The Catalyst — Restaurant in Santa Cruz

I have never felt so unsafe at a concert, and there weren’t even that many people here. For some reason, they were letting minos in. The headliner had been in a punk band, but he is now exclusively reggae and due to health concerns, he had to sit for the show.

Instead of reggae, they decided to have punk bands open and the children were able to run around in circles and burn off energy, while the adults went to a separate area with a bar and seating. Some people were not aware of the rules and tried to take drinks outside the bar area. Security informed them of the policy and most people apologized. Well this one bully shoved past security, without a hand stamp, drinking the entire night.

At one point, a very drunk man almost fell on me. They brought him a trash can to puke in, but they immediately walked him out. At this time, the bully KICKED THE TRASH CAN OVER and verbally harassed the security officer as he followed them out. I thought they would be gone for good, but they both came back. To the drunk man’s credit, he didn't cause any more problems and I didn't see him the rest of the night.

Most of the children left after the second punk band, but Augustus Gloop stuck around and kept drinking. At one point, he tried to start a mosh pit. Again, this was a reggae show. The bully was shoving girls around and security came and got him. Instead of kicking him out, they let him get another drink. He then brought the beer outside the bar area, when nobody else was drinking outside the bar and he still was not kicked out.

This is a small venue with no stage. The musicians are right there, a couple of feet from you. Augustus Gloop again comes stumbling out of the bar, shoving his way past the front of the crowd. While doing so, he bumped a backup singer's mic stand, almost hitting him in the face. The singer looked around shocked, waiting for security to do something as he continued his performance. Of course, they were nowhere to be found.

Mr. Gloop started shoving people again, trying to start a mosh pit (again this is a reggae act). As security refused to do atheir job, my boyfriend asked the bully to leave. The guy tries to start a physical fight and security FINALLY kicked him out. Other people apologized to me on his behalf, but the show was ruined.

We tried to speak with the manager about their lack of security. Instead of an apology, the manager tried to blame us!

At first he tried to say my boyfriend punched the guy, and was looking to start a fight. I am a lawyer and my BF is a disabled vet. We are both over 40. We were not “looking for a fight”. We were trying to enjoy a show we paid good money for. I told Mr. Manager this did not happen, I was standing right there. My BF did NOT punch this bully. He then said my BF "shoved him with a closed fist”. He was clearly making excuses for this kid.

Mr. Manager had forced us outside to discuss our concerns, and guess who walked up? The head of security was also there, but did either of them do anything to get him to leave? Nope! They just made more excuses while his drunk ass stood there talking shit.

The head of security finally apologized, but the manager continued making excuses and gaslighting us. We pointed out that the bully didn’t have a stamp, and the manager assured us he was over 21. How does he know this? Well apparently Augustus Gloop is the son of an employee!!!

So apparently, this club is just a giant playground for the employees and their kids. Screw their paying customers or giving us a sense of safety.

This place is just asking...

The catalyst is grungy, run down, and really not in the best place of town. It is really not the best place to be at night time, when you are walking back to your car. With that being said, it is the premier music venue in Santa cruz, this is where the most popular musicians will come, it is a santa cruz staple and has been for many years, and this is why I will continue to come to shows here.

The catalyst has a bar and pool hall upstairs

Downstairs they have a pizza kitchen, that also faces out onto the street through a pickup window. The pizza here is actually really good. Off to the left is the atrium, where smaller name bands will play, and the mainstage is straight ahead.

Once inside the main hall, there is a wheelchair ramp to the right to take you down to the main stage area (for handicaps I believe the ramp will also take you up to the balcony but now I can't remember if it is a staircase? I'll check and edit my review) the balcony on the left side is only a staircase. There are two bars in the main stage area, with at least one of them being a cash only bar. For some events they will roll out a pizza cart to the main hall, but often times you just have to walk back out to the pizza kitchen.

The sound system is solid, this is a great place to see a show forsure. It does get crowded, and there is usually just standing room only on the main floor, but there are some benches on the outer rim. The upstairs balcony has tables for seating.

The security here is a crock, most of the security guards are either hitting on girls, selling drugs, or getting drunk. Don't rely on the security to intervene if there is an issue. I have heard of many situations where security guards allowed people to get jumped and...

Arrived at the venue @ approx 8:15pm ahead of the posted start time of 8:30pm per the instructions on the confirmation and email printed ticket. When we arrived, the band was already playing. When we entered the balcony area for the "Balcony Reserved" tickets I had purchased (at additional cost), I discovered that not only didn't I have a reserved seat, but there were NO SEATS AT ALL available in the balcony area, they were all filled. When I brought this to the attention of the security staff, they informed me that they don't know what happened and that we would have to leave the balcony area. He didn’t even want look at the ticket I was trying to show him to prove I purchased 2 seats there. His only response was “You need to leave right now”. In fact, nobody at the venue seemed to care that there were no seats available in the balcony. I was unable to locate a manager and nobody would even provide me with the name of the manager. My girlfriend (who just had knee surgery and needed to sit down) and I were relegated to standing at the rear of the venue near the entrance/exit as the floor was completely full by this time. Because of her condition, we were forced to leave after only a few songs. On the way out, I asked someone at the door what time the event started that evening and they said 8:00pm. When I tried to show them the start time of 8:30pm on the ticket, without even looking at it he said "call e-tix". Totally indifferent/incompetent staff at the Catalyst and incorrect showtime information provided by e-tix, which precipitated the whole mess in the...