Lyric Theatre — Attraction in New York

I wish I had nicer things to say, TL-DR it was an overall miserable experience with the overzealous security.

I hadn't been to a play in forever and I'm a huge Harry Potter fan, so my Father's Day surprise trip here should have been amazing, but it was ruined the moment I tried to step through the security screener. We drove from Philadelphia to NYC early that Sunday, myself, my wife, my son and daughter, and my mom. We went souvenier shopping, ate at the Hard Rock, even met up with my brother and his fiance, which were all awesome. Then when we tried to get in to the theater I was last in line and was stopped for having food in one of our bags. We had a TON of bags from shopping like tourists and I was like what are you talking about. We had stopped at the Hershey World down the street and bought maybe 12 bags of candy not even thinking it would be a problem, again I'm just a dumb tourist here but I was thinking these were souvenirs and not snacks to eat in the theater. The problem was my whole family was inside, I was stuck outside trying to talk to them over a crowd of a hundred people rushing in to get their seats, I couldn't tell who had what bags anymore, and I have 3 security people trying to push me out of line and into the street yelling at me that I'm holding the line up while my head is spinning trying to figure things out. They did get a manager come out and meet me, but I dont think she heard me at all, I would have happily paid to check the bag but she just kept saying I dont care if its a steak dinner you can't bring it in, I was trying to argue I'm not trying to eat 15-pounds of candy in the show, they're all just souveniers to bring home, sigh. My brother came back to meet me there to hold on to our bags during the show, but this was a ridiculous situation that should have been handled better, definitely my fault for not knowing but the security and manager really made me feel like crap and I couldn't even relax for the whole first half of the show.

There were lots of people getting there late and leaving during the show which was super distracting, way worse than the movie theaters I've been going to but maybe this is a NYC thing. The ushers will shine a flashlight right in your eyes if they think someone is on their phone in your area too, which again maybe helps keep the phone usage down but definitely an entirely different type of distraction. During the intermission my mom got in line to use the ladies room and never even made it to the bathroom before the second half of the play was ready to start. We got a fruit tray, popcorn, and a few Butterbeers for $50 (way more than I'd spent on all that candy they were so worried about), and I was so out of it for rest of the play I honestly could barely remember what happened, I just wanted to leave.

The actors were great, the special effects were great, but I don't ever want to go to another play again with these...

Positives and negatives:

This is a beautiful architecture theatre and cute outdoor lanterns that brought in the HP vibes. Staff was nice and helpful. We arrived an hour early for an 7pm show and waited on line for maybe 15 minutes before getting inside- not that bad. We quickly got on line for drinks and that went pretty quick as well which was good. For two mixed drinks it came to $48… pretty steep. The only redeeming thing about that is I can take the two cups home as a souvenir. There was a gift shop and I think 3 refreshment areas. The upstairs had two cute areas for pictures and two more downstairs. I feel like they could’ve made the area look a little more magical though. Great so the seats open at 6:30 so everyone is going in and finding seats and ours was ORCHESTRA row S 10 &12. Very decent view of the stage and the high of the rows were good so I didn’t have to dodge heads. The visual effects were great during the show- the aggressive fire lights sometimes were too bright for me to keep my eyes open but it’s wasn’t that bad. Everything else was horrible. The lines for bathrooms obviously bad. The small hard seats that feel like they are still meant for 1900’s … I thought they updated this theater? Doesn’t feel like it. I have so much back pain after a 3.5 hour show - had to awkwardly stretch my body out during intermission to cope. I didn’t ever have back injuries in my life and I still felt this way. Was considering leaving early because my partners body felt worse than mine since he has knee pain from how uncomfortable the seats were. I’m sure if you’re tall it wouldn’t be good for you either. The awkward pauses for the actors were leading me to be impatient to the plot and script. Sometimes couldn’t understand the words of the actors. The first half barely had any excitement and I was drifting off a little. Weird choice of actors - could’ve chose young actors to actually play Harry and Ron’s kids. They look like full on adults and it was confusing to the storyline since there were time changes in the play. Somewhat disappointing because I love Harry Potter so much. The storyline was decent because I got to see the future of Harry and their lives but I will never see a play there again because the seats do not make it worth it honestly. I am...

I’m reviewing this on the theatre itself, not the Harry Potter broadway show..

Upon entering the theatre, I was greeted by staff who helped me find where my seating was. The staff was overly friendly (in a good way) and kind and I had no issues with them. Afterwards we headed to our seats (H101 & H102) and the seats were so uncomfortable.. I can’t speak for the front row of the theatre but this seats were horrendous. So small and insanely humid. I was dehydrated 30 minutes into the show that it made it hard to focus and taking off my outerwear wasn’t a solution because there were no place to put them. From this seat, you cannot see the actors faces and when people sit in front of you, pray that they don’t have an Afro or some above average height dude because you will have to constantly have to lean to see the performance. During intermission, my partner and I headed to the bathroom on the bottom floor during intermission and saw that there was a massive line! I was able to go but my partner did not. Once the show was to start again, we decided to get some water because the air was so dry and humid so we went to the concession stand to purchase a bottle of water but we did not because it costed $13 and popcorn $14!! What the heck. I know this is the norm for any theater but come on, tickets are already as expensive as it is. For one bottle of water sold, the theatre probably makes the amount for 14 bottles! Ridiculous. Anyone who buys them is probably forced because I feel the humidity gives you no choice. Still, I did enjoy being there for the performance and spending time with my partner but I wouldn’t go again because of the issues explained above. Thank you.

*The photo shown below was around 30 minutes before the...