Bournemouth International Centre — Attraction in Great Britain

Went to see Simple Minds. Parked at a local hotel. 4 min walk to venue. Got in easily. Merchandise stall right as you came in. Alcohol usual prices. Were selling it in 2 pint glasses which is a recipe for disaster. Plenty of toilets and queues moved quickly.

Got into venue. Pitch dark and no one to show you to your seat. Just a man standing there trying to look hard as security who told me to go and find "the lady" and she'll show you as it was nothing to do with him. We found out seats ourselves. Poor.

The venue actually has plastic seats as the stall seats. Hilarious.

Simple Minds came on to "waterfront" and everyone stood up. How could you not? Well the aging population that had turned up decided otherwise. Had an old lady with a stick covering her ears most of the time and others who didn't even seem to know Simple Minds music. What a bunch of miserable people. Still the stalls and parts of the arena were up and dancing to the anthems of this magnificent band.

Jim's singing was fantastic and I still adore him. His cat like poses are iconic. Charlie was on point the whole concert as were the backing band especially the young female drummer. What an energy she bought to the group and her talent was undeniable.

The female backing singer hit all the notes and held her own.

The band took us through their early material and of course the hits. It was simply incredible to see them in such a small venue. So close up and the sound was amazing as was the light show.

Jim had us eating out of the back of his hand. La la la la la la..... You get my drift!!! Iconic.

I danced and sang all night and reminisced about seeing them in 1989? At Wembley Stadium. Bigger arena,better crowd but still tonight was marvelous.

So to wrap it up SImple Minds were unbelievably good. Venue good to get up close and personal and enjoy the sound.

BUT I witnessed as did many others a man jump out of his seat and grab the man in front of him forcefully and violently and scream and curse in his face about "you sit down you ** I can't see' he threatened him and was held back by a female with him and someone sitting next to him who wasn't with him.

The fact the man he attacked was a carer for a visually impaired man made it all the more disgusting. The poor man was so shook up he didn't stand up again till the man left (with 4 songs to go". Never in my life have I ever witnessed anything so disgusting at a concert.

Listen people. People want to stand and dance even if they have a seat. Accept it. Don't be a killjoy and spoil people's fun. If you think you can tell people to sit down you are wrong. It states no where in the ticket you cannot stand

The demographic of the audience is OLD and I think spoilt it for some. I'm in my late 50's and felt young. It epitomizes Bournemouth as an area I think.

Please can someone contact me re the above incident. Security were nowhere to be seen. It was a criminal offence.

But Simple Minds. If you get the chance...

Stuck between a rock and a hard place here. We are pretty limited for live music venues in Bournemouth/Poole. Those that are good, unfortunately seem to be small in capacity, if we get a bigger band playing, then venus capacity tends to move from the O2 Academy to here, the BIC. Although the BIC is an excellent venue, for lots and lots of events, I'm going to review it from my primary visitation purpose, for a gig. Here unfortunately, it doesn't score as well.

The whole set up is like theatre arrival. From the entrance in, to the bar area, to the event area. A missed opportunity and a shame really as the place seems open and modular, so would be easily adapted to suit whichever event taking place.

For example, there are multiple entrances into the standing area (open floor) for a gig, but the tickets are labeled just as standing. Therefore everyone tries to enter and exit through the same few doorways. This creates bottlenecks and capacity "issues". By this I mean, there is plenty of space for everyone, but it's feels cramped because of the entry route. At my last gig attendance (27/03/22 Stereophonics) at one stage I thought they must have oversold ticket allocation due to people waiting and shuffling along trying to get into the "arena" area. This could be elevated by showing standing door numbers on the tickets. It doesn't matter once you are in, everyone knows a standing ticket allows you to stand where you want. But it would reduce the sheep like flow in and out.

Next is the bar/drinks situation. This is just a joke. Sell out a 10000 person gig, expect everyone to get a drink. Also expect everyone to get a drink, before the band comes on. The bar bar offerings are reasonable, and are normal venue prices, but 6 deep and 20-30 minutes to get a drink if just poor. More over from a business point of view, a compleat loss of revenue! As I said I'm reviewing this from the point of view of attending a gig. At a gig, make sure that beers/ciders etc are pre-poured. At the very least a constant flow before the main band come on. Soft drinks and water should be given in their respective bottles, minus the caps. What happens in reality is there is no official queue system, the smartly dressed bar staff are polite , and slowly take an individual order and ask if you want Ice and pour the Cola into a plastic glass. All of which takes time. Don't get me wrong, it lovely service, but the wrong choice for that event. I had one drink. I was there from 1930- 2300. I probably would have had 3 drinks, 2 minimum. I guess most people would be the same, but I paid to see the artist. I'm not going to waste my time at the bar and miss it. All seems a bit of a business Faux Pas That said, it's all we have on the south coast for that size venue/attendance size so I'll shut up. I still needs bands to play there, so I hope the bands don't read my review and...

27/06/2022 Myself and my partner took my gran to see Mrs Brown's Boys. She's a massive fan and never misses an episode (even if it's a repeat). Since lockdowns her mobility of getting out and about isn't so great today. We didn't get the chance to book front row seats and we didn't expect lockdowns to go on for so long. ANYWAY! Like I say my gran isn't very mobile but the venue allowed us to use her wheel chair. They offered us help (but we was okay holding her hands and arms and walking her up to the last row of seats on the terrace. Go granny! The team kept an eye on the wheel chair and put it in a safe place. We waited for the venue to empty so she didn't feel the need to rush down the stair way and your wonderful team met us at the steps and was encouraging her down them! They escorted us out and down to the disabled loos (we felt privileged haha). They was very chatty and wished us well on our journey back to Oxford & then Reading. Honestly, a very big thank-you from the bottom of our hearts!! Everyone was wonderful and what a smooth ride it felt. Definitly makes us feel like we can come back and still be able to get granny to and from her seat with no problems for any future shows :-) Thank you again Tracy, Corey &...