JOHANNA LYNN INMAN, Dana Point
Anyone willing to write an article about the thunder mess the Marriott held and called a concert on March 4? Every person I spoke with that was at the event thought it was awful. Tickets said we had assigned seating—not true; it was first-come, first-served (except VIP section).
Second event was scheduled to begin, we thought, at 3 p.m. Great, it will not be a late night. Sounds fun, right?
Well, there was no assigned seating—even though my own ticket said seat number 531—and the music did not begin until at 6:30.
Laguna Cliffs Marriott did a great job in capturing a bunch of people—would not say when the music was to begin and charged huge prices for the food and drinks they were selling. And get this, no money back when asked. So, one either stays or forfeits their purchased ticket and leaves.
Yes, I was excited to go to see Sheena Easton—her hit “For your Eyes Only” is a theme to one of the James Bond movies by the same name —and Taylor Dayne, whose song “I’ll Always Love You” is a popular tune to get married to.
Additionally, according to the event program, Sheena was to come on second, as she was the headliner. Truth is, I just wanted to see Taylor, who was supposed to come on first.
They switched that on us with Sheena playing at 6:30 p.m., and I don’t even know exactly when Taylor came on—she was the singer I was most interested in seeing—because after four hours of waiting, I left.
Additionally, I did end up in VIP, but VIPs could not sit down because they said they were doing sound checks for four hours, so again Marriott had a captured bunch of hungry persons. So, because we did not know when the music was, if we were hungry or thirsty—we couldn’t bring anything in, of course—we couldn’t leave the grounds because we didn’t know when the music would begin.
When I and many others shared concerns with a VIP manager, he only said, sorry you are not happy with the situation and walked away.
Next day, I saw many at the Baby Beach concert. Everyone said what a charade the Marriott pulled off.
