If you're not looking to go the dSLR route, I'd also recommend the Fuji F30. Its a very nice compact point and shoot camera. I just got it as my second camera, as I wanted something I could carry with me at all times. Its excellent and is easily rated one of the best p&s's on the market today.
The lens goes all the way down to f/2.8 and the ISO can go as high as 3200. The quality at ISO3200 and ISO1600 isn't the best, but it still gets the job done, and the images look far better than any other camera that offers those high ISOs on the market today.
My only complaint is when the camera is set on full auto and uses a flash, it uses ISO800. When using a flash, thats a bit high, but I've started using it more in the manual modes and this problem is easily fixed.
The F30 also has Image Stabilization to help with a shakey hand. Unfortunately, you won't be getting all that great of shots from the back of the venue as it only has a 3x zoom, but for just about everything but concert photography 3x zoom is fine.
I just recently got mine, I tried to get it from
http://www.digitalfotoclub.com/ as I've bought many camera items from them and their prices are the lowest I've seen on the net. They had it listed for 249.99 with free shipping but at the time it was listed out of stock so I went through
http://www.digital1234.com because they were lowest priced ($267) retailer that had it in stock. I also picked up a 2gb Fuji Film xD card from digitalfotoclub for only $50. With the camera set on its finest picture quality, that card will give me nearly 700 pictures. I figured that would be enough to get me through even a longer vacation or those days when I get I get trigger happy and take a picture of everything.