The Castle Theatre — Attraction in Bloomington

First off, I will start with the few good things that The Castle has going for it. The Castle is able to bring in some pretty decent shows into Central Illinois. The Castle also has really good sound equipment and sound throughout the building. On the downside of the good shows that they bring to town is the venue floor. The Castle brings in a lot of metalcore bands, which usually leads to mosh pits.. But at The Castle one can hardly begin to mosh without running into the big metal poles that are all throughout the venue floor about every 25 feet. The floor is just a terrible layout for anything outside of an opera. Another thing is the entry. The line moves slow because of the one person checking tickets. And if you didn't preorder your ticket online, you'll end up holding up the line because The Castle has no box office like it should. Speaking of preordering your tickets, I would not recommend it. I was recently at The Castle, despite hating it, to see Taking Back Sunday. (I'd rather support a band I love than hate a terrible venue.) On my ticket, which I preordered, it says "All ages access to floor: 21+ reserved to drinking balcony". So when I arrive, I was informed that my friends could NOT go onto the main floor, but we had to go the the balcony. I am 21 but several people I was with were 19 and 20, so I went because I didn't want to split up from the group I came with. They informed me that they had changed that a couple hours prior to the show. How terrible is that? You show up to see a band that you want to see, expecting to be up close because your ticket grants you that access, but when you arrive they refuse to let you do that. That is terrible, and horribly planned by the management at The Castle. After asking a security guard multiple questions regarding my accessibility I realized talking to him was as worthless as this venue itself, so I asked to speak to someone else. He sent me to head of security where I proceeded to ask the same questions as I did the previous guy. He came up with a hundred lame excuses which contradicted themselves half the time and basically said "if you dont like it... I dont know what to tell you." He was as useless as the first guy. So I asked to speak to the manager, and was told "Shes in there wearing a black shirt and gold chain." What kind of explanation is that? Needless-to-say I never found her. But it was just a terrible experience, and things like that always seem to happen when I go there. The only reason I return is to support bands I love. I would not recommend going to The Castle if there is another venue that you could...

The Castle Theatre is a true hidden gem. It is a great venue for getting together with friends to listen to live music. I first went to the Castle to see a movie in the 70’s. After college, I moved on and lost track of it. A couple of years ago I stumbled across one of its advertisements posted in downtown Bloomington, joined their mailing list, and have become a fan faithful.

This past year I have been to three shows: Dawes, the Eli Young Band, and Lukas Nelson & the P.O.T.R. Each visit was enjoyable and the music was great. I will be going back.

The venue is old…it is a repurposed movie theatre from 1916. It is not the sleek, shiny, sterile, state-of-the art monstrosity built for living-room-style viewing. It is a cozy, stand-shoulder-to-shoulder facility where you truly experience the music.

Some things to note: there is limited seating. The intent is to stand and watch the show. The interior is dark, so be aware of your surroundings. There are guardrails on the main floor, which serve to prevent the crowd from surging the stage and help steady one as she/he exits on a sloping floor. Food is not an option. Drinks are available, alcohol and nonalcoholic. Both are reasonably priced.

I have found the ticket pricing extremely fair. I have yet to pay more than $35 to see a top-billed band live. The receiving process is smooth and instantaneous. All tickets come by email (the digital wallet is not available).

The staff is friendly and helpful. The security crew are big, pleasant and no nonsense. Follow the house rules and you will have a great, trouble free experience.

Try the Castle Theatre for you next show. You will not be...

I love the castle theater, it’s a very intimate concert experience. I’ve been a few times and had a great over all experience.

However, I as much as I’d rather be placing this review with a full 5 stars, my most recent experience has made me have to drop a star. We attended the Iron and Wine concert, about a month prior to the concert, an email was sent out stating we could reserve stools (which at all our last experiences were free to just use) it would be one thing to have this be something you could do when you purchased tickets but doing it after when I had the assumption they were free to use was really crappy. On top of that they didn’t not indicate that all of the stools were reserved with any type of placing on the stools. So if you did reserve one, someone maybe sitting in your reserved seat when you get there, and you may have to ask them to get out of stool.

I still recommend the castle theater. And we will still attend shows here. But I do hope in the future they either update this policy to properly mark the stools as reserved and do so at ticket sale, from the beginning, not after a bunch of tickets have sold. And/or remove the reservation system as a whole (this would...