Toomer, the security company hired for this event, ruins this experience…read more
Harassment, yelling, lying, apathy and disregard for decency-and you get to deal with it for more than 2 hours as you wait in line.
Expect constant anxiety as you have to deal with these people yelling at you nearly every minute for those 2+ hours.
Caleb, the manager, obviously did not have a handle on his crew nor have any idea how to manage or plan for the event or handle the people attending.
His team spent the night yelling at the crowd, barking orders for them to, "GET UP AGAINST THE WALL" in the way you'd hear a cop yell at a criminal he's been chasing down.
You heard this yelled at you non-stop for over 2 hours, even if you were already up against the wall.
We were also constantly told to turn around and walk another 300 feet down the block. But this was done all through yelling, without any sort of guidance or order.
The result was each time we had to shuffle the line down the block, groups of people thought they would take this opportunity to cut in line. The guards didn't care about this at all, and only cared that you were against the wall.
When it was pointed out that 2 people joined the end of the line after it had already been closed, Caleb put the responsibility of kicking them out on his guard, rather than being a leader and taking the responsibility.
We watched him go back and forth with the guard, not taking any action, even when the guard obviously didn't want to deal with the stress of something a manager should handle.
We were also blatantly lied to.
We were originally in a 100+ person line. Caleb told me that if we had IMAX tickets, we would get in early, and the IMAX holder line only had 20 people.
Instead the security team began with the 100 person line, and then had the preferred line for IMAX holders go after them.
I brough this up to Caleb only to have one of his guards cut me off, obviously trying to win brownie points with the boss.
The guard lied to me, saying, "those people who went in aren't going to go in before you, they're just going to another line to wait".
I could look through the fence and see them getting to play the games. Just lying to try to get people to shut up and obey.
It was another hour after they got to go in before we even got to the gates.
Eventually, when we got to the gates to enter, we were individually handed waivers to sign. This was a huge bottle neck in time.
Why not just have people sign the waiver while they're already in line? You make us wait long enough as it is.
Even though I bought my IMAX tickets, they didn't even check that. So anybody could have gone in, even though the security made such a big deal over it.
They also never checked our ID, even though we also heard them make a big deal about being over 17 or having a guardian over 30.
The team also had no idea anything about the event. People who came after the lines were closed were told by the guard, "you can't come in, this is it. You'll have to come back next year". Next year? Really? This attraction was open for at least another week at that point.
This attraction desperately needed a marketing team. The real nightmare was in how the customers and potential movie goers were treated.
Because of the horrible way the security team behaved towards me and the other people, I actually wound up cancelling my IMAX tickets and have a general apathy towards the IT franchise. This has left a bad taste in my mouth.
And in the future, if I see any event with Toomer, I'm just going to leave for something better.