So tonight I’m attending a concert performance of noted semi-local popular beat combo Pop Will Eat Itself at noted local concert hall the Hare And Hounds.
The ticket and Facebook event says doors open 8:00 and the Facebook event says it ends at 2:00.
What neither say is what time the live music starts. I’m going to the event for the live music, I’m not going to the event to listen to a compilation CD before the live music starts; being a weirdo I have a limited number of friends so I’m going on my own, so unless it turns out other people I know / people who are in that limited number of friends are also going I’ll have nobody to talk to before the live music starts. I get that pubs want me to drink as much beverage as possible, but I want to be responsible for choosing how much and when I drink my beverage without having the pub try to manage me into drinking more of it. I want to arrive at the venue ‘just in time’, ie I want to arrive at the venue in time to get through all the entry procedures, get some kind of beverage to drink, and choose a place in the room to stand with about 5–10 minutes to spare before the live music starts; I’m not unreasonable, I’ll even accept a 15–20 minute window.
What I don’t want to do is arrive at the venue at 8:00 to find the live music doesn’t start until 9:00 (or worse, as once happened arriving at the venue at 8:00 to find the live music didn’t start until 12:00; at least I attended that concert with a friend, and it turned out to still have been the best concert I’ve ever been to), but similarly I don’t want to arrive at the venue at 8:30 to find the live music started at 8:30.
What is it that the people who put on concerts find so difficult to understand about what to me seems to be a simple and reasonable requirement for them to be transparent about what time the concert actually starts? Am I actually being less reasonable about this than I think I am?