Bessemer Civic Center — Attraction in Bessemer

The only reason I'm giving 2 stars and not 1 is because the actual venue is nice. The people that run the facility are liars and they take advantage of unsuspecting patrons. First, they called my son-in-law the week of the wedding and told him he didn't pay. He had to produce his receipt proving that he did. For months leading up to the wedding, they told my daughter she would have the venue for her wedding until 11:00pm. On the day of the wedding, at 7:00pm, they came and told her that she had to be out by 8:00pm. Her in-laws had to pay $250 for an extra hour, when it had already been paid for from the beginning. My daughter couldn't even enjoy her reception since everything had to be rushed. My son-in-law had to stop what he was doing to figure out what was going on. The guy they had working at the facility had a very nasty attitude, he kept getting smart with us, he wasn't there to open the doors for the bride and bridesmaids to get dressed, like agreed upon, and he made the overall experience with the Bessemer Civic Center a bad one. I had already had an issue with getting my deposit back from them several years ago, but my daughter decided to go with them anyway. They lie and tell you things, but don't put it in the contract, and leave people hanging. We had to clean the whole space after the event, when they normally have people to do that. They wouldn't even give my 74 year old mother a cup of ice after we paid several hundred dollars for a bar/bartender. The man that worked there had a problem showing me how to dim the lights since he said he showed someone the day before at the rehearsal. The bartender was charging 14 dollars for top shelf drinks, but actually giving people bottom shelf liquor and thinking we wouldn't notice. I would not have an event here. You try to support people, and they treat you like garbage. Go somewhere else where you will be given the respect you deserve considering how much money you...

Probably will be the last time using them. We have patronized and spent thousands hosting graduations there every year and the customer service gets worse. There has been maintanance issues during graduation and we still have came back. We had 1 graduation go over 200 ppl capacity, that we did not expect, they spoke wit us and the following ceremony we had the door closed to prevent that plus security inside.

Our following ceremony They refused to rent the room to us because of a capacity issue that was already addressed. Forcing us into the largest room that holds 500 which is about 1000 or so more dollars.

We agreed, Still just trying to have our students get a graduation experience thats not hosted at our building or further from where they live outside of bessemer. The goal has been to keep the money in the city but the director Terry Dawson has been rude, inflexible and thinks its professional to reprimand our business every time we call as if we never fixed/agreed to not go over. He even told me we need to find another venue this last time we tried to request a room.

When I called I asked for the same as last time, so if you check the records you see it was the main hall, but called it the "east" on accident. He then goes on about the issues we have had, said he wasnt going to speak to me anymore today after I asked "wasnt that issue addressed when we purchased the 1st floor room?"

He insisted on being petty and sassy asking "didnt you say the east meeting room though??" mutliple times, in which i told him yes but I said it incorrectly in which he responded " if you wouldn't have said that we wouldn't be here'

This is the level of service we get as a repeat customer when trying to keep money in Bessemer, paying $1500 for an event we...

We have patronized and spent thousands hosting graduations there every year and the customer service gets worse. There has been majormaintanance issues during graduation and we still have came back. We had 1 graduation go over 200 ppl capacity, that we did not expect, they spoke wit us and the following ceremony we had the door closed to prevent that plus security inside.

Our following ceremony They refused to rent the room to us because of a capacity issue that was already addressed. Forcing us into the largest room that holds 500 which is about 1000 or so more dollars.

We agreed, Still just trying to have our students get a graduation experience thats not hosted at our building or further from where they live outside of bessemer. The goal has been to keep the money in the city but the director Terry Dawson has been rude, condescending, unprofessional, inflexible and thinks its okay to reprimand a client every time we call as if we never fixed/agreed to a solution. He even told me we need to find another venue this last time we tried to request a room.

This is the level of service we get as a repeat customer when trying to keep money in Bessemer, paying $1500 for an event we...