Howell Opera House — Attraction in Howell

The Howell Opera House is a gorgeous location. We had our wedding there this past January. Our photos there are beautiful and our guests had a wonderful time. That unfortunately is the best I can say about the venue, because the successful event occurred in spite of the abysmal, unprofessional staff that were a stress and hindrance to every part of our process. I'm giving it two stars instead of one simply because the venue itself is so gorgeous. The site manager was extremely unresponsive unless a payment was due, in which case she would call my husband two times a day asking where the check was. We agreed on a deadline to be done with rehearsal, but when we arrived for rehearsal an hour and a half ahead of that time, she informed my family that this was unacceptable and we had to be out within half an hour. The wedding day staff seemed downright irritated at our presence and created many roadblocks in our day including locking us out of our prep space with no advance notice, stopping our pictures in the opera stage halfway through, and refusing to let us use the kitchen facility. On top of it all, we paid an additional 30% on top of the rental fee for the space for all of these "services." One staff member told our catering service to call in additional help (that wasn't needed) without consulting us which lead to additional charges. Bottom line, a wedding in this space will give you beautiful pictures and a fun guest experience - but the experience for you and anyone helping you will be one of suddenly changed deadlines, hostility, and...

The venue was nice in lower level. However the upper level was rented to us for the wedding ceremony. When we first visited to look at the venue my wife asked about heat and lights. She was told “yes no problem “. On the wedding day I asked about the heat and I was informed there was no heat or lights and that they never even have had on wedding upstairs. After an argument with the lady that was working the gentleman that was also working plugged in three lights. Also I was approached about only having 20 guests upstairs I quote “like the Contract says “ my wife informed them that we were told we could have 32 . The staff seemed to be bothered by us asking for anything from them. It was a wedding with...

I hope they are able to restore this historic site. The performance we attended (Heywood Banks - - our favorite comedian) was in an open room about 75 by 50 feet. It would hold 200 to 300 people. The acoustics were disappointing as we couldn't here the performance between very well between songs. I think that it was partly that Heywood Banks was not close enough to the microphone and partly that I was in the back of the room. A better microphone would have solved the problem.

The owners of the building are very friendly and helpful. They greeted us at the door and found a way to let in other people in my group who had to...