Saw Nile in February. Honestly, I am sort of sick and tired of these clean, refurbished, hipster-catered 'music venues' with $35 beer. Catalyst is is your bare-bones, warehouse converted club. Concrete floor, rusty metal staircase leading to the top, gross, non-functuoning bathroom...in other words crank that guitar up and lets mosh. Also, funky artwork and a lounge with old couches were locals did karaoke.Catalyst is located on the main street in Santa Cruz.

Arrived at the venue @ approx 8:15pm ahead of the posted start time of 8:30pm on the email and printed ticket. When we arrived, band was already playing. When we entered the balcony area for the Balcony Reserved tickets purchased (at additional cost), discovered that not only didn't I have a reserved seat, but there were NO SEATS AT ALL available in the balcony area, all filled. Brought this to the attention of the security staff, they informed me that they don't know what happened and that we would have to leave the balcony area (since there were no seats). He didn’t even want look at the ticket I was trying to show him to prove I purchased 2 seats there. His only response was “You need to leave right now”. Nobody at the venue seemed to care. Unable to locate a manager and nobody would even provide me with the name of the manager. My girlfriend (who just had knee surgery and needed to sit down) and I were relegated to standing at the rear of the venue near the exit as the floor was completely full by this time. Because of her condition we were forced to leave after only a few songs. On the way out, I asked someone at the door what time the event started and they said 8:00pm. When I tried to show them the start time of 8:30pm on the ticket, without even looking at it he said call e-tix. Totally indifferent/incompetent staff at the Catalyst and incorrect showtime information provided by e-tix, which precipitated the whole mess in the first place. I'll skip this venue in the future.

Arrived at the venue @ approx 8:15pm ahead of the posted start time of 8:30pm per the instructions on the confirmation and email printed ticket. When we arrived, the band was already playing. When we entered the balcony area for the Balcony Reserved tickets I had purchased (at additional cost), I discovered that not only didn't I have a reserved seat, but there were NO SEATS AT ALL available in the balcony area, they were all filled. When I brought this to the attention of the security staff, they informed me that they don't know what happened and that we would have to leave the balcony area. He didn’t even want look at the ticket I was trying to show him to prove I purchased 2 seats there. His only response was “You need to leave right now”. In fact, nobody at the venue seemed to care that there were no seats available in the balcony. I was unable to locate a manager and nobody would even provide me with the name of the manager. My girlfriend (who just had knee surgery and needed to sit down) and I were relegated to standing at the rear of the venue near the entrance/exit as the floor was completely full by this time. Because of her condition, we were forced to leave after only a few songs. On the way out, I asked someone at the door what time the event started that evening and they said 8:00pm. When I tried to show them the start time of 8:30pm on the ticket, without even looking at it he said call e-tix. Totally indifferent/incompetent staff at the Catalyst and incorrect showtime information provided by e-tix, which precipitated the whole mess in the first place.

Used to catch jerry shows summer of 76Back in the day when we hit Portland, keystone Berkeley and such living in marvelous Marin way back when

Really small, but they do attract some good acts of a wide variety. I've been to see Beats Antique and The Psychedelic Furs and was happy with the sound and ease of finding parking.