Knitting Factory Reno

This is a review of the Knitting Factory as a venue for live theater, which I didn't know they were capable of doing until a week ago! It's great to see them really expanding the type of entertainment they're offering.

Here goes...

When I saw Avenue Q was going to be playing in Reno, I was giddy with excitement about an opportunity to see a live musical performance here in Reno. Then I realized it was at the Knitting Factory, a black box type venue known more for hosting music more than any other type of performance art, and I was all of a sudden hesitant. I had no fear the actors would put on a great show, but I wasn't sure if the venue could keep up with them.

Three cheers to the Knit for setting up seats with great viewing angles of the stage. There wasn't a bad seat in the house, and we were just about front and center. I loved the show and my time watching it, but as I've experienced here in the past, the sound leaves a little to be desired. There were many times when it was hard to hear the voices of the actors on stage over the music, and I don't know if that's a sound board error or an acoustics issue. Either way, I found myself leaning over to my fiancee, like an old man losing his hearing, asking her what they'd just said. Sometimes she knew, and sometimes we both guessed until we figured it out through context.

While the guessing game and acoustic challenges were annoying, I'd say my experience at the Knit was A-OK and I would not hesitate to see another live theater performance there again. I'm glad they're bringing a variety of acts to the venue, and I look forward to what comes next.

I'm giving them an extra star because we showed up for the Johnny Cash tribute show on the wrong day, and the staff were very nice to us even though we were in line and knew something was really wrong when we were the only ones not wearing nose piercings, eyebrow piercings, tats covering our necks, or baggy jeans barely covering our ass cracks. "Sweetie, tonight's a heavy metal show - your show's tomorrow night!"

We came back the next day, the same staff kidded us about our mistake and welcomed us back.

Not a sold-out show, so there was plenty of room to enjoy the venue. Great that it was no-smoking (says someone who just quit six months ago), drinks were delivered to us fast and furiously, and we loved having so many TV screens to watch the guys up on the stage when we felt like kicking back at a table in the back instead of getting accidentally stomped on by drunk dancers up front.

I have to say I was a bit nervous, having heard someone had been shot in the alley the previous week, but security seemed to be in full force and the crowd seemed to behave themselves.

We went to see a local production of Avenue Q, which is not the standard type of performance for this venue. It is designed for bands with a standing room only mosh pit on the main floor. The floor was set up with chairs for this performance.

The space is large, but not overwhelming, with an enormous bar. The large stage is raised with an impressive light and sound system. It is not designed for theatre type performances, but was adequate for the performance we attended.

A big plus is the very friendly, enthusiastic young staff at Knitting Factory. I had called ahead about tickets and the young lady who answered was very helpful and said it would be a little cheaper to buy at the door, but to come early as seating is first come first served.

We were able to get seats in the middle about six rows back from the stage. We had no trouble seeing and hearing all the activity on stage. The seats were not the most comfortable and I imagine the people towards the back may have had a harder time seeing the stage.

They have beer and mixed drinks available. The prices are a bit high ($7 for a 12oz cup of Icky).

There seemed to be some tech problems during the show mostly with the actors' mics and some feedback through the sound system. The lighting seemed a little awkward and it took awhile for the house lights to come up during intermission.

Overall, this is not the ideal venue for this type of show, but it did not impair our enjoyment of the performance. I would come back here again depending on the show.

This place has seriously gone downhill in the last couple years. The acoustics are so bad I think my ears are still bleeding. I've been to four big name concerts here and it's all the same: way too loud, tons of feedback, underage drinking, and weed. As an adult I get patted down, carded, and treated pretty much like crap by the door staff. Meanwhile, teenage boys and girls are waived through, sneaking upstairs, drinking until they are falling down stairs and spilling their drinks on us, and oh yea, openly smoking weed.

Look, I don't hate on the weed culture but if this is a non-smoking venue, maybe uphold that? My favorite are the kids with bottles of booze they smuggled in while I'm paying almost $20 for two well vodkas including a tip. It really is ruining the experience for the people actually spending money in your establishment. If you want to be the underground cool place for 19 year old kids to get drunk and high, you're succeeding, but they don't spend any money there, and those of us that do are over it.

Pretty sure I just attended my last concert at The Knit. The second star is strictly for the bands you brought in to town, but since you can't really hear them play, that doesn't matter anymore. Not worth paying $100 each to see one of your favorite bands only for the terrible design of the venue and horrible acoustics wash out the vocals to where it sounds like bad karaoke at your house.

It's just one giant room. There's no flow-through for the meandering crowds. It's all just one big, long, irritating room. You're either being crushed in the front or bumped into by passing patrons in the back.

Cheap, huge, strong drinks. Bigger than normal-sized shots. I got impossibly hammered here, but was frustrated with the layout.

I'll probably go back because they host good shows.

We came here to see Zedd perform this past weekend. It was epic.

There was no line to get in by the time we had got there. Yes!

The lights and sounds were stellar. This venue hosted the awesomeness that is Zedd perfectly.

There's two floors, which is pretty cool. The top wasn't very full when we went up there. It was nice to get a different perspective of the show.

Another plus was that when we were outside in the smoking section, the security guards weren't super strict. They just made people with drinks stand near the door, but still be able to talk to their friends outside. They didn't yell at you or be super mean like a lot of security guards I know.

We had a great night at this show, and I would love to come back to the Knitting Factory for the next time they host someone good.

Where to begin with the love for this spot?

How about with the ease of getting tickets for any of the shows? The box office here opens at 6pm, unless otherwise stated. If you need tickets at any other time of the day, night, you can always go across the street to the Cal Neva. They sell Knit tickets 24/7.

