Elsinore Theatre — Attraction in Salem

I give it two stars, not for the theater or the artist, but rather the lack of quality trained staff to ensure an enjoyable time for all paid patrons.

We attended the Jonny Lang concert on April 11th, 2018. This was our first concert at the Elsinore Theater in Salem, Oregon. The theater has been renovated, not sure when, but it is beautifully done.

We sat up in the top balcony, as we lucked out with aisle seats. We had a gentleman who wore a huge cowboy hat in front of us, which makes ones head 5 times bigger, so the view of the artist singing and stage was very limited. He and his wife couldn't stop recording song, after song, so basically we were forced to view their cell phones and his hat. He kept moving from side to side, so no matter which way you tried to adjust he was all over the place recording.

The reason for a "two star" review, is on the event description, as well as on the ticket, it clearly stated no recording including audio, but so many concert goers where recording, song after song, all the while the event staff were doing nothing. It made it "not enjoyable" when you see cell phones raised, blocking your view, giving off light, which only ruins the "experience" of sitting back, tapping your feet and listening to the music. The way a show should be. All you saw were cell phones. At one point an usher came up to the guy with the cowboy hat telling him not to record, it was in a middle of a song by Jonny Lang, needless to say that didn't go well, and right in front of us, so now we couldn't see or hear the show, about five minutes later I had to ask them to stop arguing with one another, and let us see the show. The cowboy after that just kept talking and flipping off the usher from afar.

Behind us sat 4 extremely tall and big country boys, their knees where pushing into our back seats, no fault to them. However they were extremely drunk, and kept going down to get more booze. These guys talked all through the concert, very loudly, at one point two people asked them to stop talking, but were met with rude comments from them.

The reason we didn't flag down an usher, it would make it uncomfortable if they thought it was us who got an usher, then we'd have to deal with an angry cowboy missing his hat, not being able to record or drunk country boys behind us who were rude when asked already to stop talking. Ushers need to be "aware" of obvious red flags by walking the aisles.

We won't come back to this theater. Our suggestion is to have the staff walk the aisles throughout the show periodically, looking for cell phones, hats, and people who like to chat, as there are things that don't belong in a theater. The overall experience is to let the artists music move you, forget your surrounded by others, but still respect others who paid to see the show without being...

I wanted to give it 1 star but the people who work there are nice, the band was good, and the venue has a unique look. That's where the good news ends.

The sound is the worst I've ever experienced. I can't believe that their sound engineer has any clue what they're doing. I am an experienced sound guy so I have a biased, discerning ear, I'll give you that...but this is literally the worst I've ever heard in my life. I spent the entire show with stank face and fighting the urge to go cuss out the sound person and take control of the board myself.

The speaker arrays are just effed. There's phasing issues and the subs are behind by at least 30ns. That's a lot of lag. The mids were non-existent. The highs of the hi hat and vocal S sounds were nonexistent. I couldn't make out entire sentences when the crowd was quiet, let alone understand a single word of what the vocalist was saying with crowd noise on top.

What a nightmare. Guys, train your sound person, add some acoustic panels on the inside, especially under the balcony where the sound spends days reverberating into and out of anyone's ears sitting there. You can't have a dance band and have no dance floor. That's just bad billing.

I'm so disappointed. I was supposed to have a good time with my wife on one of our very few breaks we get from family life...I didn't wanna spend it listening to nails on a chalkboard and leaving with nothing to show for it...

First and only time I've been in here was to see Steve-O on his Bucket List Tour in January. While the crowd for such an event might be a little more rowdy than typical the staff was very polite and helpful. (The crowd was actually really good too. Everyone was having a good time.)

The few Elsinore folks I interacted with were all very polite, professional and helpful. The gentleman outside helping folks in line be prepared to go in was very personable. The folks checking tickets seemed happy. There was a gentleman at the merch booth helping direct traffic and he was very polite and helpful. The lady throttling the merch line and directing traffic was doing so with incredible efficiency while chatting it up with everyone in line. The ushers were all great. Overall I was impressed with the staff.

The venue itself is pretty gorgeous to look at. Lots of intricate decor that I wanted to spend more time looking at but also didn't want to be the bottleneck in waves of people moving around. I will have to find another event there as an excuse to check out the building a...