Crest Theatre — Attraction in Sacramento

This review is specifically for customer service. Originally, I was prepared to leave a tragic review, but the turn of events gave me renewed hope and support of the upper management team of Crest Theatre.

Back in February of 2024, my family and friends (4 adults and 5 young children) attended a Justin Willman performance. At the time (not sure if this has been fixed) it was really hard to read the seat numbers. Due to difficulty finding our seats on our own, we asked an usher for help. We were escorted to what we thought were our correct spots. However, in the middle of the show, we learned they were not all correct because another family let us know we were in their seats. As a result, two of our kids sat on our laps even though we paid for seats. At the end of the performance, we tired to politely speak to a manager (Aaron) about the situation. I explained how we were incorrectly placed in our spots by an employee. I asked if it was possible to get a refund for our two paid tickets. The situation escalated very quickly and unnecessarily. Aaron accused our judgement for not notifying management of the error in the middle of the show. He became very angry and agitated. He rudely said he would not refund us and at most would give us discounted movie tickets. In front of our entire family with young kids he called security on our group. We were asked to immediately leave. We were so shocked by the experience! It was terrible.

Within the same week, I sent an email letting upper management know of the experience. From my research, Aaron had treated patrons poorly before. I was not expecting much beyond an acknowledgment of our unsatisfactory experience. However, our family and friends were TRULY shocked and grateful for the response we received. In particular, Elliott (CFO) was extremely gracious, understanding, and apologetic. His empathy and customer service was above and beyond. When we weren't expecting anything back, he actually refunded all 9 of our tickets back. The rest of the team who were present on the email thread, Meghan (talent buyer/calendar manager), and Emma (box office coordinator), really helped restore our positive feelings about the Crest.

(side note: Elliott informed me that on that same night, Aaron had similar incidents with other patrons and was...

Saw Cody Jinks last night who put on a great show. The real gem of this place is the ceiling with is great looking detailed “crest”. Whether it was the theater's design or the crew setup, the sound quality seems a lot better than some of the smaller theaters back east.

The theater itself is like stepping back in time, which in turn creates some ups and downs. Seats and restrooms are all reminiscent of the 60’s and 70’s, but one constantly very long line for beer & mixed drinks at a quick setup stand was enough to not even pursue the idea.

Walking up to the theater there was a fight that had just been partially broken up (good start). Upon entering the place there’s no clear indication of security checks or who’s in charge. I almost walked right through the unmarked ticket scanning area until I saw the handheld scanner at the last second.

The seating, while I knew where I sat from the map, is setup in confusing order. All even numbers on one side i.e. C-20, C-22, C-24 instead of standard 20, 21, 22, 23, etc. The ushers were familiar with the setup, but didn’t do a great job in bringing people to their rows or direct which side was better to enter. Security was about as knowledgeable as the crowd in finding their seats.

The real disappointment here was the security company the theater contracts with. 1/3 of the show had people running down to the front and aisle ways to see the band closer and dance, blocking others, and creating tension in the crowd. Security did a poor job in setting the tone and let the gathering crowd get away with it until it came to pushing, shoving and fighting (even then arguing with them for an extended period rather than removing them). What felt like a never-ending distraction was bad enough for the singer to talk with security once and a few songs later stop playing in the middle of a song.

I’ve seen Cody Jinks twice at standing-only venues, and while there may have been one minor spat between two individuals, security fixed the problem immediately.

In summary: Good acoustics, lousy service, confusing seating, poor...

My daughter, finance and I saw Chris Botti on Thursday, March 30, 2023. The concert was amazing. The manager of the Crest is very rude, dismissive & I feel racist. My daughter went to the Crest to purchase the tickets and her interaction with Aaron (manager) was insulting and rude. Upon arriving there, Aaron wouldn't sell her tickets, saying they were not on sale yet with an extremely rude attitude. She went online to Event Brite & was able to purchase the tickets the same day. Her whole purpose of trying to purchase from the theatre was to avoid the service fees. After the actual Chris Botti show, I inquired about a refund from a previous concert (Gregory Porter, 9/20/2020) I had purchased tickets for which was canceled during the pandemic. I had previously tried calling, emailing and even going to the venue to inquire about a refund. When I inquired with Aaron, he told me this concert was 3 years ago & all refunds had been issued. I told him I never received mine & wanted him to investigate it for me. He had such an attitude and was very rude. I asked how can I get the information to him to investigate. He said to email him but the refund was already issued with a tremendous amount of attitude. I asked why he had such an attitude when I was only trying to inquire about the refund I never received. He eventually wrote his information down for me. My daughter also confronted him about his attitude. He then told us we needed to leave. I was very upset and felt he was being biased and racist. We are black, he being white, felt he could dismiss us for inquiring. We were not being loud & belligerent & I felt like he was treating us this way because of my race. It was very rude, disrespectful...