OVO Arena Wembley — Attraction in London

Went to see Devils night (creeper and black veil brides). The bands were amazing and considerate of the wellbeing of the crowd at the front so it’s all good in their part.

My issue was with the staff at the venue. We first noticed it in the queue where security didn’t really care and would just huddle in one group off to the side to chat. We thought it was alright because people queuing were just sitting and chatting but there were no attempts to stop people smoking cigarettes where the second hand smoke was blowing directly at people in the queue despite clear signs right next to us that say no smoking. Other people in the queue were asking people to at least puff smoke somewhere else but no one on security bothered. I know it’s boring watching a queue (I would be bored too) but to not even lift one finger and try with the cigarettes is inconsiderate especially when there’s signs right there.

Getting let in and finding our way to the pit was fine but the person who I came with had a medical emergency about 30 minutes in and we made our way to the side where the emergency medical team were lovely and got the information they needed quickly and efficiently while also keeping friendly conversation to help us feel more comfortable. We found ourselves in the medical bay with one nice lady and one guy where it was his first day. He broke the oxygen reader, didn’t know how to fill in the medical report sheet and didn’t know any advice for what to do with my friend. Why are staff working emergencies not up to training before they start? ESPECIALLY before such a huge concert of heavy sound, lights, vocals, stage smoke, typical heavy music pit behaviour and pyrotechnics. It’s not this guy’s fault that they put him in this position on his first day though so have sympathy.

We leave medical and try to find an item my friend lost by the side of the pit during the emergency but staff are extremely unhelpful and rude because it’s not a phone we lost. They just kept shouting ‘it’s not a phone!’ in my ear and looking exasperated and incredibly inconvenienced despite me having described the item multiple times to different staff. So we had to leave it.

My friend goes back to the hotel and I’m here by myself. Once they left I start having a panic attack because a lot of things have gone wrong so I leave the pit again and come across the same two medics from the medic bay. Back at the medic bay they help me call my fiend to make sure they’re okay and safe and they are. Once I know they’re safe I was allowed to go to a quieter bit in the medical area to calm myself down. I’m very clearly distressed and non medic ovo staff members keep banging on the glass door near me with angry irritated faces to be let in (I’m very clearly not staff, I can’t let them in but they’re still looking at me with this anger). There is no consistent venue staff member to let them in because medics are not allowed to either and there’s no way to get in from the outside like a key card or key pad. Each time they are let in by a staff member I get another irritated face thrown my direction- may I point out again I’m still clearly distressed and not staff. I left medic once I calmed down enough and I enjoyed the end of creeper and black veil brides.

Also what’s up with the people selling merch off the bare ground outside behind the official merch stand basically in the road? These can’t be official merch sales as it’s unhygienic, they shout at you to come and buy it and they’re not in any sort of uniform. Why is this not stopped?

Overall loved the artists, hate the venue. If I was going to pick one thing to fix out of the myriad of issues I would say the staff routes around the venue need to be seriously reconsidered so they don’t interfere with the medical bay. What sort of medical bay at such a large venue has normal staff constantly filling through it when people are having emergencies? Awful...

Performance by Greg Davies - Full Fat Legend was fantastic but I will never ever go to another event at this venue. It begins with their insistence that you download their app in order to enter; you can't simply download a pdf with QR code like 'the good old days'. They insist you install their app for no reason I can fathom other than they are able to harvest additional data which I deeply resent. And guess what? The app doesn't even work properly, consistently rejecting your triple checked and correctly entered password. So you click the button to reset password only to be told that no account with your email address exists despite having previously received emails from them confirming the creation of the account. Absolutely infuriating, time consuming and stressful to resolve.

On arrival at the venue you will discover that not even a tiny 5L rucksack will be allowed in, supposedly in the name of security. This is obviously nothing other than theatre considering the size, shape and type of other bags allowed in. Many, many other people were caught out by this condition of entry which is buried deep within the small print of T&C's but is absolutely not communicated clearly or prominently pre arrival. There is no cloak room or bag drop facility on site so you'll be directed to a QR code which links you to a newsagent ½ mile away to leave your tiny bag. You'll be paying £8+ for this additional inconvenience, thank goodness we had enough time to make it there and back before show started. Call me cynical but it really feels like this rule and the way it's communicated exists only to catch people out and leave them desperate for a solution they have to overpay for and which the venue gets a nice little slice for themselves.

After our hurried extra walk to drop bags we successfully entered and were understandably a little thirsty. You're not allowed to bring your own water in and OVO Arena Wembley are not about to miss an opportunity to once again scalp a captive audience on a balmy summers evening. £3.95 for a 500ml bottle of room temperature water AND they'll remove and keep the lid. It's nothing short of predatory.

Maybe it's better for music but the hall itself is not at all suited for comedy. The seats are tiny, uncomfortable, severely lacking legroom, poorly orientated, zero consideration for sight lines. We were not in the 'cheap seats' either, they were premium priced 2nd block from stage on the main floor.

Greg himself was great and clearly put his heart and soul into every moment of performance. Unfortunately as far as choice of venue goes, you would have to pay me a very considerable some of money to even consider going...

Went to an event - fantastic performances by the artists. I didn’t have much time to explore around the arena but the shopping area I walked along on the way had places to eat or shop for clothes/groceries, so great if you reach the event early and want to browse or get a snack.

The event was well managed by the security team on arrival: checking tickets, directing people and showing customers to seats so well done for that.

It would have been really good to have more stewards inside the venue as once through the doors it was manic chaos 😱

Queues for toilets were ridiculous (of course). They seem to have entrance doors either side into the very few cubicles so you get TWO queues competing for the same small and poorly managed resource.

No extra toilet paper rolls in the cubicles so many customers were left having to drip dry unless they happened to have their own spare tissue.

Slow, slow service at the merch counter - please demonstrate sizing for customers in some way BEFORE they arrive at the counter. All of a sudden when the main act was coming on the service speed ramped up - no reason why it couldn’t be that speed the whole time!!

Food counter staff were very polite and kept customers informed if fresh food was going to take a little time. Some alcohol free lagers would be nice, please.

Customers seeking to meet performers after the set were confused about where to go and ended up standing in the merch queue so lots of disappointed young fans.

If you are travelling by car it can be a real pig of a journey. I was travelling by road from the Kent coast, mid week. It took 4 hours due to the time of day with the usual M25 difficulties and hitting rush hour as we were arrived near Harrow which was grid locked. Journey home was two hours in contrast.

Car parking was easy and straight forward and not far too walk to the venue (we were in the Red car park).

I would return to this venue if it was the only place to see an act I was interested in but I’d think carefully about it because of the travelling for me and maybe book a hotel. If I did go I would remember to have low expectations regarding queues and toilet facilities.

If the operational team could make improvements to the queueing and toilet management (really not difficult to make some quick, easy and low cost improvements) it would make a BIG difference to customers. It really put a downer on the event - LOTS of people were commenting and had a frustrating experience...