Shrieking, jumping up and down, “thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!!!”
Now that’s excitement…and that’s what happened when we told our girls, ages almost 11 and 12, that we were taking them to their first big concert – The Black Eyed Peas.
After a two hour drive, an assortment of fast food from Mr. Sub and McDonalds, and listening to Julia’s Black Eye’s Peas playlist all the way up, we navigated the throngs of teenagers and parents, climbed way up to our seats without renting a mountain goat, and settled in. Little did I know that we were sitting on top of a million watt sub-woofer. Apparently, a sub-woofer is a musical instrument these days – this was a new discovery!
A sub-woofer can also be used as a medical device to provide an unrelenting, ultrasonic bowel massage. At least that’s what it felt like. Now I know why all those sideways cap wearing youngsters in their beat up clunkers and blinged up Cadillacs are listening to the beat just a pounding through their reverberating wrecks…the poor souls might just be constipated.
After the warm up band, who shall remain nameless because I can’t remember their name (but they sure did a great job of warming up the sub-woofers) finished their fortunately short set, the stage was transformed for the Peas.
The Black Eyed Peas put on an excellent concert and had the whole place jumping up and down (it could have been the sub-woofers). Fergie is gorgeous, talented and athletic. The flying motorcycle was very cool, Fergie was hot. I think there were some guys in the band, too. One of the dancers was even from Saskatchewan.
The blinking glasses were five bucks, t-shirts were a reasonable twenty-five bucks, popcorn was cheaper than the theatre, and you could use the bigger pieces for ear plugs. The kids had a great time and the performance was awesome. We headed for the car, kids giddy with excitement, our bodies limbered up from the acoustic massage.
Getting out of the parking lot was another story. They built this arena with a huge parking lot out of town where land was cheap. Apparently they saved even more money by neglecting to install sufficient exits. We sat in the parking lot for over 40 minutes. A great evening was slowed down significantly by a constipated parking lot. Apparently the engineers should have used a sub-woofer to help them design the parking lot!
We passed the time wisely as Anastasia told us the tour, called The E.N.D. tour, meant ‘the energy never dies.’ Perhaps not, at least until it gets to the parking lot!
Now, parking was free, so we got what we paid for. However, I would have been delighted to pay five or ten bucks for priority parking that included access to the exits within a reasonable amount of time.
In your business, I hope that the entire customer experience, from arriving, to shopping, to buying, to leaving, is choreographed as well as the Black Eyed Peas performance concert. Just don’t forget the parking lot.
Copyright 2010 Phil Symchych. All Rights Reserved.
