Thursday, November 20, 2008

A Frustrating Night at BOK Center

I received an interesting note from a reader yesterday about the Tuesday night Metallica concert at the BOK Center:

We arrived at 7 walking from McNellies ([we wanted to take the shuttle over to the BOK Center from there, but] we never saw a clear shuttle stop in front of the restaurant.) The show started at 7 with the opening act and we figured we’d miss a bit of them.

We get there and there is a line a mile long. TO GET IN. People with tickets got extra screwed because the line was even longer to get in. They were metal detecting everyone and you had to empty your pockets and get wanded. That’s fine but it was so slow and inefficient. They had teenagers running it. It wasn’t professional. They banned several items ( cameras, spiked jewelry) but they don’t tell you until you get to the front. They could have saved a bunch of time if they had people going through the line telling people the rulz. Fortunately, we didn’t have anything.

Anyway, it was FREEZING outside and we were in line to get in the door with tickets for over an hour with frequent harassment from drunk guys ( to be expected) but the police were just standing there doing hardly nothing ( well, they did arrest a drunk kid.)

Okay, so we are almost to the doors and the SPRINKLERS come on on us! We had to move fast!

Then, we get in and needed to pee. The men’s bathroom line was forever long…took my husband about 30 more minutes. Took me about 10 minutes to get through but they only had the front bathrooms open, ½ the stalls wouldn’t flush, no toilet paper or towels, no attendants or workers to be found. The bathrooms have two openings to it was all confusing as to who was next in line which really didn’t speed up the process, either.

Also mad that we were one of the first ones to order our tickets and got the furthest back seats. We were told they were best available but people were buying groups of tickets and getting better seats than us. In fact, where we sat, it was all sparse. I don’t understand how that happened. The seats weren’t bad though…I don’t think there is a bad seat but still the worst of the good seats.

Fortunately, Metallica didn’t come out until 9 so we didn’t miss a minute of them. Got there just in time. The no smoking rule really cut back on the smoke…. I could actually breathe! Last Metallica concert I went to, I got second hand high and coughed up some nasty crap for a week.

McNellies was great. They gave us a reservation and were very quick with everything. We could stay parked there all night, too.

Sounds to me like McNellies was the best part of this evening. Anyone else have these types of experiences with shows at the BOK?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow! Thanks for the anonymity. I feel all mysterious now. I just wanted to comment that the best thing of the evening was Metallica! I think next time Metallica should play a private concert for me at McNellies. I could scream, sing-along, and flash enough to make up for a sold out show.

I have a second thought: this was the first "edgy" show at the BOK...heightened security and winter weather may just be something we have to take in consideration for shows like this in the future. Overall, yay BOK for bringing Metallica and other great acts to Tulsa... best of luck next time on the execution, dorks.

hwall said...

My friend Chalyn attended the event and told pretty much the same story Anonymous did. She said the reason for the extra security is that Metallica requests it. She didn't mind it, like this person said, she just wished there had been some warning or that the BOK folks had been better prepared to handle it.

But really, we spend $200 million on a brand new arena and the frigging toilets aren't even working? Three months after it's opened? That's pretty ridiculous.

Yogi♪♪♪ said...

I like it that the BOK center is bringing in bands and acts that we weren't getting before and the seats lower down are fine. For Carrie Underwood though we bought cheap seats and they were not worth it. Some sort of apparatus hanging from the ceiling occluded our view of the both the stage and the video screens. She put on a great show but it was spoiled somewhat for us.

Unknown said...

Wow, I am sorry this person had such a crummy experience. I've attended two shows at the BOK and had a fabulous time at both events. I do however, think that the search/wand issue happens more at select concerts (like Lil Wayne). Don’t let this ruin bad experience affect your decision to purchase more tickets in the future.

Anonymous said...

I agree with ANONYMOUS. The concert was FANTASTIC, but thought the BOK could have done a better job preparing people for the security situation. Though, I would have waited 10X as long in the cold to see Metallica! It would be nice to not have to, though. And I wasn't too impressed with the BOK itself...it was nice, but didn't look or feel like a brand new building. Did I say that Metallica was amazing? They were amazing.

Anonymous said...

I'm heading to NIN tonight and have to go through their nin.com will-call ticket system. I hope all goes well and I don't have to spend 45 minutes in the below freezing weather predicted.

Jeff said...

I thought about dropping a bomb on the BOK center that night. Taking out Metallica and all their most loyal fans in NE Oklahoma in one swoop... perfect.

Unknown said...

I'm just glad Tulsa security was able to protect Metallica from being photographed by fans during their show.

It would be such a tragedy for the band to suffer another huge financial loss after the invention of MP3's nearly broke them.

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