Assembly

This was an okay music hall venue especially since it accomodates 18+. I’ve been here a couple times for fundraisers, concerts, and/​or just want to have a good night with my friends. Lining up outside isn’t that bad of a wait, security is also a lot nicer than most bars out there.
They close the bar area off strictly for 21+. They separate that area from the dance floor itself. It also gets pretty packed so pick an area you’re willing to stand around in throughout the night.
The women’s restroom is gross. Hopefully someone comes and cleans it up. There’s water and tissue paper all over the floor. I understand the guests are causing it, but there needs to be someone checking up on the mess. Sometimes I don’t even want to enter even if I need to use the restroom badly.
On the side of the bar is a huge pitcher with styrofoam cups to where guests can get water since it does get pretty humid inside. Water will save you throughout the night.
Parking is a bit hard to find since it’s a street with numerous amount of bars along the street. It’s best to get dropped off or carpool so if you want to park in a parking garage you can split the payment.
Overall, I will visit this venue again because of the great surprising artists that come to perform here!

The only good thing about this place was the sound was good.
No A/​C.
They tell you doors open at 6:30, but in reality it’s 7:15
Mens Bathroom was flooded in piss and this was at 7:30, 15 minutes after they opened
No A/​C
Rude Security guards
Stand up only
No A/​C
No Refunds allowed. Such a waste.

The security guards were rude. Yelling out orders. I understand people get out of line and you have to be stern but they were rude to everyone.
Also it was very hot. I Didn’t feel any AC.
The bartender was nice though and it is a decent venue with good acoustic.

The sound here is pretty good and Ira does an excellent job as always keeping the sound top notch and consistent. The downside to this place is that it is rather small and the audience area is seperated in half eliminating any concept of a front row or mosh area (if your into that kind of thing). I forgot my id at home so not sure how drink prices are. The staff is relatively friendly, the venue is all ages which is great and hard to find around here. All in all I would say this is just a mediocre venue with good sound. The experience is personal because it’s such a small place.

I came here last month to see the Justin Furstenfeld Open book Tour (Blue October). This was a seated concert. The venue itself had so much potential, but had some serious flaws. Lets start with the pros…
PROS
–Small Venue, so you get to see the artist up close and personal
–large lobby area to buy merchandise
–Great Sound
–VIP booths that looked really nice
CONS
–Ticket said showtime was 7:30. BE AWARE… apparently, tickets from Assembly this printed time means DOOR TIME. We were there at 5:30, thinking the doors would open around 1 hour before. Nope. 7:45 doors opened, and show didnt start til almost 8:30−9.
–Since this show was seated, they had chairs in rows set up, unassigned. This was great, but the chairs were HORRIBLE. They were the cheapest plastic fold down chairs that money could buy. I am a big girl, but the 3 other people i was with are not and even they felt like one wrong move & the chair would break. C’Mon Assembly, how bout a little bit nicer chairs. Even padded banquet chair would do the trick.
–The aisle in between the chairs was also used as the bar line, so it created quite the cluster fu@k for crowd movement
–VIP booths. They take up a good chunk of space up in a «balcony» area and no one was using them nor did anyone know how to get up there.
Overall this show was amazing and the venue could make a few simple improvements to be equally as awesome.
BEWARE: We parked in a parking garage which cost us $ 20. Unless you find parking on the street, there is no way around the garage price.

Small intimate venue and comparing it to the Boardwalk this is heaven. I saw a lot of acts here and enjoyed it more than I would at the Boardwalk. It’s a small venue and gets hot easily. Duh, body heat small area, even with the AC on it’s bearable. The staff there are super nice and friendly. The bathroom is connected to K Bar and you might have some drunk run ins depending on when your show is.
Music Tip: The parking garage near the venue has a cheap flat rate for the night.

Not a fan of this venue
The only good things about it is the amount of space, and better sound than some venues, but overall disappointing.
Its to boring looking on the inside & no atmosphere compared to Boardwalk or Ace.
The security is extremely rude. I had to go to my car for my medication and they said if i left they wouldn’t let me back in.
& it is so hard to find good/​free parking near the venue. At least at Ace I know where the spots here. Can’t find anything good near Assembly.
Half the time the place is empty anyway, makes metal shows a complete bore.
Unless you absolutely must see a band that plays here, don’t go.

I LOVE THIS PLACE
It’s a great music venue for small, intimate shows. There’s a floor for to stand, jump and dance with a large seating area in the back. It’s like a lounge type set up with booth tables and a bar.

