From arrival at an uncrowded station, through the spacious entrance hall with plenty of staff on hand to direct first-timers (including roving helpers on personal transporters ), past all of the restaurants, cinema, beach and funny blue-screen video pods where you can superimpose yourself dancing (badly) over various scenes or videos and on towards the Arena area.
Fast, barcoded ticket checks, efficient and friendly bag checks, stairs and escalators to the circulation space, plentiful refreshment concessions with surprisingly reasonable (for a venue) prices, more staff to point you to the right entrance and then the seating bowl itself.
This really seems to be a perfect venue: large enough to be impressive in itself, small enough to feel intimate when the action begins, the pre-concert mexican wave took only a few seconds to circle the bowl. Other nice touches were the travel advisories running on a screen around the bowl and the discreetly but effectively lit gangways for those moving around during the concert to get more refreshment.
Getting away was just as easy, with large exits at ground floor level leading straight out into the main concourse a short walk from the station with London Underground. As we left we both agreed it was a shame we live just a little to far from the venue, else it would become a regular feature of our lives.
I can't wait to go back for another event and I'm really excited about how Gymnastics events and the Basketball Finals will feel in 2012.
My Olympics
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