Dickies Arena — Attraction in Fort Worth

Dickies is a solid venue, it reminds me of the very popular “arena rock” times of the 70’s except it’s ultra modernized and contemporaneous. I’m told that certain spots in Dickies catch and hideaway sounds with impunity. By that, I mean that I’m told you might get a seat where the acoustics are bad and all you hear is a warbler semblance of the expected tune - and there’s no one to complain to about it, no one to verify it or confirm your listening experience. That’s a night mare if your a rocker! Now I didn’t experience that. I found the arena to be a sight and sound Vista with the only complaint as an audience member being that unforgivable seating structure that must have been designed with young people in mind. Yep - the seats are uncomfortable.

I saw KISS recently and I got to admit there was a lot of grey hair in the audience. Plenty of slow moving rockers taking “careful steps” up and down the arena ramps and stairs. It looked like an AARP convention. Now the snacks and drinks at the arena we’re pretty standard. No complaints, just standard grub that any venue might offer. The restroom facilities were clean and orderly, well kept in my opinion. The staff were just as friendly as they could be, fast paced workers doing their best to keep everyone happy.

Now let me tell you about my cocktail purchases. I should add, ever since my tour in Iraq I’ve had the questionable habit of tipping the glass. I find that it helps me get a grip on some of the physical issues that the Arabian Peninsula cursed me with - remember the uncomfortable seating that I mention? Well for me, that’s a great excuse to drink! The cocktail stand at Dickies Arena (wisely placed by the men’s restroom) next to section 113 is “shorting pours”. And at $12.00 a drink that’s criminal! I knew immediately that my Whiskey was shy and I talked to the very charming bartender about it who confidently tried to put me in my place - “I’m the professional bartender, your the customer, let me do my thing”. Well Madame, now listen here…I’m a professional drinker and something is amiss at the shots your selling.

She smiled and waved me on, so I got my best friend a former bartender to go on up and watch the drink pours at the cocktail stand. He ordered 3 drinks and saw immediately what they were doing. They pour out of the pony instead of the jigger, and in doing so they short the customer by offering less product. They hope that a wide glass and some ice tossed in, plus the dark venue and flashing lights of the arena will throw off the customers perception in such a way that few will notice. That made sense to me cause I order my Whiskey neat-no ice, but they tossed ice in it. This chicanery slanted the rest of my visit at Dickies. My buddy called a manager and told him what he observed. The manager eyeballed the drinks and then told the bartender to re-pour. I must have spent $80.00 on drinks there and I regret tipping them because I now see that they were just getting over on me and taking advantage of...

Came to this venue for Ateez's The Fellowship: Break The Wall tour. We were in Sector VIP. The outside line was fine, organized well enough that we could sit and be comfy until it was time to go inside. They began letting us in around 2 or 3 I believe? And there was plenty of room for Sector VIP to wait in the basement until one employee named SCOTT told us we all needed to move forward in line and fill the empty spaces to make room for more incoming fans. Thus began a huge rush of fans trying to get to the front of the line; people were crowding and pushing forward. You almost could not move. When we complained to a security(?) supervisor, he told us that if we got hurt it would be our own fault for pushing, even though most of us were actively trying to make room for ourselves. Dozens of fans had panic attacks from the situation and a child got lost due to the density of the crowd and the rush of people trying to cut in line. SCOTT was extremely rude and walked around the outside line taunting guests, saying "Oh, you shouldn't push and crowd people," even though he was the one who told people to move up and caused the whole mess. Two other employees, Dennis and Emma, were absolutely amazing at controlling the crowd and were able to get people to move in order to make more room and keep more people from getting hurt. I will likely not ever do another VIP event at this arena because of the absurd conduct of a select few employees and will be reporting this to the arena directly. Photos are of the massive dense crowd...

Saw Arctic Monkeys. The venue sent an email to some people (?) Letting them know that if they lined up at 7am they would get to be at the front of the line later. Really a bummer for anyone with a job/life and can't make it out at that time. What happened to the good ol days when, if you wanted the front, you sat on the side of the street for hours and waited? Those people I can respect.

So we showed up early, about 200 were already ahead of us with special lines to get in first (the 7am ppl). I asked employees multiple times what the rest of us were supposed to do and was told to just wait and go in through the main doors.

I decide to get a drink. There are two booths, I go for the slightly shorter line. After a bit of waiting an employee announces that this line is cash only. Just my luck. No signs anywhere about this. So half of the line runs over to the other booth. More waiting. The drinks were alright.

So the main door open. Immediately, another employee tells us we can't go, GA should already be in, and this is for balcony. We'll we aren't already in! So he gives up and we push on.

Then another man yells at us for not having wristbands. At no other point did any other employee ever give us or tell us about a wristband. Not when we scanned out tickets or kept asking what to do. So he's yelling like we're breaking in and we have to step out of the stampede to rescan our tickets and get wristbands.

AM were great. The venue staff made it much more confusing and chaotic than it...