Imagine someone stuffed the now-closed Gibson Amphitheater in Hollywood down into the floor of Planet Hollywood and that'll give you an idea of how this venue looks. The biggest problem I had was that once you start the descent into the pit where this is located, the crowd is just unbearably packed in here. All entrances funnel people into a lobby area that can't possibly accommodate them, which leads to lots of tight encounters and really, really long beer lines. They not only have a dearth of bars, but bathrooms, too. Even worse, they have TWO bathrooms for the entire venue - the men's room is all the way to one side, the women's all the way on the other. Who the hell designed this?
Once you step into the venue proper, it's much more open. We had some great seats off to the left in Orch and the view was excellent. We came to see TOOL and their sound was great. I don't really get other complaints that the sound here is shitty. I've been to plenty of venues with truly shitty sound; this was not one of them. I like how the band was able to make use of the massive video screens that wrap around the venue to display their trademark visuals. Highly impressive.