Constitution Hall — Attraction in Washington

The terrible rating goes to the venue.

First, Matt Rife was great!....but not without Constitution Hall trying their very best to ruin the experience!

1. We were advised to arrive promptly at 9:30 because it was raining and they led us to belive we'd have access pretty quickly. Upon arriving, I overhear an attendant saying, "this is gunna be a S show" as the previous crowd was getting set to exit. We have to wait over 30 minutes to even get to the entrance.

2. Finally, we get to the door that an attendant advised all of us to go to and they tell us that the line was for VIP only. Along with a large crowd, we are told to step aside... finally, they figure it out their mistake and let us thru.

3. They locked our phones up (totally fine and we follow the rule with no issue) and they were supposed to give us a "sticky note" with our seats hand written on them. They pushed us thru without the note and when we go to our seats, the usher tells us we can't sit without the note... We go back to the entrance we came thru and an attendant tells us we need to get out phones unlocked and go back out in the rain to stand back in line to get our tickets scanned again, but this time, ask for the sticky note... I refused to go back out, then we found another attendant who led us downstairs to unlock our phones to show another attendant our virtual tickets and we finally get our "sticky note".

4. When we go to buy drinks (I'm sober), I see they had Red Bulls, so I ask to buy one, but they told me they could only give me one that was mixed with a drink... really???

5. My wife bought a soda, but they poured it from a can that we suspect had been previously opened and used as a mixer. It was flat and tasted very strange, so wasted $5+ on maybe 8 oz of diet coke.

6. Paid top dollar for great seats, only to have an obstructed view. We understood that Matt was shooting his Netflix special, cool!.... but didn't know that there would be a large beam with a camera floating in and out of our view of the comedian the whole show..

This was the 4th show in the last two days for this comedian at Constitution Hall....I would have thought it would've been more organized and we would have been advised of an annoying camera flying in and out of our view of the stage the whole time.

Big fail, Constitution Hall!

First time visiting for a Louis CK live, and it was okay in some aspects and worse in others. We happened to have good seats on the upper tier that allowed us to look straight ahead at the stage without turning our body, but I don't feel like I'd enjoy it much sitting anywhere else especially in the back rows on the floor that looked flat with no incline (but I don't know for sure). Sound was pretty good, however you cannot hear anything from outside the room or in bathrooms bc they have no PA system .. really should. Drinks are CASH ONLY and god god are they expensive! ATM fees are $10! Literally we asked for an extra plastic cup as we asked for a whiskey and coke and he only gave us whiskey ... guess okay ... but still wanted a mixed and he said the empty cup itself would be $4 bc it's how they track inventory?! Also, even though didn't get what asked for, we tried to politely ask for the rest of the coke can at least so that we could drink some straight whiskey and then pour in some coke, but said no to that too. While I understand that the building is old, the Men's bathroom taps and soap dispensers didn't seem to work at all! Maybe didn't use it right but I messed with one or two and since couldn't immediately get it to turn on, I had to leave bc I was in a rush to get back as I was missing part of the show (bc of no PA system in bathroom again). Seat aisles and sections seemed very poorly labeled (not clear/obvious enough) as we actually had to ask for assistance in finding out seats. Lastly, as this performance was being filmed, if we wanted to walk to the bathroom during the show, we literally had to limbo duck under the giant camera boom weights to get off the stairs as the booms swung over the entire aisle. But to end on a good note, despite being completely unorganized, the entrance security lines did go pretty quick.

Decent venue that I'd return to if I had an excuse to. Three main complaints though;

-Getting to the bathrooms means descending narrow, winding hallways. The bathrooms themselves are also small and poorly laid-out for a building as large and grand as this.

-Though I didn't sit up in the elevated seating area (I was row LL on the floor) it looked like the people on the second story who were far from the stage had to angle themselves severely to see anything. It's quite telling how bad that angle is when the second story seats that weren't directly adjacent the stage were sparsely populated when the rest of the venue was mostly full.

-Either there was no grading on the floor, or it was insignificant. Regardless, it's harder to see the stage when you're seated so far in the back. In the end this didn't matter much because the concert also included video projections far above the stage.

Otherwise, the venue was nice. With concert venues, it's difficult to specify what a venue does well, so I'll reiterate that it was a good venue overall, it's just easier to note the bad than the good.

As for the concert itself? Five stars, easily. I came here to see "NieR:Orchestra Concert 1 2 0 2 4 [ the end of data ]" on October 27, 2024. The entire performance was amazing! So cool that Keiichi Okabe and Yosuke Saito came out to DC. We will always love you!!