I went to see one of my favorite jazz singers last night at a dinner theater with no class. A dinner theater that says “first come-first serve” is their motto, except for the fact that if you don’t slide the greasy palm maitre’d a $50, you’ll be sitting in the back of the theater whether your first in line or not. It makes no difference even if you make dinner reservations to eat their crappy, grocery store bought food, or if you bought your tickets on the first day they went on sale. The deal here is, pay cash for a better seat, or your screwed.
Upon finding out that we were seated in the worst possible seats (right next to the kitchen door), I asked the sweaty palm dude how much it costs to sit closer, and he replied “I’m not supposed to say, but I would be paid handsomely,” and gave me some crusty smirk.
At that point my SO asked “Do the artists know that your doing this?” and his reply was “Yeah, the seats are managerial seats, VIP. They know.”
Being an artist myself this last comment just pissed me off. Now maybe this is how some sleazy places operate, maybe it’s even standard procedure, but if I ever get the chance to play a place where people buy tickets to come see me perform, I would never want my fans to be put through this BS and I’m not so sure I believe that the artists actually know this kind of scam is going on.
The music was great, though it was hard to hear considering the waiters and waitresses were yelling in the kitchen the whole time “Is this chick done yet?”, “Yeah, I hear she’s only playing 70 minutes” and throwing dishes around with no respect to the quiet theater where you could almost hear a pin drop during the performance!
So please Galaxy Concert Theater in Santa Ana, California - Don’t let Jazz musicians play at your theater, you ruin it for them, their fans, and you just don’t have the class.