I graduated last Monday from UCR and the behavior and treatment of the staff and security from this arena was BEYOND appalling. Everyone was unnecessarily rude, ignorant and unhelpful to a dangerous degree.

I graduated with two degrees and invited many family members, many as far from 400 miles away. The security did not allow any sort of posters, flowers, balloons, noise makers or decorations for absolutely no reason. We were sent a list of restricted items beforehand of which said absolutely nothing about restricting these things.

ALSO, turns out they were SELLING FLOWERS INSIDE. I cannot believe the greed that tried to pull at a COLLEGE GRADUATION. All the tuition that we paid and we can’t bring flowers bc you wanna sell them instead? Are you serious?

My family brought a 20”x30” poster with my name and face drawn on it, two bouquets and a singular balloon. When my family asked why they could not bring these things in the security was EXTREMELY rude. When my family said it was not on the restriction list the security laughed at them and said they’re not letting my family in with the decorations. When my family continued to ask for clarification they were ignored. The security guards laughed and rolled their eyes to each other when my family continued to ask for clarifications. Literally mocking my family not being allowed to come inside with non restricted items to celebrate a college graduation.

My grandma is a double leg amputee in a wheelchair. I emailed the arena 3 times with no response in regard to handicap seating that my gma NEEDS. There was an elevator to the third floor for handicapped seating but to get to the handicapped seating there were stairs. The staff directed my family to this elevator and seating. When my family came back to tell the staff that the area was wheelchair inaccessible the staff was completely unaware and then did nothing. When my family asked what to do the staff literally said, “idk” 🤷 . There were designated handicapped spaces on the second floor but there was only room for one handicapped person and one other person which would mean my gma would have to be nearly alone during my graduation.

My family happened to find some random spot by the stairs, not even seating. Just some random spot behind some rails. It was absolutely not designed handicapped seating nor was it safe. There were no chairs so my family asked staff if they could move chairs to sit w/ my gma. Staff said they would get them some chairs and never came back. My family had to stand to be with my gma.

Now to me, as the graduate. I put in a LOT of effort to find out where I was going to be seated so my family could be on the correct side. As we were lining up in the back I asked every person I could find. I kid you not, every single person had NO idea what was going on. A friend of mine happened to find a map by the grace of god and when I approached staff to help me decipher the map not a SINGLE person knew what was going on. Almost EVERYONE I showed the map to have never even seen it before!

After literally asking every single staff member I could find I was eventually told which line would be on which side; left or right. I figured out the map on my own and sent it to my family to be on the right side. Here we go down the idle to sit and they put me on the left side when I did ALL OF THAT to ENSURE that I would be on the RIGHT SIDE.

The speakers and sound quality were beyond horrible. The entire time there was a loud “BRR” over the speakers making it nearly impossible to hear at times. Randomly there would be a loud siren or a big boom from the speakers. This terrible audio quality happened throughout the entire graduation. Some poor graduates didn’t even get to have their name be heard bc of the random sirens and booms. You can BARELY hear my name being called in the recordings my family got but you can definitely hear the “BRRR”

The biggest day of my life will always have the stain of this arena due to the absolute unprofessionalism, incompetence, lack of preparation and ignorance from the staff.