GIBSON AMPHITHEATRE DISCRIMINATES AGAINST BACKPACK WEARING CONCERT GOERS (The Very Same Stuff in a Big Purse is OK!) FOR THE DOWNLOAD 2008 CONCERT

GIBSON AMPHITHEATRE RULE DISCRIMINATES AGAINST

BACKPACK WEARING CONCERT GOERS

(The Very Same Stuff In a Big Purse is OK!)

by Christine Trzyna

Yesterday I ended up feeling like a dumb schmuck (one of those Yiddish words that is loose in LA vocabulary) for trying to attend one of those multiple band concerts that we suspect to be yet another pay for play venue in La La Land, at GIBSON AMPHITHEATRE, which is approached through UNIVERSAL CITY WALK. We were to attend a long day of music, the DOWNLOAD 2008 concert put on by LIVE NATION.

I and a slightly mobility disabled friend decided to SKIP THE OUTRAGEOUS PARKING RATES AT UNIVERSAL CITY WALK COMPLEX and take the sluggish Sunday MTA which was a 40 minute ride for us. Then we waited for one of those TOURIST TRAMS to take us up, up, up, the steep hill to the entrance of the Universal City Walk et al entrance. We then strolled the mock country lane up to GIBSON AMPHITHEATRE, where we were just on time for the 1:30 concert. Then one of those "Sorry, I'm just doing my job," clerks told us that I/We could not enter because I was carrying a BACKPACK.

I told her it was fine with me if she went through everything in my small green pack, which contained a comfortable pair of shoes, a jeans jacket, a small cosmetic bag containing eyedrops, lipgloss and a money bag with a few bucks and a photo ID. She told me that I could go put my backpack in a locker. The locker location was somewhere out there- by now the concert had started- and the CATCH is that it would cost me $5.

Now I asked, if I had the same stuff in a big purse or bag if then it would be OK to carry it in, and she said yes... So of course I asked for the name and location of the head of Security, and wouldn't you know it, these days clerks do not know such names. They do not know the company they work for, how to locate their immediate supervisor or boss, or who really writes their paycheck. But this isn't their fault. They aren't supposed to know or they'd be trained to know.

THIS WAS THE BEGINNING OF THE NONSENSE WHICH I SWEAR COMES TO THIS: I AM NEVER EVER GOING TO UNIVERSAL CITY WALK OR THE GIBSON AMPHITHEATRE AGAIN, not for ANYTHING, not for FREE, not to see a movie, nadda! It was a waste of time - an afternoon of rare time off, money - my eco-correct friend and I skipped the high cost of gas and parking but you might not. I'm appalled at the extremes that the Patriot Act has apparently taken things; apparently terrorists use backpacks (as if any terrorist doesn't know this and hasn't switched to something else to carry explosives in). I'm even more appalled at the typical UNIVERSAL CITY WALK - TOURIST TRAP ASSOCIATED GREED!

My friend and I walked to an INFORMATION BOOTH and repeated our story. We were given the phone number of a guy named Fred. We called Fred on the cell phone. He wasn't in but SOME OTHER GUY, warned by the Information Booth Guy that he was about to get an "angry" phone call, did speak to me. I never raised my voice. I did say I was going to BLOG about this. I explained that I had been advised that carrying heavy sacks off my shoulders was not a good idea so I had switched to using a back pack. I had no problem with the back pack being inspected. Fred's SUBSTITUTE said that it was on the WEB SITE. But we didn't get our tickets from a WEB SITE, they were handed to us COMPED by a mutual friend. Nothing on the ticket says "NO BACKPACKS" or anything about ANY limitation when it comes to what you bring into the GIBSON AMPHITHEATRE. We said that. We asked WHO this STUPID RULE originated with. We were told THE PEOPLE PUTTING ON THE CONCERT - LIVE NATION.

Well, we got nowhere, and we were both disgusted. We considered hiding the backpack in a bush somewhere but we just went home and BITCHED to EVERYONE WHO WOULD LISTEN.

Just to make it WORSE, who do we meet up with but a couple guys - associates of ours- who said that they had that very same day just walked right into UNIVERSAL STUDIO TOUR without paying, and with heavy army store green sacks hanging off their shoulders!

WHERE'S MY FIVE THUMBS DOWN ICON WHEN I NEED IT?