wind blowing out. Slugfest. Routine fly balls turn into home runs.
• Flags flapping crosswise or twisting = crosswind, watch foul territory.

The scoreboard flagpoles fly the National League standings flags. The way those flags stretch tells you what the wind is doing high above the field.

The effect is measurable: from 2021 through 2025, games at Wrigley averaged about 10.95 runs with the wind blowing out and about 7.72 with it blowing in, a swing of roughly three runs.

The basket and the ivy: ground rules to know

• Ball that clears the wall and lands in the basket: home run.
• Ball that gets stuck in the ivy: two bases, a ground-rule double. Outfielders usually throw up their hands to signal it.
• Ball that goes into the ivy and comes back out onto the field: in play.
• Ball that gets stuck in the screen on top of the wall: two bases.
• Ball off the wall or the basket and back onto the field: in play.

The ivy goes bare brown brick in early April, leafs out in late May, runs green through midsummer, and turns red and yellow in late September.

Throw it back

If an opposing player hits a home run into the bleachers and you catch it, the bleacher culture expects you to throw it back. The fans will boo until the ball goes back. Keep Cubs home run balls. Throw opposing home run balls.

Do not pack a baseball for this. You are not going to catch an opposing player’s home run. Just know why everyone is yelling if a ball lands near you.

The seventh-inning stretch

In the middle of the 7th inning, fans stand, stretch, and a guest conductor leads “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” from Harry Caray’s old broadcast booth. The tradition started with Caray on the South Side at Comiskey in 1976 (Bill Veeck piped Caray’s booth to the PA), Caray brought it to Wrigley when he moved to the Cubs in 1982, and the Cubs have used rotating guest conductors since Caray’s death in 1998.

Stay for the singalong. It is one of the defining rituals of a Wrigley home game , and you should sing along even if you do not know all the words, since almost nobody knows them all.

The alcohol cutoff depends on the start time. At day games, sales stop after the last out of the 8th inning. At night games, they stop after the last out of the 7th inning or at 10:30 pm, whichever comes first.

The marquee at Clark and Addison

The red marquee at the corner of Clark and Addison is one of the most photographed spots in baseball. Stand on the south side of Addison looking north for the cleanest shot framing the marquee against the brick. Time the photo before you walk in; coming out at the final out, the corner is a sea of foot traffic.

Statue Row walk

If you have an hour pre-game, walk Gallagher Way for Statue Row: Ernie Banks (“Let’s Play Two”), Billy Williams, Ron Santo, Fergie Jenkins, Ryne Sandberg. The Harry Caray statue is separate, at the corner of Sheffield and Waveland by the bleacher entrance.

The Cubs Hall of Fame is in the left field bleacher concourse. The Cubs Store is at 3637 N. Clark Street and is open year-round.

Pre-game food and drink strategy

Eat outside the park if you want a sit-down meal. Inside-the-park dining lines move slowly on gamedays. Pre-game options across Clark Street, in and around Hotel Zachary: Smoke Daddy Wrigleyville (BBQ), Big Star Wrigleyville (tacos, counter-service or sit-down), and Mordecai (cocktails and American sit-down).

Eat at Wrigley if you want the ballpark experience. Hot Doug’s on Platform 14 in the upper bleachers for rotating sausages named after former Cubs players. Chicago dog stands on the main, upper, and bleacher concourses (Vienna Beef, no ketchup). North Side Twist pretzel as a shareable.

What to drink. Goose Island is easy to find. Budweiser has been the Cubs’ official beer since 2014. Old Style stayed after the partnership ended, and it is still poured at stands on every level of the park. Alcohol sales stop after the 8th inning at day games. At night games, they stop after the 7th inning or at 10:30 pm, whichever comes first.

Pre-game drink at Gallagher Way if you have the time. Lucky Dorr Patio & Tap and the other spots around the plaza serve before first pitch. Family-friendly footprint.

Souvenirs and tracking your visit

• Bleacher Bound game log (free). Sign in with your email, pick Wrigley Field and the date, and the final score and box score for that game fill in on their own. You can log past games too, at any current or former MLB ballpark, so you can backfill every game you have been to. If you log a game from the stands, its score fills in after the season ends. Start your game log.
• MLB Ballpark Pass-Port (paid book). Physical book with a page for every MLB ballpark, sold at mlbballparkpassport.com.
• Wrigley Field tours (mlb.com/cubs/ballpark/tours). About 75 to 90 minutes, on game days and non-game days. Only the non-game-day tour stops at the outfield ivy, the dugout, and the visiting clubhouse, and public tours start and end at the Gallagher Way Gate.

“Go Cubs Go” after a win

When the Cubs win at home, the W flag goes up over the scoreboard and “Go Cubs Go” plays over the PA. The full crowd singing it is one of the best post-game moments in baseball. Stick around for it if the Cubs win. It costs you nothing and the recording will not capture the feel of being in the park.

What to skip

• Bleachers without sunscreen and water on a hot day game. The bleachers get sun all afternoon, with no overhang, facing roughly south to west. Bring sunscreen (not a spray can, since aerosols are banned), bring water (factory-sealed plastic bottles are allowed in), and reapply during the game.
• The bleachers and the right field end of the upper deck (about sections 322 to 331 and 425 to 431) for 7:05 summer night games, unless you want sunset glare for the first hour or so.
• Rideshare on Clark or Addison at the final out. Walk to a pickup zone, wait it out at a bar, or take the Red Line.
• Friday night games as a trip plan. Most regular-season Friday games at Wrigley are day games, usually starting at 1:20 p.m., and Friday night games are rare. If you booked a Friday flight expecting a 7 p.m. first pitch, recheck the schedule.
• Backpacks. The Cubs do not store bags, so a backpack at the gate means a walk back to wherever you can leave it.
• Wandering Clark Street with kids on a weekend evening. By 5 p.m. on a weekend gameday, the strip between Addison and Waveland is a 21+ environment in practice. Build the family pre-game around Gallagher Way and Statue Row instead.

How to find the right ticket

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Some links on this page are affiliate links. If you book through them we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It never changes what we recommend.