Craig W.
Yelp
So my wife and I have been coming here for different DJ shows since before COVID. Have had dinner downstairs a few times, and always found the food to be pretty good (perhaps a touch expensive, but nothing overly unreasonable). Kitchen often is closed by 9 PM though which is weird considering the show venue upstairs is open till 2 AM (and this is part of why we stopped eating here after having to go find food elsewhere in Tempe before a few shows where we got there a bit later than desired).
We've seen a lot of big names here as they occasionally do get pretty decent headliners. Acraze, Gareth Emery, Layton Giordano, Sander Van Doorn (for example), and last night HOL!. We like a wide range of electronic music and the the diveristy of artists they bring through has always been part of the appeal. Been here when it was relatively empty and also for sold out shows.
Anyway, acoustics are okay and the venue is a reasonably fun place to go and dance. Drinks are reasonable, generally around $10 to $11 each (which these days is not bad at all). Crowd is very diverse depending on a specific show and you're never sure what you're going to get on a given night. Our experience last night though prompted me to write this review and may honestly push us away from Sunbar except for very specific shows moving forward.
We got into the club at about 10:30 PM. Usually the venue starts filling up more between 10 and 11, but it was already packed. Checked Tixr out of curiosity and realized the show was sold out and was not overly surprised.
Long story short, the crowd and lack of crowd control completley ruined the night. I knew with how heavy HOL! is that the show was going to likely be on the wilder side, but it ended up way past what I was worried about. First up, you could barely move in a lot of the venue. Things definitely felt oversold by 50 to 100 people at least. Combined with it being 105 out, temperatures went absolutely nuclear. I don't think I've ever seen it as warm as it was in there last night, probably 90+ degrees easily. There was a lot of issues with "crowd pushers" first of all. I'm so sick and tired of entitled people (often 200+ pound men) who think they can just put their whole body into everyone around them and try to force their way up to the front of the room. This is terrible behavior and I'm seeing it more and more these days. Be patient, tap people on the shoulder to ask them if you can get by and don't just try to muscle your way through people with utter disregard for your fellow man.
We were having a decent time until about 15 minutes into HOL!'s set when a bunch of inconsiderate a-holes decided it was time to start moshing. Multiple people including my wife got knocked down. Security was no where to be seen. We ended up getting security over who did calm some of it down, but quite frankly all of these morons should have been ejected and I've seen people thrown out for WAY less.
And one other thing to mention. They had sound failures twice during the night. First a deck went down during Desert Hydra's set requiring complete replacement (and an awkward 10+ minute break in the show). Then several minutes into HOL!'s set, everything shut down and had to be started back up. Seriously?
Operationally this place has desecended into amateur hour. Maybe my expectations are too high, but I've definitely seen the quality of experience slide.
People are potentially getting injured due to over selling shows and incompetent security practices. This shouldn't happen, especially at a venue focused on dance music which is supposed to just be about having fun.
You've been warned.