Social wise, I love a night out at a concert or at the theatre. Live entertainment is the best and I am particularly lucky to live in a part of the country that does have some good regional theatres. We also have one of the biggest concert venues nearby which is Resorts World in Birmingham NEC.
Resorts World is a fantastic venue as you have not only the arena, but food hall, restaurants and Resorts World shops. Quite the day/night out when the right entertainment is on.
Over the years, my wife and I have seen many excellent shows and gigs at this venue that include Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Snoop Dogg, Pet Shop Boys, Little Mix and various Disney on ice shows. More than I can recall.
This same venue also has quite a few decent shows coming up and we have tickets for Rick Astley/Belinda Carlisle in March, Girls Aloud in June and Peter Kay next year. Hopefully, I will also get tickets for The Corrs/Natalie Imbruglia show which is later this year I believe.
For our visit in March, we will likely get there for mid afternoon and find somewhere decent to eat before the gig. For this concert, it will be interesting as we have the nose bleed tickets at the back. I am sure that we will still enjoy ourselves but have previously been sat no more than mid way down the arena. Certainly for Girls Aloud, it is near front centre and I was really near for Snoop Dogg as well. However, I will come on to costs shortly…
While quite a few shows already booked to look forward to, one thing that is currently lacking is stand up as I still have a long wait to see Peter Kay (March next year). I need to try to book some other comedians and I see that Rob Beckett has tickets on general sale from today. I think he would be great live and we have been lucky in the past to see a few good comedians like Jimmy Carr and Michael McIntyre.
Of course, all these large gigs come at a cost these days. Certainly prices for concerts are very much on the increase like everything. Starting price tickets at arena shows that used to start from about £35/40 at the back can be from about £70 upwards now and a hundred or a lot more for a decent seat. My daughter would love to see Taylor Swift and that is a good example of crazy prices. Would so love to be able to take her but hundreds to get a ticket is a bit extreme. I am not sure what they were originally on sale for but certainly expensive prices now show in search results on Ticketmaster etc.
Talking about Ticketmaster, I have not used them very often but when I did, I hit the classic issue of when a large gig was going on sale, their servers went on melt down. It took me hours to secure Peter Kay tickets. Still, they are not as bad as Ticket Factory and their outdated website who manage the official bookings for Resorts World.
Thankfully as a fan of magic, prices are still relatively cheap. I have a quite a few shows booked ranging from seeing Greg Chapman, Ali Cook, Matrick’s/Richard Jones and West End Magic (Oliver Tabor and Wayne Trice). Also intending to book to see James Phelan and Magic Inc. I have some magic conventions planned as well that includes the IBM British Ring convention in Llandudno this September.
My plan will be to review as many shows as possible on this site and magic related ones appearing on sister site Magic Seats.
What are your favourite venues and do you have any shows booked that you plan to see? Comment below.
