Town Hall Seattle — Attraction in Seattle

There is a tradition in Mexico called Día de Los Muertos. Seattle is far from Mexico, but there are plenty of Mexicans here and many Anglos who, like me, are interested in what people around the world get up to. Traditionally, the celebration is on the 1st and 2nd of November. Since that was in the middle of the work week, the folks who put on the Seattle Catrinas Festival moved it to Saturday. Go ahead and Google Catrinas, they’re pretty cool. A friend of mine told me to get tickets a few weeks ago, it was good that I jumped on that because the tickets were all sold out well before the event. We got the VIP tickets so that we would not miss anything. They were $40 - not bad for the entertainment we got. In order to go, I had to break my rule about not going downtown. Things are not pleasant down there these days and it is worse at night. The bus dropped us on 2nd Avenue (Parking is a mess that I didn’t want to deal with). We walked up the steep hills to 8th. We knew we were in the right place because of the crowd of people wearing feathers and flowers and made up to look like skeletons. There was a will-call desk setup inside the front door where we presented ID to get our VIP wristbands. We also got tiny programs with text too small for my old man eyes. We asked around to find out that there was a show upstairs and food downstairs. We were warned to not bring the food upstairs. In order to get from one part of the event to another, you had to run a gauntlet of security people. Most of them spoke Spanish, but they did not have much helpful information. They looked like riot police in their menacing uniforms. I did not ask why they felt the need to be so intimidating. We went to the auditorium right away to get good seats. Our VIP wristbands got us into the best section. Good thing too, because the bad seats have pillars and are at terrible angles for viewing the stage. The seats are pew-like benches with comfortable cushions. The only problem with our seats were the obnoxious people who sat behind us talking loudly and banging into our pew. The indigenous dancers were cool, but the star of the show was the Mariachi band. They invited people in the audience to sing along and almost everyone did. I am going to have to learn those songs for next year. There was an intermission during which we were encouraged to go downstairs for food, drink and shopping. We decided that drinks would be good, so we went to the Otto Bar. I’m not sure who Otto is, but his bar is kinda lame. They had a short menu of drinks and a few tables that filled up right away. We had Margaritas de Sabor. Finding out what sabors (Flavors) were available was tricky. We asked for a Mango one, but that detail got lost as the order was passed from cashier to bartender. Also, pay in cash. Each transaction gets a $3 service fee if you pay with your card. We polished off our drinks, did some shopping and headed back up to see traditional dances from each state in Mexico. The costumes were amazing. The entertainment was finished around 9:30. Walking back down the hills was easy, but led us into the nightlife of 2nd avenue. The homeless and drug addled own that area at night. We kept together for mutual defense, but no one actually bothered us. The bus smelled of urine but our trip was short. As terrible as getting there and home was, Town Hall was nice. It is a beautiful venue and gets some interesting events. I hope Seattle gets its act together and cleans up so that I feel comfortable...

This beautiful space has just reopened after a two year renovation project. Sadly that renovation did not, apparently, include sound enhancement for hearing impaired. We gave up tickets to a wonderful music event because Marylynn Robinson was "speaking." Sadly she did not speak. She read an essay from her latest book for over 50 minutes. My husband and I wear hearing aids. Both Of our aids are extremely good and both have loops to enhance sound in public spaces. Of the entire reading we could grasp occasional words but no entire thoughts. At the end there were questions posed from two different mics which again we could not understand. At least when the author responded, her voice was energized and we understood her answers.

We may be wrong but we could also not find an elevator. We asked but no-one seemed to know where one was.

So one of our favorite authors did not speak her ideas. She read to us. We could have read her book and gone to the concert. I have tried to find a way to write directly to Town Hall but did not find one.

I'm pretty sure that hearing people there could hear but, again, we don't want to be read to and would not have attended if the presentation would have indicated that would be in that format. Nor was there very much reaction to the reading.

From our perspective, this was a total disappointment and a great...

The preparation for Kathryn Bouton's presentation on September 15 was an embarrassment to the presenters, Ms. Bouton and Mike James and to the audience. If the intent had been a real time demonstration of the difficulties hearing impaired people endure, the presentation was a great success. Why would you put Ms. Bouton, who is profoundly deaf, on stage to answer questions with no provision for her to hear the questions? By the very nature of the topic, the audience was largely hearing impaired folks so it was especially important that the presenters receive a bit of instruction on proper use of the microphones. The instructions on proper use of the microphones came from one of the questioners. The Town Hall acoustics are terrible even for folks of "normal" hearing and presenters proper use of microphones is thus important for all of the audience. As a Town Hall member, we all owe Ms. Bouton an apology; her frustration was palpable and as our guest we owed her graciousness. Town Hall and its mission is an outstanding venue and the staff can do...