Ent Center for the Arts — Attraction in Colorado Springs

My mom and I had decided to go see the nutcracker at this performing arts center the other day. Upon taking our seats and opening the programs, we quickly realized that what we had entered was not a professional production of the iconic ballet. Instead, we had been bamboozled, hoodwinked, run amok, led astray. This was a children’s nutcracker performance, at the ent center. The promotional emails we were sent did not let us know that we were spending our money on an amateur production. And by the ticket prices, ($15-$70) we thought that this was a normal show, after all, the ent center housed the great Branford Marsalis a number of years ago, and I had a great time. We thought the 4 o clock start time was because it was more of a family-oriented event. However, we were not prepared for the sheer number of families there. I am sure we were one of only a few groups of people in the center that did not personally know a performer. The show was the opposite of what we expected. It opened up with a 30-minute Michael Jackson dance sampler, with poorly cut music and nothing to do with the actual nutcracker. There was chaos everywhere. A child flipped over a woman’s bag behind our seats, and upon a loud scolding during the show from his grandmother, my mother turned around in her seat to see if it was her bag that was dumped out, effectively popping her bad knee and causing her great pain. Children were screaming to the left of me, in front of me, up in the boxes, behind me. A child was kicking my chair for 40 minutes, even with her mother telling her to stop. It was pandemonium, on stage on off. I would like to note that none of this is the fault of the performers. I thank them for their interest and dedication to dance, and applaud them on putting themselves out there and expressing themselves through movement. However, I am livid that I was misled by Miss Rachael’s dance school and their phony professional performance at what I thought was a legitimate performing arts venue. The ent center for the arts wasted my money and I will not return for at...

Amazing. Im a music student here and this place is wonderful. The view, soundproofing, theater, staff, and classrooms are all fantastic. The bathrooms are spacious and clean almost all the time. I've gone here twice a week now for about 8 months and i have zero complaints.

If I had to pick ONE gripe, its the parking lot. This is a free lot, so a lot of the students with no parking pass park here and take the bus up to the main campus, which makes parking a nightmare sometimes. Also, there are "eco-friendly" vehicle spots for hybrid or electric cars, but nobody seems to enforce it. So there's almost never a spot for my hybrid Civic because there are SUVs...

Tonight was the first performance by the Colorado Springs Philharmonic at the ENT Center. I have to say that the acoustics of the venue are great; however, everything else was terrible. From it taking 20 minutes to clear the parking lot because there was only one exit to it taking 10 minutes to exit the hall because 200 people were exciting out of two double doors. Our tickets also failed to say which theater they were for and ushers were pretty useless in getting us to where we needed to be. Overall I hope that the ENT Center learns from this experience and improves...