Von Braun Center — Attraction in Huntsville

On the third Havoc home game of the season. Which was on November 16Th 2018. We have our first issue of the year. The first interaction with the VBC staff is parking. Which is the problem here at the VBC not because there isn’t enough but because the parking personnel are mostly incompetent and no or little understanding about how to operate their facilities. Mostly the problem is with the South Hall Parking Garage. Here is the problem in a nutshell the South Hall Parking as about 500 spaces, with plenty of handicapped spaces at both ends. The Broadway Theater League (BTL) during their events required about 250 of these parking spaces for their Patron and above season ticket holders. Which in anyone’s mind would leave about half of the parking structure left. Wrong! Now comes the Huntsville Hockey fans. Some of us purchase season tickets in what is called “Ice Suites”. These come with perks that Mr. and Mrs. Jeffries have provided to us. They have worked very hard over these many years as the owners of the hockey team and with the VBC management to help provide perks to the Ice Suites season Ticket holder. One of these perks is ICE SUITE Parking Pass. This pass is valid only for the South Hall Parking Garage and on space availability basis only. So, when others have an event would assume that there would be about half of these parking spaces left for the Ice Suite parking passes. WRONG again! The park staff rather than marking off the spaces that are required they close the entire garage. Putting up signage that states that the garage is full. Then turn away all the people with these Ice Suite passes and feel vindicated doing so by saying “there is NO availability”. When in fact there is plenty of spaces. I have pictures of an empty parking garage including many handicapped spaces when we were refused parking because the supervisor and the person in the booth both lied to us and stated that there were NO handicapped or any other spots available. We had to turn around and find other parking. The reason I mentioned handicapped parking spots is because both my wife and I are retired military disabled veterans. There were no handicapped spaces available where we finally parked. Plus, we had to walk a greater distance to get to our game, this is not easy by any means when you have a disability. The owners of the Huntsville Havoc Hockey have worked diligently to provide Huntsville with a quality and currently the only professional sport team in Northern Alabama. The Huntsville Havoc has set the single season attendants record year after year in the entire Southern Professional Hockey League (SPHL) (10 teams) plus providing the city with 2 championships within 8 years. Including 2018 when we won the President Cup which to the SPHL is the same as the Stanley Cup to the National Hockey League (NHL). But somehow the team and fans are still treated by the majority of the VBC staff as second-class citizens. We are sent to our practice arena (which holds less than 500 fans) to play SPHL opponents whenever there is any function at all the Propst Arena. Including play-off games for the league championship. So, we are treated badly by the staff at the VBC including parking where the staff cannot take the time to count parking space and leave the rest open for the avid hockey fans of Huntsville. And are reprimanded by security staff whenever we complain. I talked to Mr. Mark Hastings that evening where he stated in front of many people including security staff that Havoc fans (even Ice Suite) have NO FREE PARKING. Mr. Jeffries and the Havoc front office seems to think that the Ice Suite Parking Passes are valid except when there is no space available. The fans of the SPHL Champion Huntsville Havoc and the game of hockey itself provide a huge revenue stream for the VBC. We fill the 6000+ seats in the arena for many of our season games. This should allow us some perks. Allowing the few perks that we get would not only help the Havoc fans but the VBC as well. By providing more...

The VBC has plenty of awesome events, but there are several problems as well.

The parking situation is a nightmare and the VBC staff could care less that it is a catastrophic problem. They have about 10% of the parking they need and it creates a horrible backup of traffic any time there is a decent-sized event there.

We go every other week for hockey games and one time there was a staircase that was so slick people were slipping as they walked up or down. I immediately told the staff after my teen daughter completely slid down the stairs and they did nothing. Didn't even seem concerned at all.

Every other hockey arena in the league has ushers that prevent people from walking during puck play. The VBC does not and despite several complaints from a large number of Havoc fans, they still haven't changed this. This means that any time someone gets up (dozens of times each period), we can't see the game. Imagine buying season tickets(several hundred dollars a seat) or paying $18-$25 for each single game seat and then having half the game blocked.

Then there's the problem of the VBC booking out the arena in April so our team can't even have home ice advantage for the playoffs. We've consecutively been in the playoffs every year with only a handful of times in the 20 years of our existence that we haven't made it (at least 10 years ago). I understand how business works, but if you have a successful team that has played in the playoffs 9/10 times over their 20 year existence, it doesn't make sense to book out your arena in April.

Havoc has had 14 consecutive games sell out so it's clear we've outgrown our current arena at the VBC. Hoping this means a new...

Went to an absolutely AMAZING DannyGo show here with my 2 year old son & husband. We drove 4 hours for this event & unfortunately had some ticket issues. Our tickets weren’t scanning correctly, we were literally about to miss the beginning of the show, and we were starting to get concerned because this was NOT an “us” issue. Everyone was super friendly & helpful, with the exception of ROBIN, an older blonde lady with a prosthetic leg. She yelled at me for “rolling my eyes,” told me she didn’t have to let me take in food I had already purchased THERE, & made me feel very threatened like she was going to literally ruin our entire experience because she was having a bad evening. So I happen to see a girl who had also been having ticket issues once we get seated and she told me the same lady had been EXTREMELY rude to her and her daughter as well!!!! The security guards didn’t know her name they just told me at the end of the show to go tell “Mr. Taco” my issues; however, by the time we were leaving he had left as well. Had I not been so excited about this show for my son and myself, this night would have ended very differently. Robin needs to get herself and her disrespect in check. Idk WHO she thinks she is. (Robin- you’re lucky I really wanted to see this show because I can think of a lot of things I could have done with that...