Sears Centre Arena

I just returned from a Billy Joel concert at the Sears Center, 12/1/07. Joel’s show was good, but the acoustics were horrible, could not discern the lyrics, and the mix reminded me of concerts back in the 70’s at the Ampitheatre.
The traffic routing was a joke-entering the parking area took about 25 minutes because of the poorly engineered roads. The parking was worse. You have to park at Cabelo’s and wait for a shuttle school bus to pick you up. This took about 15 minutes, and it was pouring, freezing rain. The shuttle bus drivers didn’t even pick you up in the right order; apparently they didn’t have good communications.
The concessions were horrible, and the design of the lobby area for getting in and out of the place was worse.
Why anyone would design a concert venue this poorly in this day and age, and without adequate parking, is beyond me. Many of today’s concert goers are older, and we don’t appreciate being treated like cattle.
With ticket prices at or over $100 per ticket, and parking at $20.00, I recommend you wait till the show you want to see is elsewhere, because this place absolutely sucks. I’ll never go there again.