Let me start off by saying that I really like the Palace Theater and I will definitely be back. That's not usually what you see from a 3 star review, but it's legitimate. I'm serious. The seats are usually really great. Most recently, I sat pretty far back with a general admission ticket and I could see the front very easily. The sound at the show wasn't the best, but it wasn't terrible by any means.
This review is mostly for the staff and general security at the Palace. We lost a phone the other night, without the "Find My Phone" feature set up, of course, and when I first approached a guy at a desk out front and a security personnel, they were both immediately a little rude and negative. However, the guy in front of the office was very nice once we started talking and he was very helpful. I wish he was the only person we interacted with because he was lovely.
We knew pretty much for a fact that my boyfriend's phone was still in the Palace, but it definitely could have been stolen. It was just unlikely and the staff said that people lose phones there all the time, that it will probably show up at some point especially when the cleaners come in.
We stayed a bit longer after the show to look, but we just couldn't find it, so we left them my phone number and went home. Thing is, it was the day before my boyfriend's birthday (and I made him go to this show with me) and losing a phone is stressful for anyone, but especially stressful if you're trying to get together with your friends for your birthday. No one could reach him and so I gathered phone numbers from friends of friends and tried my very best to get everyone together the next day (That's not the Palace's fault - they had no idea - this is just context and I'm on a roll).
So magically the next night, after calling the Palace a few times during the day to find out that they still did not find the phone, my boyfriend's friend gave us his old phone. Defeated, my boyfriend started doing silly birthday things with his friends and tried to forget about the phone while I set up this new/old phone. While trying to wipe the phone, I noticed that his friend had "Find My Phone" setup so I had an idea.
We wiped the phone and signed in with my boyfriend's google account, immediately setting up the find my phone feature and GUESS WHAT? GUESS WHAT!!! His old phone was right there on the app and we located it by GPS at the Palace theater. It was ridiculous. Technology is so cool (and so creepy).
Elated, and feeling like the best girlfriend ever knowing the phone only had 10% battery, I called the box office and let them know that we knew the phone was there. I asked them if we could please go in and look for it after the show since we can set it to ring with the app, but they said we were not allowed in unless we bought a ticket. This may be their unbreakable set of rules, but to be fair, we had purchased a ticket for the same show the night earlier and we weren't trying to do anything sketchy. Also, someone could have chaperoned us if it was a security issue.
I understood that they didn't want us to disturb the show that particular night and that wasn't our intention, but they would have rather left it up to chance that eventually the cleaners would come, that they could call us on Monday, but by Monday, that phone would be dead and our chance to ever find it, gone.
So considering we knew exactly when the show ended and when people would be done filing out since we went to the exact same show the night before, I rang the phone at that time with a number to call for the person who found it. A wonderful kind cleaner ended up finding it wedged between seats where they otherwise would never find it and we met up with him at the palace to return it...
...where we were met with a rude "can I help you" yell as if we were intruders by a staff member. Yeah so we got the phone back with no help from the staff and it was very frustrating (but also very cool). I understand that it's not their fault and that since this happens "all the time," they need to follow an exact policy, but with all due respect, phones are around $1500 now with a lot of personal information on them and yeah, it actually is a big deal, and if we hadn't rang that phone at that exact time, it may have been lost in the Palace forever.
So, some key tips here:
1) Great views from whatever seat
2) Hold onto your phone VERY CAREFULLY and NEVER LET IT OUT OF YOUR SIGHT
3) You can setup "Find My Phone" from another phone with your google account. Pretty dope.
4) You should still come here to watch shows.
5) Also definitely don't buy tickets online. They will charge you an extra $13 a ticket for no reason. Go to the box office in person.
6) When you call the box office, hit 0 immediately to speak with a person and not a robot.
Good luck! read more