Hub 757 — Local services in Suffolk

This is a great venue. It's visually appealing. I held a concert here, and all of my guests were very impressed by the facility. You can't beat the price. With all of that being said, I'm sure this is an amazing facility for banquets, conferences, weddings, and many other functions, but they were completely unprepared for my type of event. The Director is not at all knowledgeable about anything regarding a/v, and would always refer me to the a/v guy who would go weeks without responding me. When I would tell her about the lack of communication she would make it seem as if he operated in his own lane, and like she never saw him. I made initial contact with the venue over 3 months before the event, I paid the non-refundable deposit, had one meeting with the a/v guy to discuss my needs and tour the facility, I paid the remaining balance, and then I didn't get any responses from him until a couple of weeks before the event when he denied my request to meet to finalize things for the show. Then 4 days before the event he emailed me to ask if I received the fee sheet for a/v needs. I said no, and asked him to resend it, and although he said he had prepared and emailed it, he could not find it to resend, so he sent me a basic email with a list of fees. What was worse was they could not see why this was an issue, and tried to act as if it was somehow my fault, or as if I was trying to get out of paying them, because I voiced my displeasure about not receiving these fees until days before the show. They had months to send it, and the communication issues were all on their end. After we came to a compromise on what services I would pay for on the day of the event, we ended up having to bring and use all of our own equipment. We set up everything up ourselves, meanwhile, the a/v guy was in the back on his phone, or chatting with friends who were there (including the director), or nowhere to be found at all!!! All of this while collecting $35/ hour. After deciding to just go ahead and pay to use their wireless mics so that we could make the show what we envisioned, we were told they did not have enough to accommodate us, even though the number of mics were listed and included in the fees that were sent. I was also told hours before the show that we would not have any video. Although I was asked to send the lyrics, we were told hours before the show that we had to put our own power points together if we wanted the lyrics displayed. All of these things were presented to me in the tour, and some added to the fee sheet, but suddenly no?. Fortunately one of the staff members did come through for us, and did the lyrics. The final straw though was after going back and looking at the video of the concert, I noticed the lighting did not change. Not one time. The same green background the entire show. The house lights were turned on, and at one point I even had to have the host to ask for those to be turned down, but that was it. I don't understand why I needed to pay $35 per hour to a lighting for them to do absolutely nothing. Or for an a/v guy to do nothing for about 4 1/2 hours prior to the concert. The only one who earned their money that day was the multimedia (lyrics) tech. I've worked in churches for over 20 years, and for most of those years I was one of the few people trained in my field, so I absolutely understand that everyone may not be a professional in the area they work, but in this case their personnel did not match the appeal of the venue. They did not deliver on most of the things they promised, nor did they do what they were paid to do, so I'd take that into consideration when you schedule your event here, and consider hiring...

We attended a step show this weekend at this facility.

Pros:

The facility is beautiful. The decor was very well done and I can see it could be versatile for a variety of events.

The seats were very comfortable which is very important with an event the length of this one.

The bar area where concessions were sold was spacious and allowed everyone to be served quickly.

Their was a staff member in the bathrooms keeping things tidy and clean during the whole event which was both necessary for the number of people present and wonderful.

The parking lot was clean, well maintained, and well lit.

Location - the building was close to shopping and other amenities, but not so close that traffic was an issue. Perfect location for this type of facility.

Wish list:

Use of built in sound system - Apparently the rental didn’t include use of the equipment in the auditorium, so the dj for the event used his own speakers, I imagine it would have been a MUCH smoother process and sounded much better if the built in equipment/speakers could have been used. Tried to post a video of to show how awful the sound was, but for some reason I don’t have a video option for this facility.

Bathrooms - There was plenty of room in the lobby for vendors to set up. I do wish there had been separate bathrooms for teams to get ready in, instead of the same bathrooms the audience members were using.

Access to power outlets - Would have liked to have had access to power outlets, at least along the walls of the auditorium, particularly the back wall with the stadium seats. When you are at a 7 hour long event, eventually your phone will need to be charged.

Stage size/shape - The stage while beautiful, is not as large as some of our teams could have used. Some members got hung up in the back curtains during their routines bc they didn’t have enough room for their spacing.

Lights - Not sure who was in charge of controlling the lights, but there were several instances where a team needed lighting help and someone from the host team was scrambling to figure it out. It would have been nice to have had a representative from the building manage this. Also, in the middle back row of the stadium seating, the back lights shine directly into your face, leaving it a little difficult to see the stage without a bit of a glare.

Trash bins outside - would have been convenient rather than only inside.

Cost prohibitive- I don’t know the cost of using this building, but I know that our tickets for this show were the highest we’ve ever paid, so I wonder if the rental was truly worth it in the long run, but it was beautiful and overall enough space for the program to...

We just completed our company All Hands meeting for the second year in a row using Hub 757's facilities. We have 25 employees and used the giant Gathering Room for our full-group sessions along with 2 breakout rooms--James and Nansemond--for our small group work. Just like last year, it was a phenomenal facility for our company event. Bonnie and Janna provided excellent support during planning and execution of the event. We were especially appreciative of the monitors with our company logos, the clearly marked rooms to guide our employees to the right place, the counter space in the Gathering Room for supplies and food, and access to coffee and ice in the kitchen. I highly recommend Hub 757 for your company events. It is neat and clean, modern yet welcoming, and has a really nice variety of rooms that fit a range of needs for a corporate client. Thank you,...