Ry T.
Yelp
The Worst Concert Experience of Our Lives, or: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Know That Dimitri Martin Completely Sucks Now
Could not even get into the venue after arriving early and waiting on the street for hours. The staff was inexperienced and poorly managed. The headliner's team made the situation worse by trying to do too many shows on the same night.
I've organized shows, big and small, in the USA and abroad, and it was clear as we arrived that the Paramount Theatre staff and Dimitri Martin were so indifferent to the experiences of guests that I will never forgive Martin and will hate the Paramount staff indefinitely.
Martin scheduled two shows on the same night at this 1,800+ seat capacity venue. The show information only listed basic descriptions of show times (first show, 6:30, second show 9:30). No mention of times that doors were open, the duration of the show, the start of the show, which would've greatly helped people plan.
Both shows were sold out. Martin, possibly, wanted to schedule both shows on the same night because he was trying to cut costs by filming his two shows concurrently, and then editing them together to be televised. His team should have split the shows over two nights, given how much it takes to organize 1,800 people, and give a door time and strict show time.
So when we showed up for the second show, well in advance, we encountered a line encircling the four blocks around the theatre of 1,000 people waiting for the first show to exit. The first show wasn't even over.
We were promptly lied to by an employee: "He (Dimitri Martin) is just having a snack, taking a quick break, we'll get this crowd inside soon."
An hour later, the first show starts exiting. Another hour passes and they start allowing people in the venue. I leave my place in line and go check out the front entrance.
Two dozen Paramount employees are standing in the street in front of the venue entrance doing nothing. A couple of employees diverting people into two lines to enter, one of which is a metal detector.
An elderly man and a man in his early twenties are checking bags. They introduce themselves to each other, clearly this is their first night working for the Paramount.
They carefully search the tiny purse of a woman in her sixties "She's clear" says the elderly man, then he reconsiders "Wait, let me check your bag again." He then smiles and motions her towards a walk-through metal detector.
An employee with a walkie talkie approaches me, and he immediately registers the look of disapproval and astonishment on my face.
"You're working, yeah?" he says, thinking I'm doing so as some supervisor.
I return to my friends holding our place in line, and I see the line has now stretched for an additional two blocks behind us. Close to all 1,800 people are on the street, waiting to get in.
Another 45 minutes passes as we talk to the people directly ahead of us in line to get in.
"We're giving up." They say.
One looks at the ground in disgust "A hundred bucks down the drain." They walk in the direction of the parking garage. People exiting the first show are still trickling into the street.
Another hour passes and we've moved about twenty feet.
The line still encircles the four blocks around the venue and two blocks behind us.
"This ain't worth it." A friend in the party says. "I got to let my dog out soon." Someone in line behind us says.
We give up too, stopping by the entrance to the venue to get parking validated. The Paramount website claims that a concert ticket will make it so you don't have to pay for parking, but we want to be sure.
An employee at the front entrance standing around not doing anything other than supervising tells us just to wave the ticket in the garage, and it'll get us out without charging us. Another lie, but we just want to get out of downtown Denver at this point.
Sure enough, were charged an exorbitant amount when leaving the parking garage, no attendant present, and scanning the ticket doesn't work of course.
Getting burned by the Paramount and their impossibly dumb management and clearly underpaid staff is equally as bad as Martin and his team not being able to organize a show.
Worst venue in America I've ever been to, and I'll never give Dimitri Martin another dime or scrap of support.
