Nightmare On M St

I’ve been to this event before and have looked forward to it all year. This was nothing but a huge waste of my time, money, and a disappointment. Not only were the lines ridiculous but if you have that many people you need to close the roads. I will warn all of my friends about future events.

Absolutely terrible and not worth the money. Bars dont honor promotions, lines are incredibly long, and just a miserable experience.
File complaint with credit card company for merchant not delivering on promises.

This was a HOT MESS. First, I bought my tickets on Lindy promotions website and it was for $ 35 and I bought it before the time limit for the price changed. Tell me why it charged me $ 40 for each ticket instead of $ 35 and the rep, Miranda still hasn’t gotten back to me about the price difference. The event was so unorganized, the lines were incredibly long, everyone was cutting the lines and even shoving to get into the bars. We gave up because this event was ridiculous and didn’t even go to a single bar on that list, total waste of money.

Everything people are saying about this is very true. I WILL NEVER COME BACK TO THIS EVENT OR BOOK FROM THIS COMPANY LYNDY PROMOTIONS! The event was poorly planned. They oversold tickets to thousands of people and then made you stand in line. We spent $ 95 on 4 tickets and then waited in line to check in for an hour! We then couldn’t get into the overcrowded bar. We went to another bar and still waited about 40 minutes to be in an over overcrowded bar with a long line in there and no where to move! The whole reason I got tickets was to not pay cover and get cheap drinks. No one had to pay cover and they sold out of the cheap drinks! Then they charged you for overpriced drinks that you had to wait for! Basically, pay a ton of cover, wait in line after line and you dont get drinks you were promised and pay a lot for a lot of money. Never again!

We got here early the lines and the lines were crazy long. Nobody honored anything and it was a complete waste of time and money. I will not be doing this event again next year. I did call living social and explained what happened and they refunded me my money and even gave me a credit I can use.
Every single bar on the list was nasty and rude to living social and groupon customers. I will not return to any of the bars on this list again.
So thank you Lindsay promotions I know exactly where not to go and where not to spend my money.
Everyone who bought a deal should be refunded!

Overlooking the obviously badly planned event (long lines to check in, no limit on how many tickets were sold, generally un-​organized), the main problem I had with this event was the purchase of a wristband did you absolutely no favors. You waited in line for bars like everyone else, at the beginning of the night, it seemed liked it didn’t really matter if you had a wristband or not, no one was charged for covers (before 9pm that is, after 9, bars charged no matter if you had a wristband or not) and it seemed like everyone was getting the same drink prices without the wristbands.
Then there was the promoted drinks you would get, Kraken Rum, Three Olives Vodka, Redds Apple Ale, Blue Moon, or Coors Lite. Which sounds great, if you could get them. Dirty Bar had NONE of these available. The offered us house rum instead (and since I had just spend 40 minutes waiting to be served, I accepted, I was desperate) and that would have been fine, if it hadn’t been served in a tiny dixie cup filled to the brim with ice, splash of coke, and no rum.
The worst part comes after you don’t have the drinks you were promised (and not at all drunk from) but from when the bar CLOSED AT 9PM?! WTF? I had just stood in line for 20 minutes, only to get kicked out after 1 hour? If they had told me when I was waiting in line that they were closing, I would have gone somewhere else. But the true crime in this was the complete hazard to my life when they tried to get everyone to leave the bar. That had to have been a fire code violation, hundreds of people squeezed out, everyone shoving, to go down 3 flights of stairs that are only 2 people wide.
So instead of buying a ticket for this event (or any Lindy Promotions event based on this experience) you would be better off throwing your money away (no trampling hazard in that).

Too bad I can’t give zero stars…
I went to Nightmare on M Street in 2013 and 2014, and it was amazing! Unfortunately, this year was an absolute mess. I was embarrassed to have hyped this event up for my friends who have never been to DC before because this was extremely unorganized and a waste of money. We waited in lines for 30 minutes just to be turned away because bars were overcapacity.
We got into Bar Louie and the staff simply looked at our IDs and threw our tickets on the ground. They did not even grant the drink specials. We had to go to a back room bar for the «specials» where everyone was packed waiting for cheap and watered down drinks. I wasn’t even planning on checking in there because I was staying in Rosslyn but the tickets sold out in DuPont.
Our next stop was at Cities. Cities has been amazing the past two years but this year they closed at 10PM! People were waiting around the block down K Street just to be turned away. After Cities we waited in line for Mad Hatter, then switched to the line for Kabin. When we finally got in, it was overcapacity and we waited 30 minutes to get a drink.
After our disaster of an experience there, our last stop for the night was Buffalo Billiards. There were no drink specials but at that point we didn’t care. We finally got drinks and enjoyed our night there.
I will definitely not be going back next year. It’s a shame because this used to be my highlight of my fall after midterms every year. Save your money and throw a party instead.

