planetdan

Wednesday, August 06, 2008 :::

Lollapalooza '08 - The VIP Treatment

Truth be told, I'm a total wuss. The prospect of standing in heat and dirt for three days straight with thousands of sweaty, annoying hipsters (myself included) was all too unappealing, so I managed to talk Erik into upgrading to the VIP Lollalounge tickets at $850 a pop. I justified this with some lame/exaggerated math to insinuate that the three-day cost of regular tickets, booze, water, and food would equal something close to that anyway. Plus the cherry on top is that we would be guaranteed a good view of the shows. These all turned out to be false assumptions, for various reasons.

The VIP Lollalounge tickets were advertised as including the following:

• Lounge Seating
• Lunch and Dinner Buffets
• Beer, Wine, and Water
• Specialty Libations
• Air Conditioned Restrooms
• Viewing Platform
• Mini-spa Treatments
• Much more

It's true there was Lounge Seating, but not enough for all ticket holders. If you wanted a chair you pretty much had to arrive early and park your butt in one all day long. And the Viewing Platform was located directly under the blazing sun and practically packed with parked asses all day long as well, which was just fine since the actual "view" from the viewing platform wasn't exactly spectacular. In fact, the angle and distance made it almost impossible to see the stages at all.

The Lunch and Dinner Buffets were actually satisfying and tasty, although they did occasionally run out of certain menu items (such as tortilla shells for the fajitas) if you didn't arrive early enough, and the Wine and Beer were indeed free if you consider Bud and Bud Lite to be beer. Plus you were pressured to tip the servers, which turned the "free booze" into just a really good extended happy hour. The Specialty Libations were kinda barfy: basically unpleasant-tasting vodka or SOCO with your choice of Vitamin Water mixer. But they worked in a pinch.

The real problem with the booze is that they wouldn't let you carry it out of the Lollalounge, which meant you had to chug a beer in between sets and then hightail it back into the crowd and stand thirsty until the end of the show. After a while, we concocted the clever scheme of replacing the Lemonade Vitamin Water with vodka drinks in order to sneak them out of the lounge, which made me feel 18 again, and not in a good way. After charging someone $850 with the promise of free booze, this was beyond lame, especially since you could barely even see the show from the lounge itself, which meant you basically had to make the choice between drinking free booze and actually seeing the concert.

The Mini-Spa Treatments were ten minute back rubs, that also required gratuity, and as for Much More, I have no idea what they are talking about, unless they mean the free hats and mats that Blackstone Wine handed out.

The Air-Conditioned Restrooms were totally awesome.

All in all, the VIP Treatment was probably worth about two hundred extra bucks, and did very little to increase my enjoyment of the experience. In fact, my best times were had outside the Lollalounges.

And of course, I was secretly hoping there would be celebrities in there, because I can be a total gossip whore. Apparently god saw fit to deliver me a worthy celebrity sighting after all, because I caught a glimpse of this guy from The Daily Show and Upright Citizens Brigade:

Apparently his name is Matt Walsh and he was also in Old School, although for $850 a ticket you think they could have gotten one of the Olson Twins, or at least let me sit on Perry Ferrell's crusty old lap for a song or two.

Apparently $850 doesn't get you what it used to these days. I blame high gas prices.

::: posted by dan at 8:18 AM :: [ link ] :: (4) comments

Comments are Closed On this Post

4 previous comments:

How is it that you took 200 pictures and videos, 2 of which I said, "could you delete that?" and instead those are the two you choose to post?

By

Erik, at 7:30 AM

Erik -

He does it for the ratings.

By

Anonymous, at 9:06 AM

I had no idea anyone else remembered the upright citizens... now if you remember viva variety(included most of the cast of reno 911) i will kiss you!

By

sarah, at 12:30 PM

Not being a beer drinker, I have long been using the sneak vodka in the ole water bottle trick. Some places make you toss your "water" that you bring, so I like to travel with my friends who have strollers. There's no way a gatekeeper will tell a mom with a baby that she can't bring in bottles.

By

otimak, at 7:00 PM

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