Wiener Stadthalle — Attraction in Vienna

I don't usually write reviews but for Wiener Stadthalle I'll make an exception. I am also skeptical of overly positive or negative reviews, but just please hear me out on this one.

The customer support of this venue is basically nonexistent for anyone not speaking german and I wish I was exaggerating. I tried to purchase tickets with a debit card multiple times but upon trying to finalize the payment I always received an Internal Server Error which is basically an issue with the site, not the client. Then I tried to use Paypal, this time around the amount got locked on my account, but I did not receive the ticket. I was afraid that if I try again I will be successful but the pending payment may succeed too and I would receive more tickets than I wanted so I contacted support on the appropriate phone number.

To cut a long story short I tried multiple times but I always got the same answer: “By policy we cannot support you but you’ll receive a call from an English speaking operator shortly” which never happened. I tried email, nothing. After I sent the email a new box office number was given, I tried that, to my surprise there was an option to speak to an English speaking operator, but I got connected to a german speaking operator, who just hang up on me as soon as I started speaking English.

By this time I checked again and the pending transaction was declined, so I went to try again from a different card just to find out that the concert was sold out. I strongly suspect from the availability of the sectors that there were no available tickets by the time I checked first anyways and their systems were falsely showing so and that’s why the transactions were failing.

Bottom line, shame on you Wiener Stadthalle, you're a prime example of everything that's wrong with the entertainment industry. It’s unbelievable that in the 21st century you could not communicate with the support team of a venue of this magnitude in English after more than a week...

Avoid this place if your concert doesn’t have marked sits! Organization is terrible (or lack of it)!

There were two stewards “managing” the standing tickets line. There were people in line since 3am. I arrived at 2pm. People started arriving after that, met friends who were in front and just slowly got in. I went to ask the stewards if there was any system in place, and they said that their jobs were just to point where the line started! A guy even tried to organize it by himself, pointing out who arrived and just crossed the line! But then, when we thought things couldn’t get worse, out of nowhere, they opened two different lines for standing tickets - everyone just ran and took a position - mixing both who had just arrived and who were here way earlier. So UNFAIR. This is for Katy Perry’s concert, so you can imagine there was a bunch of kids. Such a mess. Will definitely avoid coming here. Last time I’ve been, the place was so HOT inside. Even Sam Smith said so. Not to mention the price of drinks and food! SHAME-FULL!

One more thing: on the way in, the bar code reader didn’t work with my ticket. Guess what happened? Many people went in front of me while they figured out...

I saw Roger Waters Us+Them 2018 and it was awesome. The show was really good and I had a lot of fun there.

The location itself is not so great. Chaotic and bad organised entrances. When you are finally found the correct entrance and you are in, it's better.

In the concert hall itself it is very hot (not a hot day) and the seats are very small and uncomfortable. The tickets were very expensive for such a bad place (right of the stage) but you could see everything because it's very steep. So no problems with large people in front of you. But you have to sit twisted because they face the middle of the room instead of the stage. To there excuse it is a multifunction hall and not only for concerts.

Food and drinks are very expensive. 4.50 Euro for an old pretzel and 4 Euro for a half litre of water. And you need it because it's very hot inside. Personal was also not very friendly. I would try to get my own water in.

It is near to public transport but the subway is highly overcrowded after the show.

So the location itself is not very good, You realize very quick that it is old and...