I attended the Fortunate Youth concert last night and was harassed by security for having illegal substance that I DID NOT HAVE! I offered for them to search me and my purse… but they insisted that if I didn’t give it to them that I would have to leave. ITS HARD TO GIVE THEM SOMETHING I DO NOT HAVE! Then a stranger stood up for me letting him know I didn’t have anything and we were just trying to watch the show. Securities attention then moved to that put guy! They kicked him out for nothing!!! Rediculous!!!
The venue was intimate, ticket and drink prices were reasonable. If it weren’t for crummy security I would go back again!
I am a middle aged professional and was treated like a little kid. I was thinking about bringing my 2 teenagers to see The Green on May 23^rd. BUT Never again will thru get a penny from me!

Came here to see a rock show tonight &y experience was just alright…
My friend is a photographer for a band called Alesana & he has been touring with them several times now & one of their stops was here in Sacramento & I decided to go up & see him as they swung through Northern California.
This venue was alright they sold merchandise right at the front door… You walk in to the left to get into the main room & they had a bar area & a upstairs «lounge» type of seating but you can’t go up there unless you spend a minimum of $ 60 at the bar? Kinda lame…
The sound was also off, I’m not sure if it was the bands or if it was the venue but the vocals weren’t very good for the first few artists.
I was able to get backstage at the end & watch the band I came too see from the side stage view… You’ll see from the pictures. I was basically standing with them which was pretty cool
At the end of the show the lines for merchandise were long & security was forcing people to leave as people were standing to make their purchases, didn’t make much sense. You’ve gotta let these artists sell merch because that’s where a lot of their money comes from…
They also did no ins & outs once the show ended, but that wasn’t made clear to me… So I had to get my friend to bring me back inside since security wasn’t allowing me back in.
Place was alright nothing to rave over though. I don’t see myself coming back here to watch any artist.

My wife and I went here to see St. Lucia, which ended up being on a rainy evening. The door time was moved back from 7 to 8, which we weren’t aware of. We showed up around 8:30, and were surprised to see a line, and a pretty long line at that. We stood in line for a good 25 – 30 minutes waiting to get in, which was kind of terrible considering the weather and that it was completely unnecessary. They only had 1 man checking IDs at the door out of a possible 3 doors. If they had even opened 1 more door, people wouldn’t have had to wait in the rain to get in.
As a venue, it is not bad. It is a small-​medium venue with a good sound system, good sight lines, and a layout that makes sense. The one weird thing was that the floor was separated a portable metal fence to split the room into 21+ and under 21, since the entire back of the venue is the bar.
The show itself was great and the wife and I had a good time in the less crowded under-​21 section of the floor, because when we do young people stuff, we go hard.
It did get a little hot towards the end of the set. The exposed pipes in the ceiling subsequently got a little sweaty and I got dripped on a few times, but I guess that added to the experience.
All in all it was a fun time and most importantly, the sound was good. If Assembly continues to bring in good acts, I will not hesitate to return. Tighten things up at the door and spruce up the ventilation and my rating goes from 3-​star to 4.

I’ve been here 3 times. Once before it was owned by the Ace of Spades owner. Came here after the launch music festival last summer to see a DJ. On a weekend night it was surprisingly not packed. I’ve came here for 2 shows. One was a local band and the other was St. Lucia. For St. Lucia the line was ridiculous but thankfully I know certain people and was able to skip waiting outside ;)
I found it odd that they split the venue into 21+ and 21 and under. The under 21 side filled up super quickly and looked jammed packed. I’d be pretty pissed if I had to be on that side. Just something to be aware of if you’re not 21 yet although they probably don’t do it for every show.
Venue needs some work but has a lot of potential.

Came here to see St. Lucia last Friday night. First of all, let me just start off by saying major kudos to The Assembly for bringing St. Lucia to Sac! It’s exciting that the music venues in Sac are stepping up their game in trying to get some really good acts to come to town! Woot woot!
In terms of the actual venue, here is my list of gripes:
— The LINE: The tickets said the door time for the event was 7:00pm, but then I got an e-​mail the day of the event telling me the door time was 8:00pm. What. Erik L. and I decided to go at around 9:00pm, expecting that we would get there not thaaaat long before St. Lucia was supposed to go on. When we arrived though, the line was literally out the door. And it was out the door a significant amount. And what was even worse… the line was moving at a snail’s pace. And it was raining. And they kept sending people out to the line to tell us where we could and could not stand. I could go on…
The reason why the line was so freaking long and moving so slowly? There was ONE person checking IDs and collecting tickets. How is that efficient at all?
My biggest issue was that we were getting in trouble for standing in places where we weren’t supposed to. Dear Assembly, if you wanted to remedy that problem… maybe enlist more than just one person to check IDs and tickets. Ya think?
— The WAIT: When we actually got in the venue, the opener was performing. After she left the stage, we waited for 30 – 40 minutes before St. Lucia ACTUALLY came on. No explanation was given to us for this, but it seemed like there were some unexplained technical issues that they were dealing with. At the very least, they could have given us some sort of explanation for what was going on. How ridiculous is that a concert with an 8pm door time didn’t have the actual main act go on until 10:!5pm?
Something amusing:
— The venue was literally split in half by a series of metal gates that separated the 21+ crowd from the under 21 crowd. I thought this was hilarious. The gates were placed such that they blocked off access to the bar by the under 21 crowd.
tl;dr: The Assembly is alright. There’s nothing that’s absolutely terrible about the actual venue itself, but they could stand to make some improvements to their work flow. Fo serious. It is no fun having to wait for EVERYTHING.

