Laura C T.
Yelp
I'm such a loser, I just created a new venue because I thought RTH wasn't on here. And I spelled it "Thompson". Anyhow.
What's great about the place is location. It's right at King Street, and you can walk underground from St. Andrews station. Parking is available too at $10 flat rate in the evening. Actually for 2 people, it's cheaper/same as a round trip on the ttc.
TIP #1: go to the lower level parking and you'll find tons of spots.
TIP#2: park closer to the exit on the lower level you'll have to leave this way anyway
TIP#3: when leaving the parking lot, there are TWO lanes you can use, not just one.
The structure of the place is round, but with multiple levels. It's sad but sometimes I still get lost. The benefit is though, almost every door you can exit to the lobby no matter what. It's sometimes forgotten, and so many times the crowd is stuck in a bottle neck, but there's another exit right beside them. Today when we were leaving, there was clearly a traffic jam, but the usher did not point people out the exit right in the next aisle (nor did they notice). I walked right through, and found everyone stuck going one exit, when an empty staircase was facing them straight in the face. HELLO, PEOPLE!
Okay, back to the venue. There's a music store that sells overpriced classical cds. Who buys CDs anymore? My dad, that's who. But regardless, I think their prices here are inflated, but still makes money because people of a certain age won't care to find deals or get them on iTunes. TIP#4: check in to Foursquare and get 10% off your purchase
The bar people are nice. As with all music an theatre venues, TIP#5: Prepay and order your drink and snacks before the start of the show. It will be ready for you when intermission hits, and you won't have to line up (and you can score a nice seat by the window).
Inside, they renovated the place, got rid of the hanging glass ball, and put in some wooden acoustics. Other than that, not much has changed since I was coming here in the 90s except the amount of people showing up. Anyhow, the acoutics are really good, for music. There were hardly any mics tonight while the chamber orchestra played, but we could barely hear the concert master speak. In the program is says "Please avoid humming whispering or crinkly wrappers because our acoustics are so good" (or something like that).
The Program also says "do not lean forward or stand because it obstructs others view". I found the chairs really uncomfortable. They are too slanted back, and I end up slumping down, it's already hard enough to stay awake! But what is nice, is that the orchestra seating is slanted upwards. The back few rows of Orchestra are not so bad.
TIP#5: Apparently if you get there early enough youcan go to customer service and get an ObusForme backrest while supplies last. I want to do this next time, no kidding!
I feel like the place, no matter how much they try to modernize, something about it has it still stuck in the 70-80s.