A circle pit is a term for a large and usually roughly circular clearing in the audience of a punk show about two to ten meters from the front of the stage. Inside this circle, people can mosh and skank, with moshing usually being the device that created the pit to begin with.

Usually a counterclockwise rotation is observed by dancers inside the circle pit, and moving clockwise would be difficult for all but the most massive people. The size of the pit depends on both the size of the audience and the tempo of the music being played: the greater of either of these, the greater the size of the pit. Generally, circle pits can range from between two and twenty meters in radius, with the larger ones typically being the most intense.

One's likelyhood to be harmed in a circle pit has a lot to do with the size of the audience and the genre of punk; typically small audiences at local underground punk shows will have "friendly" pits where dancers help up others that have fallen, smaller men, boys, women, and girls are able to participate equally with the larger males, and a feeling of "community" is generally pervasive. One is more likely to get injured in a big mainstream punk show, such as one that would be given by Pennywise or A Fire Inside, although most audience members will always try to pull dancers that have fallen over out of the way of serious injury as fast as possible.