white river amphitheatre

Gigantic venue, good sound system. They only have a few shows per year, because it is in the country. Why is that bad. Because you have a few thousand people plus locals on a one lane country road, that becomes a parking lot. There really are not any other back road options. In and out takes time. I made better time on a bicycle, since I live close by. Leaving is easier, local traffic is gone. Allow two hours after getting off hwy 18. There are policemen at some lights, but they can not help if there is no open spaces for you to move into.Of course prices for food and beverage are high, no competition. Less expensive seating in the grass way in the back if you are happy there. Going directly there to buy tickets prior to the show will not get you a better choice of seats. Remember the signs next to where you park, as the lot is very large, it can be hard to locate your car if you don't pay attention when you park. You just want to get to the show.

The venue itself is nice and modern. As of the Journey show summer 2014 you can now buy alcohol and take it up into the amphitheatre. So the shows themselves and watching them are good. However, the venue has some HUGE logistics issues that can ruin your experience if you don't plan accordingly. The lines for food and drink and the bathrooms are seriously long and take forever. They need to scale up the staff and have better workflows to enable more throughput. The parking situation is a showstopper defect. Be sure to get there about 1 hour early if you want to park in a reasonable time frame. Now getting out is another story entirely. You have 2 choices - leave the show 45 minutes early or see the entire show and be prepared to wait about 2 hours to get out of the parking lot. Seriously. I felt really sorry for the teenager parking lot attendants, I saw them getting screamed at and it isn't their fault. There are tons of bottlenecks on the parking lot exit, it's unorganized, and the 2-lane roads can't handle the volume. They need to bring in a venue logistics management consultant and/or company because right now it's the worst I have ever seen at a major venue.

just saw Soundgarden and NIN here for the first time. Best way to get in and out is to find someplace OTHER THAN the parking lot!!! If you plan on parking in the lot don't plan on getting out until about an hour after the show.

July 2014: Oversold show for Journey, Tower of Power and Steve Miller. I followed Yelp advice, and took the shuttle bus. Left the outlet mall parking lot, as LiveNation advised us to do, at 5pm for a 6.45 show time. Spent FOUR HOURS in traffic going six miles. Bus behind us ran out of gas. Got there for Journey, but food was sold out, line was 45 mins for food/beer, and the staff out of control. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.After pestering LiveNation for a week, quoting their "customer guarantee" back to them, and being told "no, go screw yourself" several times by e mail, they refunded my money. Great. But save yourself the trouble and NEVER GO HERE.I said below this attraction takes more than 3 hours, because you will never get here in less than 3 hours. Auburn WA is a PIT. Think venue for multiple Cops episodes, and you'll get the picture. AVOID AT ALL COSTS. As one person on Yelp said, if Tupac, Michael Jackson and Elvis all managed to reincarnate themselves for one show, and one show only, at White River, and I had front row seats, I still would never go back here.

I've seen several show here over the years and the management and organization has gone to hell. Yet they still charge premium price for sub-standard quality. For example, there are no signs explaining their alcohol policy. So you stand in line for 45+ min (because they don't have enough staff working) to order a beer only to be told you can because you're not wearing a wrist band. So I asked where I get wrist band and the response was to find someone walking around and show them my id to get one. But they could not tell me where this person was. The staff at the concession stand was severally under staffed and were rude and sloppy and inconsistent. Some would take the lids off water bottle or would not. The grounds were dirty. Visual screens were not used. At this point I would rather drive 3 hours to the Gorge to see a show.

White River gets some great Music, there is both assigned seating and lawn seating. On a nice summer day it's a great way to see a concert. The cons are that getting into and leaving the venue is crazy. It's on an old two lane country road and you park in a field (unless you pay premium parking fee ahead of time, which I think is around $28, which we will do next time). Took us two hours to get out of the parking lot. Also, the sound system on some of the bands were good and some bad. But you can sit just about anywhere and see and they have big screens they use once it gets dark enough to see them. Food - you can only bring in one clear plastic bottle that has not been open (no alcohol, but there are spirits and beer inside) and a clear zip lock bag of food. A bottle of diet coke cost me $5.50 and they take the lid, which sucks because there is really no place to set you drink but on the ground and if it gets knocked over your out of luck. A plus point they have nice bathrooms in the venue and porta potties out in the parking lot. We will probably go again, but be better prepared for the before and after times.

Went to see Tower of Power, The Steve Miller Band, and Journey. The shows were terrific. The venue, well, some parts shined, some need some serious work.Parking - This is your first impression. We had purchased the VIP parking and followed instructions for parking. But, the parking staff is more interested in chatting with themselves or pretty concert goers than directing traffic. We ended up at a frustrated parking director who had to make a hole for us and put us and 4 other cars in the right lot.Gate - The gate staff were fast and efficient, really no complaints. They were even friendly.Food - This is where they completely lost it. One of the most disorganized experiences on the planet. Not enough food, charge card swipers that don't work, signs that say they enforce a wrist band policy for alcohol purchases, but they don't, just show your ID. Order a burger and fries and wait 30 minutes, then you have to spot when food becomes available and yell for the runner to grab it for you. Over priced: 2 double cheese burgers, a drink, and 2 fries over $50. The same meal, done better, done faster at Disneyland is $32. (Seriously, they need to take a trip to one of the Disney, Universal, or Six Flag venues to see how they do food service.)Seating - We were in the 204 section. The first two acts were great, but sound was way too high for the third. Leaving - This is not the venue's fault, too much, but why King County directs traffic exiting the arena the way they do is beyond me. The traffic flow did not justify it, in fact, it introduced enough of a problem that jammed things worse than allowing a straight flow.