This place has potential because of its great location, beautiful marquee, and size. plus, everyone wants fun businesses to be successful — especially downtown. Also, we want cool acts to come to Sactown.
Assembly somehow manages to squander all that good will & circumstance to «totally phone it in» as a concert hall.
The staff is meandering, distracted, slow, but not unfriendly. They had one guy checking IDs while a hundred or so people stood out in the rain missing the opening act at the St. Lucia concert.
The bathrooms looked like a freeway rest stop on the road to terd town. Isn’t this place pretty new? the walls had things broken hanging from them.
Sound was okay. stage was nice.
I like dives for concerts, but places have to earn that. this place is a dive already.

i was super stoked to come here to see St. Lucia and Conway perform, but it was such a huge disappointment.
i had made dinner reservations at 8pm and thought that we will just be in time to see St lucia perform around 930/​10pm, but nope. the doors «opened» at 8pm even though the website says it opens at 7pm, and there was such a huge shitty line to get in around 945. The security guard was such an idiot making two lines and caused some issues with the concert goers including myself and my significant other. everyone was smoking in line, also. whatever happened to that California law that states no smoking within certain feet to the door?
Getting asked for ID in order to drink wasn’t so bad but the guy was so damn slow about it. I had will-​call tickets, thinking that they would have given me a printed one at the ticket booth, but nope. THERE WAS NO COAT CHECK, what kind of a venue doesn’t have a fucking coat check?
upon entering the hall, i noticed that there was a seating area and we tried to go to in, BUT WAS NOTIFIED THAT IT WAS FOR VIP. I wasn’t aware that this venue offered VIP seating, if i had known i would have gotten those as we weren’t dressed to slum the general floor area.
The customer service is extremely poor. I called several times in order to figure out the seating and set times for the bands, but no one ever answered. i called in different days and different times. we left the venue without seeing any performers at 10:15pm. WHAT KIND OF VENUE OPENS ITS DOORS AT 7PM & DOESNT HAVE ANY PERFORMERS UNTIL LATER IN THE EVENING?
THIS PLACE IS JUST ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF HOW SACRAMENTO IS TRYING SO DAMN HARD TO BE RELEVANT AND KEEP UP WITH SAN FRANCISCO. ITS SUCH A FAIL. STOP FUCKING TRYING TO BE COOL AND HIP. GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER.

Sizzling Sirens Are Smokin On The Stage At Assembly!
SITREP
The two times I’ve been here at the Assembly have been to see the Sizzling Sirens. Though I have issues with «limited seating» venues, this venue makes it work a bit better and the logistics for moving around are a lot smoother.
THE SETUP
I’ve caught the Sirens at Harlows before (as well as many other shows), and I am not a fan where a venue sells a number of tickets without any concern about where after the first 150 – 200 people get seated, where are the next 100 – 150 going to be standing?
Well, at least in the situation of Assembly, they provide reasonable standing accommodations for those who aren’t lucky enough to get tables. But that’s my legitimate gripe with this venue — they need to LOSE the tables and chairs and make it all-​access standing general admission just like Ace of Spades.
SEATING ILL-​ADVISED
But let’s look at this pragmatically. Are you serving dinner? No. Are you serving ANY kind of food munchies during the Siren performances. NO. LOSE THE TABLES. Make it fair for EVERYONE. Not just those who grabbed the tables & seats.
Create side-​bar levels if you have to, but you make so much wasted space and create inconvenience for half of your audience with those dam tables & chairs. If you were a DINNER-​theatre, I’d understand. But then you’d be required under municipal ordinance to have less people anyways.
THE STAGE
Moving on to more positive aspects of the venue, the stage is so much bigger and allows for greater multi-​media flexibility. The Sirens are big on showing simultaneous video vignettes with their burlesque performances and there is a large screen that showcases the humorous video offerings. Harlow’s physical plant and infrastructure could never provide this. So props to Assembly for this.
THE BAR
The beautiful long bar is centrally located in the back and makes for easy access for both the servers moving alcohol back and forth between the patrons, as well as those of us just ordering our drinks from the bar directly.
METRICS
For those who are keeping track, it goes like this:
* Show Quality — With the Sirens, that’s 2 stars worth right there!
* Cover /​Admission — for the quality show with the sirens, $ 10 was A-​Okay — 1 star
* Drinks & Drink Specials — at $ 6 a pop, it was alright but still pricey (no stars), plus we’re already paying a cover. Cut some slack, Jack.
* Limited Seating /​And equal number of people standing. Not at all fair in my book.
* Great physical plant I must admit: awesome room, beautiful stage, nice restrooms, and clean clean clean! 1 star!
Cha-​ching: 4 STARS.
THE LOWDOWN
A great venue for showcasing the talents of the Sizzling Sirens, but a bit inadequate for the crowd that it draws. I do look forward to checking out this venue for other performances and music acts in the future to see if the same imbalance persists.

