I saw a post-hardcore band here and while I enjoyed the show, I found Docks had some very strange and frustrating organisation and design issues which haven't left me with a great impression.
My main complaint is the cloakroom/coat check, which was an absolute nightmare and definitely the worst I've ever encountered. As soon as I had my ticket checked and went through the main door, bang, I was already in the cloakroom queue. And not only was this queue soul-destroyingly slow, it snaked around the whole venue, and that's not an exaggeration. It turned left past the bar, the merch table, another bar, the toilets, then it turned right up the stairs, went across the entire upper tier (going past another bar, naturally) and finally turned right down half a flight of stairs. When I got there, it was two guys in a 1 metre squared hole in the wall. For a 1,000+ capacity venue, that's absolutely ludicrous. By this time, I'd been queuing for half an hour and had missed the entire support slot, even though I was in the queue when doors opened.
Another peculiarity was the standing area. Naturally it was riddled with mosh pits, which was fine for the most part. However, there's some funny tiered standing areas at the sides which are incredibly hard to see in the dark, resulting in a fair amount of tripping as the crowd churned. Luckily, everyone was quick to help each other up, so it wasn't a massive issue. Just something to watch out for.
I'm not sure I'd come back here unless I was really keen on the band. And if I did, I definitely wouldn't bring a coat. read more