It's pretty funny that as I scroll down to read the negative reviews, most people seem to nitpick very tiny aspects and don't actually review the venue at all. I've been to this place about 10 times now and every time its a similar experience as far as venues go. The sound is among some of the best I've ever heard in a venue and in my opinion it's the perfect size because you get the energy of a big crowd, but it's still small enough that you can see the band pretty damn well from the back.
As far as alcohol goes it's the same with any venue you go to, they know you want to get messed up and they're going to squeeze every penny out of you that they can, if you didn't expect that or think it's any different from any other venue, I'm here to tell you that's the status quo. Otherwise there's been a remodeling so it looks much nicer and now there's a VIP section that would be awesome if you were watching a "low-energy" performance, but I usually love the bands where I can go nuts in the crowd and mosh, but I digress.
I just can't help but scratch my head at all these one star reviews which seem to only focus on one specific incident like ticket prices or not knowing there wasn't free parking (did you really expect free parking at a concert? Really?!). I've been to my fair share of venues as I'm an avid concert-goer and while people might argue that crescent ballroom is more tighter and personal, it's also seems to be a little disorganized and just a tad bit to small for me. Maybe if you were seeing a singer-songwriter type character or some sort of jazz performance I would say the crescent is awesome, but everything else is where I would want to go to the Marquee.