This event was so terrible that I am inclined to write my first review on Unilocal… ever.
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TL;DR, Very difficult to make the cost of the ticket worth it, many bars won’t even honor no-​cover and drink discounts, lines for entry are on a biblical scale, over-​sold event with many who paid never actually receiving wrist bands, many bars on the list were not actually participating in the event.
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The idea is simple, you pay $ 25 for a wrist band and you are given access to drink specials and no-​cover entry to most of the bars in the major DC neighborhoods, Dupont, U Street and Gallery place.
However, most of these bars don’t charge a cover anyway, so that’s a non-​issue if you don’t care about getting into the few bars that charge the covers. The drink discounts were OK, a $ 5 beer was $ 3 for example. But for the ticket to be worth it you’d have to buy 13 beers… some people might, but most won’t drink that much out at the bars though.
This assumes that all participating bars are following the rules. Several bars that were supposed to provide no-​cover entry simply told participants to pound sand and charged a cover to everyone… with or without the wrist band.
Many bars also did not honor the drink specials, and as the night wore on… fewer and fewer «participating bars» were honoring the no-​cover entry or the drink specials.
The organizers, a company called «Lindy Promotions» (Who will also be getting a one star from me on Unilocal) essentially sold as many tickets they could without regard for the cumulative capacity of all participating bars. The event was so over sold that event organizers simply stopped handing out wrist bands at around 10pm… even when people showed up with their paid vouchers to redeem their wrist bands.
The lines were completely out of control. I’ve lived in major cities from Coast to Coast and i’ve NEVER seen lines this long for bars. Outside of Sign of the whale, the line stretched a full block, 4 people wide. The line was all the way down M street and curved several hundred feet up 19^th st. There was at least 500 people waiting in this line as it was a «pick up point» for wrist bands. At 10pm, they stopped handing out wrist bands because the event was so over sold, but no one told the people in line, so they just sat there for hours no knowing it was already too late for them to get a wrist band.
It was also clear that Lindy Promotions and the participating bars were not communicating. We spoke with the owner of «Cities» last night and he told us that he agreed to be a «Wrist band pick up location» but not an actual bar that would offer no-​cover entry or drink discounts. None-​the-​less, Lindy Promotions including his club on the list and map of participating bars. While we tried to work it out with the owner, who was very cool to his credit, a large crowd of very angry drunk people were screaming at the bouncers about not getting let in. It sounds like Lindy Promotions was just trying to pad their numbers in terms of bars involved. We left without getting in, mostly because the situation was rapidly turning into a brawl.
Overall it was LITERALLY a nightmare on M street. Zero planning, no logistics, no customer service, no communication. It would not surprise me if there is legal action as a result of this event as hundreds, perhaps thousands, or people who paid for wrist bands never received them.
Save your money and just go to the bars you like with your friends. Even with a wrist band, you’re likely to pay the covers and full drink prices anyway.

I’ve been to Nightmare for the past 3 years and normally it’s always been enjoyable, this year however… was a total disaster, bar closing for an hour or closing early in general. Bars on the list charging $ 20 covers, taking hours just to check in, bars taking hours to get into. Why would you have a registration to hand out wrist bands and not just check IDs right at check in. This was honestly the worst event I’ve ever taken part of and I’ve had kidney stones.

If there was a way to give it 0 stars, I would. This was by far the worst event I have ever been to. It was a complete and utter rip off: overcrowding, bars making you pay covers, overcharging for drinks, bars not honoring the crawl thus not honoring the specials. Supposedly there were two lists being circulated with bars on the crawl, times they were honoring the crawl, and drink specials. One of those lists, as advertised by Lindy promotion, advertised one thing to their customers, whereas the bars had a different list. Total waste of money, total buzz kill, and a total scam. I don’t know if I’m more upset at this event, or if I’m upset with myself for falling for this scam.

Worst experience ever. Went with a group of 15 people which most have been before. This was my first time along with a few others. Such a rip off! Only got ONE drink the entire night and it wasn’t even on special! (Along with the 14 others who also only got one drink each!)All the bars ran out of the specials. So overcrowded and one bar only had One bartender on! It was a free for all. If you could even get up to the bar you were lucky, and then to get served? Even luckier. Wasted my money on the wristband and the metro to get to the event when every single bar we went to wasn’t running the special or ran out! Never again! Lindy promotions should be ashamed of themselves and issue refunds! We would have had a better time staying home, and thats sad.

Worst bar crawl I ever been too. Extremely crowded, waited 30 – 45 minutes to get to a bar, completely disorganized. I want a refund.

