Lauren D.
Yelp
The show I went to (Feist) was amazing, but the venue really dropped the ball, which was a bummer, because it affected my enjoyment of the show. First, we purchased our tickets (for mid-level balcony seats) months beforehand, and paid extra for seats, opting out of GA, because the person I went with couldn't stand for long periods of time. When we arrived, we were told that the balcony (all seats) were closed, because the show was an immersive experience. We were a little annoyed, because we paid for the seats, but assumed they'd have some seating on the main floor. We were wrong. Everyone was standing, or sitting on the floor.
We asked a staff member about seating, and were told that special accommodations could be made for people with disabilities or who needed seating, and to go ask for folding chairs at the front desk.
We went to the front desk, and it was a total mess. Lots of other people were in the same boat as us, and asking why we couldn't sit in our seats. The staff seemed disorganized and stressed, and we kept hearing different reasons for why, and what they were doing to help patrons.
We were told they "were trying to find chairs" and frantic staff were running around getting folding chairs for people who requested them. A few people asked if they could get a refund, since they paid more for seats, and were told that all seats were the same price... Not true. And that they couldn't get a refund, and would have to go through a multi-step process off-site. Bad, bad, bad.
Then the reasons for why upstairs was closed kept shifting... They said the artist wanted it closed for the experience (having gone through it, I doubt that's the case, it would have been awesome upstairs too), and that the surround sound was off upstairs and the curtains were closed, so we couldn't sit up there, etc.
Finally they told us that they were setting chairs up in the main hall, in the side toward the back. Which was fine, until halfway through the show the set up switched from raised mini-central stage to the main stage, and none of us could see...
We noticed that there were a bunch of people sitting upstairs in the mid-level, and decided to see if we could finally access our seats to see the rest of the show.
When we went up, the manager was sitting between the roped off stairs to the top balcony, and we asked how to access our seats, and even showed our tickets and seat numbers. He wasn't rude, but was a little snippy, and gave us some BS about how the balcony seats we saw people in were box seats that were sold out months ago, and that our seats were on the closed upper level.
We could see there was space on the open balcony, and could see the seat numbering signage. We looked at the numbers for that level and are pretty sure our seats were on there, as we did buy them months ago...
At that point we were very annoyed, so just went back downstairs to watch the rest of the show. Long story short, the venue caused the issue, and then instead of doing one of many things to mitigate the situation, made the patrons feel like we were being ridiculous for asking for what we'd paid for... And these were $60 tickets (each) afyall of their BS fees.
I will most likely neverrrrrrr go to this venue again, as this was the most ridiculous and honestly, odd, experience I've ever had at a live music venue. We weren't being rude (some people were) and the attitude we got in return for reasonably wanting a solution was garbage. Terrible customer service, at an overpriced venue.