NRG Arena — Attraction in Houston

My wife and I went there for a friend's son's college graduation ceremony. I had no problems with the ceremony itself, but plenty with the NRG staff and the layout of the place. One would have no idea of the hassle I went through just to get there and finally get inside to get our seats. First of all, I arrived at the gate and was told the parking was $21.65. What a rip-off! I grudgingly paid it. I parked the truck in the lot on one side of the NRG Arena and we walked over to enter the door in the front after seeing a sign on the window stating about the graduation ceremony being at this location. We're immediately greeted with a lot of hollering by a NRG staff member and a security guard yelling at me that I cannot enter. I explained why we were there, and the staff member belligerently tells me that I have to go to the other side and also park on the other side. Hollering at me because THEY didn't post any signs anywhere to inform the public of this? Wow. After making a wish that the security guard's badge would rust, my wife and I walk back to the truck and I drive over to the lot on the other side and found a parking spot without any problems. We walked over to "the other entrance", only for the door lady to tell my wife that she cannot bring her water bottle inside......but yet we can bring our umbrellas inside? Marveling at this fine example of utter idiocy, I think "Fine, whatever." and walk back to the truck and put up my wife's water bottle. Yes, it only had water in it and nothing else since we were planning to share it instead of paying an arm and leg for a beverage (especially after getting ripped off on parking). Now, we're finally able to get inside. We walked along to the 100 section and found our friends seated in one row and we sat down with them. Not too long afterwards my bladder sounds sounding the alarm that I needed to use the restroom, so I noticed a stairwell to my right and walked towards it, only to be blocked by a man sternly telling me I cannot use that stairwell and that I would have to use the stairwell the next one over (in the 200 section). Nice attitude but I'm guessing he must've been cranky about having to work on a Saturday. Now, the problem with going over to the 200 section is that there are rows of seats - from top to bottom - I would have to cross and there were no empty walk-throughs but fortunately there were some empty seating rows along the top side so I had to walk across those and then back down the stairs to get to the 200 section stairway. This was stupid. Why didn't they just let the 100 section stairway be open, or at least remove one row of seats in two different rows in the 100 section so it would be easier for people in that section to cross over from the end to the 200 section instead of having people get up from their seats to let a person pass to go to the restroom. Thankfully I didn't need to use the restroom again until after the ceremony was done. I give this place an F in logistics since it's obviously run by a bunch of morons. And the bathrooms there were downright filthy. Not going back...

I went to the Houston Blues Festival on 2/6/16. The music was great, but NRG Arena was the worst arena experience I've ever had (1) There was an extreme amount of air blasting down on me the entire night. I wore my coat the whole night and wished I had a scarf to cover my head. The air was so bad my eyes felt dry. Not a comfortable environment at all. Air should be circulating, but there should not be forceful air in any one concentrated area. If I could have found someone to help, I would have asked, but that brings me to the next point. (2) The ushers failed. They were helpful in seating everyone at the beginning of the concert. However, by 9pm those ushers were nowhere to be found. The ushers did absolutely nothing to keep people out of the aisles. There was a couple that kept moving from seat to seat in the front. The ushers never asked them for their tickets, they would just move them once a ticket holder discovered they were sitting in their seats. Ridiculous. People were standing right in front of us, standing on the side of us, even leaning over us and the ushers did absolutely nothing. One audience member kept trying to ask people to move, but that didn't work and nor...

My visit to NRG was for the hobby train show with my 3 year old who is a big fan of trains. My rating is therefore based on the train shows use of the arena however I will attempt to keep it arena based. Pulling up to the arena was easy, the parking is very well marked and very easy to identify which direction to go and to ensure the directionally challenged find there was attendants flood the parking lot and very readily available for questions. The box office to purchase tickets was easy to find also, it was just outside the entrance to the show. It was cash only so a little inconvenient as its rare to use cash nowadays. Another usual box office site was a sign just out the window asking for tens and fives because they were out of change. Again this could have been a train show practice. The arena was as expected concrete floors, diy booths and overpriced souvenirs. One thing that wasn't expected was the lack of food options in the arena. Literally the was one food booth. A Tostitos stand with nachos or hotdog options. This event is one that one could spend all day at So one food booth was...