Motley Crue — Sunday 19 June 2005

 

Further to our letter dated 23 June I have now had the Opportunity to discuss your concerns with the duty management team and I would to share my findings with you. If I may I will take your points in order.

1. The Wernbley Arena Pavilion is a multi-million pound fabric tensioned structure built to ensure that we are able to provide a live entertainment venue in Wembley while the Wembley Arena undergoes a substantial refurbishment. Whilst the Pavilion may be an interim replacement we feel that we have been able to incorporate all the features you would expect to find in a more conventional structure and indeed have successfully hosted many other events since its opening in February.
The promoters of the event, in conjunction with the bands management and production teams hire the venue from us and are responsible for all aspects of producing the concert.

 

The promoters select the venues they wish to use; they then price the tickets and appoint ticket agents to sell on their behalf. The venue has no input into these decisions as this is the promoters’ revenue.

 The quality of the sound produced at Wembley is something which is beyond our control. The sound engineer is employed by the band and directly controls the sound. Extensive sound checks are carried out before each performance and I can only assume that the sound engineer was satisfied with the results of these checks. I shall certainly forward your comments to the promoter of the event in order that these can also be passed on to the sound engineer concerned

 

2. As a ticket agent we make every effort to ensure that our guests are supplied with all information available to us with regard to their seating area. The floor blocks are sold as flat floor seating and this information is printed on the front of all tickets. In addition we print a warning on the reverse of each ticket advising customers that patrons may stand In front of them.

The use of screens at the front of auditorium is a production decision and many companies do tour with them. However on this occasion although the production company did erect video screens they were utilised only to show pre-recorded video footage. The screen at the mid point however, is a house screen supplied by the venue to enhance the experience for patrons at the rear of the auditorium, this footage is not pre-recorded but is filmed and projected live.

3. Stewarding staff worked very hard to ensure that each patron was in the correct seating area. Unfortunately as the evening progressed many patrons returning from purchasing refreshments chose not to wait to be reseated but instead seated themselves incorrectly.
With the house lights down and the concert in full swing the operational reality is that it is impossible to determine where this domino effect began and to reseat all patrons without causing considerably more disruption.

 Please accept our apologies f or the lack of understanding you encountered from a member of our stewarding staff. This is unacceptable and I do apologise for the behaviour of the individual concern.

Naturally, we will ensure that these training issues are addressed. I can assure you that our staff  are carefully briefed on their role and ‘customer care’ is stressed at all times. It is very unfortunate that the attitude of one member of staff should give such a poor impression of the Pavilion, as on the whole, we are proud of the very high standards of service offered by our stewarding staff I am pleased to note that our front of house manager was able to reseat your party.

 

The Wembley Arena Pavilion is a non-smoking venue; however experience has shown that It is extremely difficult to enforce this rule when members of the audience choose not to comply with our policy, as was the case during this concert. In circumstances such as these we have reached the working policy that to eject all patrons who choose to smoke would be impractical and unreasonable. The extreme difficulty is managing a crowd where audience members have different expectations of what is acceptable behaviour in consideration of those around them and I appreciate that this is all the more galling to the vast majority of customers, such as yourself, who went outside to smoke.

With regard to production team members smoking in the mixer, these personnel are not employed by Wembley and would not react to the requests of a member of the stewarding staff. Clearly this should have been brought to the attention of the management staff who would have insisted on enforcement of the policy. This will be reiterated at all future staff briefings.

 

4. I fully symapthise with your views regarding the temperature within the Pavilion during Motley Crue. The Wernbley Arena Pavilion relies on air handling units to extract the air within the auditorium and Introduce fresh air from outside. Unfortunately the ambient temperature outside was extremely hot on that evening. I accept that the information supplied on our website could be misleading and as a result of your comments this has now been changed and all other promotional literature will be reviewed. We are currently investigating other solutions with regard to cooling and I would offer our sincere apologies that for you the venue was too hot. I am very grateful for the feedback you have given. I have passed this on to our technical team which will help greatly in balancing the temperature at future events.

 

5. The tariff for Orange Car Park (the VlP/Priveged Parking) on Pavilion events is £15 per car per day (a flat daily rate) and this car park is immediately adjacent to the venue. There are two other car parks available on the Wembley Complex within a ten minute walk, Red and Green, and these attract a lesser tariff of £10 per day.
These tanffs are checked regulaity and have been found to be comparable to other London venue car parks.

 

In view of the above I do not believe a refund to be appropriate on this occasion.
I would like to thank you for taking the time to share your observations with us. Feedback such as this is invaluable to us in discussions with our clients for future events. Please be assured that a copy of your letter has been passed to the promoters of the eventn for their information.
Once again I am sorry that your visit to the Wembley Arena Pavilion should raise such issues. Yours sincerely

 

Janet Viazzani
Managing Director