Revival Event Venue — Restaurant in Toronto

I want to start by saying that I normally love attending concerts at this venue! I went to a bunch during a trip I had here in 2019, and now, in 2021, I’ve moved back and was looking forward to returning to Revival for another show.

I’ve been legally going to bars and concerts for the past 5 years, and I’ve never had an experience with a security guard that I found inappropriately confrontational like this:

I had recently arrived and was standing in line, waiting to get inside. It was moving slowly due to the venue being at capacity, they could only let someone in when someone came out. I wasn’t inebriated/ confrontational in any way, and this security guard and I have never met before so we have no history of any unpleasant exchanges.

There are two things I think could have put him on edge:

First, I am friends with the people who organized the event that evening, and they had placed my name on the guest list. A friend of mine who was working that night came out to help me jump to the front of the line.

Second, I moved from Alberta one month ago, and have an Alberta Drivers License that I cannot switch to an Ontario Drivers License until I receive my Drivers Abstract in the mail. My current AB Drivers license was recently renewed, and its design has been updated from the last one I was issued in 2017. Perhaps it doesn’t look like Alberta IDs he’s seen in the past.

I hand it over and right away he did not believe it was real. Instead of quizzing me on the information by asking me to recite my full name, address, postal code, eye colour, etc., he abruptly escalated the situation by exclaiming “This is a fake license, the plastic is too thin, it’s not real!”, and started bending it so forcefully that I IMMEDIATELY felt uncomfortable. This is a legitimate drivers license, so I said “Please do NOT bend it like that”. He momentarily stopped and I hurried to get out a second ID of mine, my Alberta Health Card, which has no photo but does include my full name and birth date on it. He began bending my ID again in the same manner to show another security guard, and I said again “I do NOT appreciate you bending it that way, that is my legal, government issued ID”. When I got out my Alberta Health Card, he promptly attempted to reject it by demanding I show a different piece of ID with my picture on it.

I’m not a student, so I don’t have a second piece of photo ID in my wallet. The only other photo ID I have is my passport, which was at home. I finally ended the situation by offering, without prompt, my vaccine passport, which also has my name, birthdate, and province of origin.

How was this behaviour acceptable in any way?

-He didn’t follow any professional protocol to verify my knowledge of my own identification -I had to ask twice for him to stop physically mishandling my ID -He was prepared to reject two pieces of legal identification -I couldn’t reason with him because he wouldn’t make eye contact or speak directly to me throughout this interaction, his efforts were exclusively directed towards convincing the other security guard that my ID wasn’t real

I don’t know if he was just having a bad night, or if he was still being trained, but I felt disrespected. Please have the security staff review their training on verifying ID, and practice non-escalating...

Feb 1, 2020 - warm with some snow - I went for the night of "Suah" for a friends birthday. It was a packed night. Coatcheck had no more hangers even though they did have space. Many people were stuck with their coats. Including one of my friend which she lost it in the venue.

I was looking for the coat. I was asking one of the servers of table service and she told me to wait as she had a shot with the other two bartenders. She comes to me after I call her and I ask her if the venue has a lost and found or a place where they would put stuff on the floor. She responded by stating that I will have to wait 30 min so that the place gets cleared out and start searching. Not a very useful answer however there was truth on her words bit my friend's item was still lost. We eventually gave up on the coat, it was probably stolen.

I went to the bar at the end of the night to ask for water for my friends and myself. The female bartender was getting ready to leave before the guests in the venue. She dismissed me by gesturing me they were closed. Of course I knew they were closed I was asking for water. She would have known if she would have not assumed what I wanted. Immediately after, both bartenders had a nightcap and left with people still in the venue and with their mess on the bar. I CONSIDERED THIS VERY RUDE.

The bar backs came from a door and started cleaning the mess. They were more useful than the bartenders since they were handing out water to whoever requested it.

NOT IMPRESSED BY THE SERVICE however the latin music was great and the venue was really good at holding a great...

We had a bit of a weird experience here. I was in a wheelchair due to an accident but we had tickets booked months ago so we inquired about the venue's accessibility and the person on the phone was super supportive and said to arrive early so we can be let in before everyone else to climb the 7 steps and find a proper seat as the venue is not accessible yet (apparently to do with heritage). Upon our arrival, the door was open and someone kinda said we can come in but when we were attempting to get up, it sounded like we were not supposed to yet, and we were told the person we talked to on the phone was not responsible for the show tonight anyway. The irony is that we first had tried to reach out to the show managers via Eventbrite about accessibility but had not received a reply at all, hence had then called the venue directly. Things cleared up after a bit and I found a perfect seat, but folks, you need to get a handle on accessibility. Soon. I barely was able to make my way to the washroom due to the arrangement of tables and chairs. And while you get locks for the bathroom stalls, consider removing the mold in the sinks... On another note, the sound through the loudspeakers was WAY too loud to really enjoy the show. I hate sounding like a negative Nancy but the reality was so far away from the expectations. Ultimately, this venue is not the prime location it's...