The bar staff, are all professionals, and VERY good at what they do. It doesn't matter who's pouring - Cary, Tricia, Dena, Ann Marie, Christy, or Matt - they have you covered. This team remembers faces, and the drinks associated with 'em. Kudos to this team!

If you haven't taken the time to check out the menu The Knit has, you're missing out. I'm not a red meat eater, but I have friends who are. They've had the steaks here, and love them. If meat's not your forte, no worries. They offer salads and many other delectables that are sure to please your palate.

If there's ever a problem, with anything, ask for management. Gary is the GM, Cisco is the Asst. GM. These guys have been in the game for a while and know how to handle many obstacles that come their way. If you choose to put this place on blast on here, WITHOUT going through either of them first, then clearly you've missed out on an opportunity to enjoy the rest of your evening.

This room opened doors on 12/31/2009 and hasn't looked back. They continue to bring top notch, big names through, while offering a very intimate setting. Some of the best shows have had as little as 200 people (Sick Puppies, COLD, and Pendulum) and some shows have been stacked to the gills (Alice in Chains, Social Distortion, Michael Franti, and Skrillex).

If you still haven't been here, it's high time you check out the calendar:

http://re.knittingfactory.com/

and come see a show!

Like this venue. Intimate and yet large enough to get a real concert experience. They have a small menu for food served all through the show. The sight lines are good. The drinks don't seem to be watered down and the sound is just great. I like it.

I am being generous with a 3 star here because, rating the Knitting Factory is like rating the only restaurant in your city. There is very few places left in Reno that have decent shows on a regular basis and the Knit is one of them. I say that is "A-OK" because of the lack of alternatives. Otherwise it would get a 2.

The Knitting factory has some great shows but the venue is really lacking in a matter of design. The shape and layout of the building just doesn't seem to be ideal for a concert venue. It is a long rectangular shape with the stage placed at the far end of the building. The bar runs along one of the long walls adjacent to the bathrooms and staircase to upstairs. With the stage being on the end of the narrow rectangle, it creates a battle to get a decent distance to the performance.

You enter the building through an entrance in a shady alley. Not only does this make the venue less appealing to some people but its also poor marketing on their part. If the entrance and line were out on Virginia Street by the arch, it would create better publicity with the bright lights and iconic structure nearby. Having the entrance on a well lit street could also make patrons feel safer.

Sound quality here is not very good either. At times you can hardly understand the lyrics. It's really disappointing.

I appreciate the fact that we have a venue in Reno which brings shows to our area, we would not otherwise get. Unfortunately the place is way too much of a dive for me to really enjoy going here. If they would at least invest a little more money into the sound here, it would make a big difference. I have actually chosen to not see shows at this venue just because of sound quality.

So the sound quality here is odd. We watched the same concert at two different locations, so it's easy to compare.

At this location, I couldn't understand what one of the acts was saying, seriously I understood none of the words. I was wearing hearos Rock & Roll series earplugs, and chalked it up to those at the time as I've never used that type before. At the other venue, I wore the same earplugs and understood the vast majority of the words he said. So for the most part, it wasn't the earplugs (although side note, I highly recommend Hearos High Fidelity over any other type of earplug for concert going)

The show was sold out and the venue was much to tight for the amount of tickets they sold. There would be no dancing, in fact, there would be no moving, every person that had to cross the crowd to get to the restroom was an ordeal for both that person and the crowd.

The crowd was surprisingly rude in a variety of ways. This is by no means my first such show, and I've been to the two co-headliners for this particular show combined, probably in the ballpark of 40x, so its not a "oh gosh, occasionally folks push or mosh at a show"

Take note, the exact same 3 bands at another venue in San Francisco 2 days later yielded much more polite attendees, a much easier time moving through the crowd, less sticky, less aggressive, less so drunk you're worried they are going to puke on you, and less drinks tossed and splashing us by mistake. At the SF show, maybe one person slightly annoyed me. At the Reno show, there were plenty.

I get that some of these things are outside of the venues control, but many I believe are exacerbated by having folks so uncomfortable. 20 less tickets sold would have made all the difference in the world.

If the person who threw the drink (at someone else, but nailing us as well) hadn't been stepped on and shoved so many times, would they have thrown the drink? If there was slightly more space, would the dudebro have bothered to actually say to us "I'm going to stand where you are standing now" and literally force his way into where we had attempted to stand to stay out of the way of folks who wanted to get somewhere? Would my toes have been stepped on so much? Would people with long hair have been flpping their locks into your face? Would I have had other folks sweat all over me? Probably not. They sold more tickets than they functionally have capacity for, if anyone was being honest about it.

Their audio control guys have a little cage around their equipment, and the crowd was so large and so tightly packed, the barriers ended up getting moved back like 2 or 3 feet on the side that wasn't secured down. This wasn't from anyone intentionally pushing it, it was from people pushing through the crowd, forcing people into it. This is really oddly placed, in the middle of the venue. Not middle back, middle MIDDLE, as in half the crowd is standing behind it and not because they don't want to be tightly packed, but because there is no other option.

There is no place to sit, unless you want to go up to the balcony and not see any of the show. The balcony allows just a handful of people to go up and get a view pretty much the top of band member's heads. And you know, that might have been better than the backs of strangers heads we got to see instead, while being sweated on, and being hit with drinks, and hit in the face with strangers hair.

As it stood, we watched very little of the actual show because we spent so much time doing problem avoidance.

All said and done, would I go here again? Yes, IF there was no better venue option within 4 hours of me and this is a band I really wanted to see OR if I thought it wouldn't sell out yielding a bit more functional space.

I would not however, attend this venue for a band I consider a "maybe".