SFJAZZ — Attraction in San Francisco

To all event organizers who see this, please avoid doing business with this company. I came across this company listing hourly event rates for 2500/hr on Peerspace. The sales manager was not responding towards my outreach on Peerspace despite the account being newly updated. I then reached out outside of Peerspace to book and they vastly changed the event hourly price for the event 40k a day.

What was advertised as something that would be 22k a day, ended up being 40k a day. Since I needed a venue, I proceeded but I made it clear that was all that we budgeted for just 40k. Despite this, the managers wouldn’t allow me access to the breakout room and sales desk kiosk, when the contract does not deliberately say that those were un-included areas. In fact, the contract said that we would have access to the sales desk kiosk!

They then were trying to nickle and dime me to project on the walls. It was crazy since we gave them so much money for just a one day event and it still wasnt enough….. And because of this, I endured a tremendous amount of emotional distress as they constantly were trying to nickle and dime me.

I thought that on the day of the event that it would be over, but it wasn’t over. On the day of the event, the sales manager was texting me like crazy saying folks are complaining about Kayne west music playing and was demanding to charge another 2,500 for the event if we over ran on time. I can’t even make this stuff up! I made the decision to move one of the speakers to avoid over running on time, but the funny thing is that we never ever ran over time! We finished way earlier than expected so it was all just another attempt to pressure me!!! Let this sink in for everyone to know……….that these folks were so concerned nickling and diming me, they never even gave me a headset to even listen to my own conference.

At the end of the conference, we were closing up. I was helping to close things down and I asked for our chairs to be thrown out on the large dumpster on the back. After giving them 40k, they declined giving us the right to have access to throwing out items….and demanded that we pay them 2,500 dollars AGAIN to have items removed. I thought this was crazy since we are offering to do it ourselves and we paid everything we were obligated in the contract.

At this point, my mental health was seriously declining.I was sick, entirely sick of all of the unethical nickling and diming. After speaking to a different manager, I was told that they would take care of the chairs. My crew and I heard this and literally left.

Two weeks later, I received an invoice for 2500 via email by the same sales manager that was trying to nickel and dime. Clearly she had a sales goal and was upset that she COULD NOT MAKE THAT SALES GOAL WITH ME. I told off the sales manager since we paid the contract; and we all heard that they would throw out the chairs that they would not allow us to throw out ourselves! We did not owe them nothing.

Words of advice: SF Jazz if you’re not doing well, don’t try to nickel and dime companies to the point in which you’re emotionally harming folks! I will never come back to this place and I have told every event organizer how they treated me as a warning.

Please note that I’m not the only one star review that’s been saying that there’s a problem with the staff’s behavior at SF Jazz.

I may be the first event organizer to post here and speak out, but def won’t be the last if they keep it up. This place needs to go out of business! Bad sales tactics,...

My wife & I have been to SFJazz 3 times. The venue is awesome, the sound is great & most seats are good.

The first time we went was in 2019 to see Pink Martini. Everything was great!

The last two times were not as enjoyable. Both times we had issues with our seats. Note, you will NOT enjoy the Balcony seats, especially the Left Balcony and Center Terrace!

When we picked up our tickets to Elvin Bishop, we were placed on the end in the Center Terrace. These are located behind the stage. You have to literally lean over the rail to see down to look at the backs of the performers. The PA offers a small left & right monitor facing back and the audio is poor at best.

When we arrived to our seats, they were already taken by another patron who's ticket had the same seat numbers as ours! Hoping to be moved to better seats, they moved the people who were already there (separating them from their friends).

The last time there, 8/12/22 was to see Herb Alpert. My wife & I dressed up, drove into SF, enjoyed a fancy dinner nearby, arrived to the venue to be told they didn't have our tickets. Saying they were sold out and we needed to leave and write a letter to SFJazz. I produced documentation about our tickets and said we've come a long way and would really like to see the show. The woman 'helping us' tossed us two comp tickets and said, "they're lousy seats but you're lucky because we're sold out". I was flabbergasted and had to take a step back to gather my composure. I looked at her and said, "Really? Why are you being like this? My wife & I came to enjoy a night out". She extended her hand, snapped back & said "They're all I have, you don't have to take them" All this by the way, with everyone masked up and hard to understand.

My adrenaline spiked and my mouth got dry. My wife, noticing my frusteration, tapped my arm and said, "lets go in & enjoy the show". I smiled and asked the woman her name. She said Maria (however I was later told by a staff member who I told she treated us unprofessionally, her name is Janette. The staff person said 'she can be difficult').

The seats were again in the upper balcony. At least these were on the side of the stage so we could sort of see the band, but still had to lean over the railing. (see the attached photo, look to the left and see the people who had to lean over to see)

So, to Maria/Janette, I hope you find happiness and urge you to consider a job that's not public facing. To SFJazz, please coach her and maybe offer her some...

Very rude usher. I was initially going to let it go, but after checking other reviews, I realized this seems to be a recurring issue. Management claims to take feedback seriously, but based on my experience, it’s hard to tell if anything has improved. So here’s yet another report.

We usually print our tickets, but last time we forgot and had them on our phone - which shouldn’t be a problem, or so I thought. When we got to the gate, I had the barcode ready and zoomed in for easy scanning. The staff member scanning tickets just kept repeating, “I can’t read the ticket,” in an impatient and dismissive tone. I asked her what exactly she needed to see so I could adjust it, but she refused to clarify and just kept repeating the same line. Within less than 15 seconds, she gave up on us and started scanning the guests behind us, treating us like we weren’t worth her time. We were just standing aside stunned and it apparently confused the other guests too. She eventually returned, still offering no explanation, and after another round of ineffective communication ("I can't read the ticket"), just began zooming and moving around my phone screen herself. It appeared that she simply wanted to see the seat number - something she could have easily explained from the start instead of choosing to be rude and condescending. It left a terrible impression before the show even began.

On another occasion, an usher at the second-floor stairs insisted on checking our tickets even after I politely said we knew where we were going and thanked him. Meanwhile, he let other guests pass by without issue. I have no idea what the point of that was, but it felt selective and unnecessary, and again, left a bad taste.

We've been to all sorts of music venues and have never been treated this way even in the most crowded and chaotic place, and have never seen such incompetence in communication from customer-facing staff even at foreign countries where the staff barely speak our languages.

As an paying annual member who actually had been attending concerts more frequently lately, I’m now seriously reconsidering whether it’s worth continuing. It’s a shame that the music itself is overshadowed by such poor treatment...