Beacon Theatre — Local services in Hopewell

My wife and I went for the first time a couple weeks ago. I'd been curious about the beacon for about the last 5 years. Unfortunately she works almost every Friday night so the opportunity to go together hadn't come up too often as that's when they seem to most often have shows. Well we finally decided she should take the night off work recently and just go see a show. Really glad we did. The venue is nice and clean. The restrooms are clean also. They actually serve the hard cider we like there too and have reasonable prices on snacks etc. We had a great time and definitely will be planning to go back next chance we get. The acoustics in that building are great and the staff does a really good job with the sound. The only thing I didn't like was the seats in the upper section didn't have legroom, but there were empty seats up above ours and the staff didn't mind us moving as long as we weren't in someone else's seat so it worked out good as there was more room where we ended up. I'd say this place is a lot like the national in Richmond but better. Yes it's a little smaller than the national but just better overall. We did enjoy the nostalgic feeling of buying actual physical tickets from the box office there so we have ticket stubs to add to our collection. My wife keeps them and has made collages she has in picture frames of all the concerts she attended back into the early 90's before we met. Anyway we really enjoyed the whole experience. It felt like a trip back in time a little bit in a really good way. Hopefully we can be there again soon. We also really liked that it's only a 35 minute drive from out in Dinwiddie where we live. We definitely want to support the venue so they can continue to be...

Our band Crystal Visions has had the honor of playing at the Beacon on three occasions. I’m also a patron and have seen many shows there. You couldn’t ask for a nicer venue and wonderful staff and management. I just saw a review that disparaged The Beacon and somehow our band was mentioned. I want to be clear that we are professional folks and take what we do seriously and treat our patrons and venues we play with utmost respect. We have not and would not disparage or risk our wonderful relationship with The Beacon. We do our best to visit and thank everyone who attends our shows but they must understand there are limits. To use and abuse our kindness to them by mentioning our name to try to make their point about a non issue makes me sad. I hope that the patron will reconsider their unkind words which mostly were untrue as we have not been hired by them among other things mentioned. I would have loved nothing more today than to see reviews from folks at the show who loved what we offered up heart and soul and the wonderful memories created but someone chose to take a low road. Thankfully our long relationship with the Beacon and the venue knowing us better than that has not been hurt by hateful, false words. Peace to all. We love the Beacon and can’t...

Attended the Delbert McClendon show. The doors were supposed to open at 6:30 only to stand out side in line for 1 1/2 hours. Once inside, waited 45 minutes more to enter the auditorium. The excuse given was that "Delbert arrived late and doesn't want people in the auditorium during his sound check." By 9:00pm still no show and the place was very cold. Some fool had turned the AC on. Besides that, over half the audience was drunk. As they had little else to do, but to keep visiting the bar. Maybe they were trying to stay warm?

By 9:00pm, my wife and I had had it and left. On the way out, I noticed that three sets of double door exits, on the side of the building had been barred, so they could not open. What a tragedy, if someone had yelled "FIRE" and most tried to exit thru those doors.

The next day, I learned from a friend of mine, who appeared with Delbert McClendon. That in fact they had arrived at 2:30pm the afternoon of the show to do the setup and the sound checks. But, the promoter of the show, to save money, had rented a digital sound board and mixer that no knew how to operate.

It seems to me, that until the powers that be, hire a someone with experience in running a venue like this, it will never be the success that...