Just to reiterate, I went to this event last year. There was definitely lines at the bar but that night was honestly still a fun event! I was able to get into bars I wanted to go without major problems, got my drinks, all was well.
I don’t know what happened this year! This year I checked in at the exchange, got in very quickly only to discover that as soon as I got to the bar that they were already sold out of almost all the drinks that were promoted for the bar crawl. Lines for bars were horrendous! Waiting over an hour to get into a place, only for them to close for over capacity each time. Drinks at these bars were also almost an hour long as well which got me just as mad. I ended up paying full price for most of my drinks since the specials were sold out.
I’m thinking that Lindy Promotion oversold their tickets greatly this year. Last year I don’t think they sold tickets on sites like groupon/​living social which maybe made you money in terms of selling tickets but if none of your bar patrons can spend money on drinks and foods was it worth it? I have no idea if I will participate next year unless lindy promotion does some serious revamping.

Is there a way to make this «zero» stars? This bar crawl doesn’t even deserve one star. Ridiculous lines, lack of honoring promotional offers, absolutely NO organization. I will never attend this event again. I expect my money back. Lindy Promotions needs to lose their credibility. Thank you for ruining my Halloween Night. Thank you for wasting people’s time and money.

The amount of money that just got scammed out of the people in the DC area is ridiculous. I did not get into a single bar last night and wasn’t even at the front of the line after waiting for 40 minutes. Even walking to streets out of the main area didn’t help and bars were still overcrowded. TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE and incredibly poor planning on their part.
Will definitely not be going back.

If you want to pay money to drink shitty beers at shitty bars with shitty people on Halloween, this is the event for you.
If you’re a rational, thinking human being, you’ll avoid this event and anything like it.

Worst experience ever, it was my first bar crawl and heard great things! The line to check in, at bar Asia, was long but moved pretty quickly, around 8 they ran out of the cheap beers so we went to another bars, 2 of the other bars we went to charged more than the «special» and all the others were sold out.
Once we got to dupont circle it was insane, long hour+ lines and insanely crowded. We toughed it up and waited in a line to get in a bar, and after 45 min they decided they were closing the entrance. This was still only at 9 pm.
I’m not sure what the point of buying a wristband was when I only got 1 beer the entire night. This event was WAY oversold and I will never return.

NEVER AGAIN. This was a complete cluster and nothing like previous years. Last year, we went and checked in around 9:30 and happily hopped between 3 – 4 bars, getting drinks specials at all of them, paid no covers, and skipped the lines.
This year, we checked in at Ping Pong in DuPont around 8:00, where we were told the bar was already at capacity so we could not go in. That was the closest we got to getting NEAR a bar for the entire night! We tried basically every bar in the DuPont area and they all told us that they were stopping the drink specials, having last call for alcohol at 11:00 and not letting anyone else in for the whole night. Thanks a lot Lindy Promotions & Nightmare on M Street. You completely scammed literally thousands of people out of a good time.

This was my first bar crawl experience after being told good things from my friends who attended previous years. Checked in at Ping Pong or whatever and the lines inside the bar were enormous. Many didn’t have the drinks offered in the specials and when I settled for a Coors, I got essentially what was half foam in a solo cup. I’ve received better at frat parties.
Kept in touch with some of my other friends who were scattered at other bars and most I heard of stopped offering drink specials at 10 PM (it was promoted to go until midnight). Some bars were so packed they stopped admitting people. My group ended up walking around for over an hour before deciding to head home because other than the bar we checked into, none of the other locations seemed to be even remotely functional.
So in the grand scheme of things, I spent more money on my ticket, metro fare, and Über ride than I did for my actual alcohol intake (a single, lonely Coors Light in a solo cup). If you know that this event is popular in the area and that a ton of people are gonna arrive en masse, then prepare for it properly. Totally unacceptable.

For Halloween I decided to do Nightmare on M st. bar crawl through Lindy Promo. After the night I felt like it was a rip off. The tickets increase in price the closer to the date (Max $ 35). I paid $ 20 just to get access to the drink «specials». $ 2 Coors, $ 3 Blue Moons and mixed drinks were $ 4. If you think about it’s not much of a deal because you still need to buy the ticket, you might as well just pay full price for drinks. The ticket is all suppose to get you in the bars with no cover… REGARDLESS all the bars do not have cover. All the bars are around Dupont where there is no cover on any night. The lines were super long to get in any place and at the bar. Not all the bars/​clubs had $ 2 coors or $ 3 blue moons. Instead you should go the night of the barcrawl and pay full price for drinks. I don’t think I’ll go to another bar crawl anytime soon.