As we’ve noted here before, the second floor lobby of the Hyatt Rosemont O’Hare is made of poured concrete. It is impervious to damage. That thing is like Isengard. MAYBE Ron Garney with a sladehammer could chip a tile or two, but you can’t set it on fire or tear it up by normal means. And if a vulnerable part of your body comes in contact with the cruel concrete…your body will lose.
Thus is has been that the more silly lo-jinks outside Knuckles at the Hyatt during Wizard World Chicago have usually been tolerated by the local gendarmes. We always see police on the premises but they seem to let the action roll.
Perhaps a new precedent was set last year when a fan who got into a little fracas was tasered at Knuckles, but we have heard several independent reports that this year Knuckles was shut down both Friday and Saturday by the police around 1 am. Apparently a fan was also roughed up and a general air of “the fun has ended” prevailed. It seems that Knuckles, the last exponent of The Great Bar Cons of Yore, has finally succumbed to outside forces. We shed a tear.
Can’t stay as I stayed at Knuckles much past midnight on Friday. Living in Chicago, I had over an hour of a train ride to get back home to civilization and a decent bar. It wasn’t all that crowded, as far as the Comicon used to go. Lots of people outside in the lobby area, though and I did notice the police wandering around a bit. Didn’t see much by way of pro’s while I was there, either.
But let’s get down to the more important problems – Knuckles has product problems. I vaguely remember something about them running out of beer last year. (Others in my entourage had more vivid memories of it.) This year, the draft beer was either depleted or the lines weren’t working. Problems two years in a row? That’s ridiculous.
The Sofitel has a better atmosphere, but there prices would be on the high side in Manhattan and there isn’t room for a large crowd.
You’ve got three problems here – bad management with Knuckles, poor selection of alternates (Rosemont isn’t a happening ‘burb), and if you judge your bar cons by your pro’ss, you’ve got the resulting problem of the pro’s going elsewhere.
I experience the police first hand, as they gave us their blessing to have a poker game by the fountain, only to change their minds later, and come at us in a V formation, with their riot gear on and nightsticks out and ready for action.
One of them even tried to intimidate us by offering to show us his gun. And not to just check it out.