Cute little venue! Came here to watch The Siren Show a few weekends ago, which occurs every 3^rd Saturday. The line wasn’t very long and we made it inside in no time. Tickets were $ 10pp for GA, $ 20pp for table and $ 30pp for seating at a booth. The tables were all sold out and we didn’t want to stand for the whole show so chose the booth. We had 5 people in our group and they said they might stick a couple at our table which was kind of odd. But thank goodness no strangers joined our booth. The bouncer was very friendly and informative. We were also offered free admission to Social after the show.
The booth is located up top near the back of the venue. It was comfortable and nice to get away from the crowd below for an extra cost. It appeared that there was only one cocktail waitress for all the booths, so she was a bit slow. It took a while for us to get our bill when we were ready to leave after the show.
Overall, I had a great time and will definitely be back to check out other shows!

A group of girl friends and I came here to watch «The Siren Show.» It was $ 10 general admission, $ 20 cabaret seating, or $ 30 VIP seating. General admission meant that you had to stand for the length of the show, cabaret seating meant that you get to sit down at a table, and VIP seating meant that you can sit in the white booths with tables in the upper section.
The venue isn’t that big, but it’s nice– classy. The lighting wasn’t the best. I’m not sure if the venue was in charge of that or the performance company. Whenever the dancers stepped away from the center, they were shrouded in darkness. The projections were pretty cool, but I wasn’t paying much attention to the visuals in the background. They enhanced the total effects though.

PS– They now have free water at the bar. It had traces of alcohol taste though. Maybe it’s the way it’s filtered?

This new kid on the Sacramento music scene may have a welcoming modern interior, a spacious stage, an amazing sound system and classy and comfortable lounge seating with unobstructed views from above the bar, but it also has some annoying and costly requirements.
I came on the second night to see Super Diamond. The tickets were more expensive than you’d find at most music venues in Sacramento and they came with an unusually high processing fee. It was something like $ 22 a ticket. That’s closer to the price I pay for a huge act and a sold out crowd at other local venues. The audience at this show was sparse at best, leaving my group to wonder if we were the only ones gullible enough to pay the exorbitant price.
My second major annoyance was that they didn’t have water at the bar. Well, they did, but you had to pay $ 3 for a bottle. This may sound nit-​picky, but never before in my history of bellying up to bars (and believe me, I’ve been too many) have I actually been told to either buy a bottle or go find a water fountain outside when I wanted water. What exactly is the harm of serving someone (especially someone who is already paying for a drink) a glass of water?
I didn’t mind as much as others that they didn’t have beer on tap. Although strange, they had an okay bottle selection. Wine on tap is unique.
I’m hoping Assembly will take some of these criticisms into consideration because they have a lot of potential (and it looks like a sizable budget) to be the king of Sacramento’s live venues.

Yay for another music venue in Sacramento!
Located in Cosmopolitan Caberet’s old location, Assembly has a decent-​sized stage, fully staffed bar, and wide open dance floor. In the back third of the venue, there are a number of VIP-​esque white leather booths that offer unobstructed views of the stage — also ideal for crowd-​watching. There were plentiful bathrooms, but they were out of toilet paper by the time I needed to used them. I can’t speak for the cocktails, but we were able to get Sierra Nevada for $ 5 each.
I look forward to seeing their musical lineup expand and checking out their improv and comedy shows.