On December 2nd, I went with three other people to the Vibrant Music Hall to watch Pierce the Veil, a rock band me and my friends enjoy. This music hall is brand new and is an exciting addition to a growing community.
Construction began on Vibrant in May of 2022 at 2938 Grand Prairie Parkway in Waukee. The rock band NEEDTOBREATHE officially marked the opening of the venue on November 5th, 2023. The venue can hold up to 3,300 people, with 2,000 people allowed in general admission on the main floor and the other 1,300 seats scattered around the upper level’s fixed and private box seating. It has several bars, a kitchen and a VIP lounge.
When I purchased the tickets to Pierce the Veil, I was hoping to avoid a large bill. I wasn’t concerned about the view of the show in my cheaper seats because I thought that the smaller venue size would guarantee that I could both see and hear the band. Each ticket was originally marked as $77.62. After taxes and service prices, the cost was bumped to $95.36. In 2023, the average price for one concert ticket was around $113, so the prices at Vibrant seem on par with the rest of the world.
When the day of the concert finally came, we decided to show up at the venue around 5:30. The parking was very easy with no wait, although fairly pricy at $15 per car. According to the information on the concert site, the doors were supposed to open at 5 with the show starting at 6:30. Like the fools we are, my party assumed that meant the openers would start playing at 5 with Pierce the Veil coming on at 6:30. This assumption seemed logical as the venue promised that the show would end by 9 PM. When arriving at the venue, it was clear that we weren’t the only people who got confused by the time of the concert. Like us, most people showed up early only to have to sit for over an hour before the openers even went on. The time mix-up also meant that the show got done almost 2 hours after the promised time. Overall, I believe that Vibrant Music Hall could have communicated this information more clearly, and this confusion could have been avoided.
Due to the small size of the venue and the fact that the concert was completely sold out, the process of finding our seats felt quite cramped. Although the entrance line was short and fast, the merchandise line inside the building was slightly problematic. While we were waiting in line, the ushers made the whole line curve up a stairwell because there wasn’t enough space on the floor where the sale was happening. When we got to our seats, however, spaciousness was not an issue. The seats were fairly comfortable with full-size armrests and I had plenty of space to move around and dance if I deemed it necessary.
The employees of Vibrant Music Hall seemed very kind and professional. For the show that I attended, there were three openers before Pierce the Veil, so there were multiple set changes. These were always fairly quick and made the process feel very smooth. The employees who checked our tickets and helped us park were also friendly and efficient, saving us time.
One thing that was very surprising to me about this venue was the cleanliness. I have been to quite a few concerts and this venue was by far the cleanest. The bathrooms were well stocked and quite hygienic for what I would consider a rowdy group of fans. The seats were also spotless, and even after the concert, I didn’t see many things littered around the floor, which I feel is a common staple of concerts.
During the show, I was ecstatic with our seat choice. My group saved quite a bit of money by not choosing to get general admission tickets. The view from where we were, which was fairly close to the back of the venue, was clear and the sound quality was great. Since the venue is fairly small, I felt like I could have had great visibility in any location and the size of the crowd made it almost seem more personal.
The atmosphere in the venue had many pros and cons. When no one was performing, the lights on the bars would glow up, creating a unique halo. Even though the building experienced a lot of people and movement, the temperature was very comfortable, although that may have more to do with the weather at the time. However, the sound control was not ideal and could have very easily ruined the ambiance for others. During breaks, music would play over the speakers, but it was unnecessarily loud. As expected, the concert itself was at a tinnitus-causing decibel, but it would have been nice to give my ears a break between acts. This clearly wasn’t taken into account because the background music during these rests was so loud that a conversation with a neighbor was virtually impossible.
After what is a contender for the best concert I have seen, my party made the fairly short trek back to the vehicle. Based on all of our past experiences at concerts, we expected to be stuck in the parking lot for no less than half an hour. To our surprise, there was absolutely no line leaving the venue and we were back on the main road within 5 minutes. This is a major pro to this venue if you are an impatient waiter like me.
Overall, I was very content with my experience at Vibrant Music Hall. It was clean, inexpensive, fast and gave me a great view of a fabulous show. There are a few kinks that I believe they could work out, like the communication with the ticket buyers, volume control and general crowd control in common areas, but I think that all of these problems could easily be fixed by this brand-new establishment. If you are looking for a good place to watch a live show, I fully and wholeheartedly recommend Vibrant Music Hall.
