The Lehigh Valley's LARGEST Rock & Roll Multiplex Club!

Allentown’s Crocodile Rock Café was in the Top 75 club venues worldwide for ticket sales in 2010, and Penn's Peak near Jim Thorpe in the Top 100 for theaters, according to the industry publication Pollstar magazine.

Stroudsburg’s Sherman Theater hit the Top 100 list for clubs for the first time ever after just missing last year.

But Croc Rock owner Joe Clark says the venue would have ranked even higher, but a shift in personnel during the year caused the club to miss a reporting period.

3OH!3 at Croc Rock in October

And Penns Peak officials noted that if it had been listed in the club category, its 58.941 tickets sold would have put it at No. 56 for the year.

Crocodile Rock sold 47,685 tickets from Jan. 1 through Dec. 31, ranking it No. 72 among clubs -- ahead of such storied club venues such as Philadelphia’s Theater of Living Arts (40,171 tickets) at No. 88 and New York City’s Roseland Ballroom (37,961 tickets) at No. 90, Pollstar said.

But Clark said he shifted personnel during the year, and the changeover came at a time when a report to Pollstar would have been made. He said he’s not sure precisely how much of a time period was missed, or how many tickets sold went unaccounted for.

Croc Rock, which in 2010 had such headliners as 3OH!3, The Maine and Bret Michaels, has perennially been on the list since opening as a rock club in 1999, and actually hit No. 22 for the first quarter of 2007 by selling 28,773 tickets in three months.

Pollstar reports numbers quarterly, and if Croc Rock missed a quarter, its numbers likely would have put it in or near the Top 50.

“Seventy-two isn’t shabby,” Clark said. “Either way, I’m in the Top 100 in the world.”

Clark noted his club’s capacity of 1,400 is half the 3,000 who can fit in Terminal 5 in New York, which topped the list with 303,980 tickets sold, or Philadelphia’s Electric Factory, which sold 52,708 tickets for No. 66, Pollstar said. He also noted he’s not in a major city as those two are.

Clark said he’s constantly recruiting acts, and “any band coming up the East Coast is likely to play at our club.” He said he feels 2010 at Crocodile Rock was “absolutely my best year” – if not in ticket numbers, at least in streamlining operations with a better website, ticketing network and expanded box office hours.

Lehigh Valley Music (SEE ARTICLE: Croc Rock Makes list of Top Selling Venues Worldwide)