Bench seating was great! The view and sound from anywhere at the Hollywood Bowl is amazing. I love the Mancini event and how they paired the music with clips from the films. An overall lovely night - bring a picnic basket or you'll feel left out!

Show was wonderfull. The fireworks was a bonus. Seat assignment is just right for us - middle section on M1.
The surcharges: a bit pricey, though.

Favorite musical portions of this show were the film clips to Peter Seller's Pink Panther movies and the TV mini-series "Thornbirds" that Mancini had done the sound-tracks for. How nice to see Richard Chamberlin come to the podium after the Thornbirds piece with tears in his eyes and tell the audience that Mancini had expressed his great love for the music he'd written for this particular mini-series. Jack Lemmon (who appeared in "Of Wine & Roses" w/Mancini's theme song), and Julie Andrews who worked in several movies with Mancini doing music tracks, and others also showed up for video-taped segments relating anecdotes of Manncini and themselves. Mancini's daughter also came out and sang several of her father's songs --relating her memories of coming to the Hollywood Bowl as a child with her father.
Overall -- It was a great night under the stars with spectacular fireworks after. The LA Philarmonic did a wonderful job-- sounded great and seemed to have fun playing along with the already mentioned movied clips.
The only negative for the evening was with the couple that sat behind us about 3-rows. Sadly-- they never stopped talking throughout this evening. Perhaps they felt "entitled" to just keep talking-- as nobody was sitting in front of or on the side of them-- to ask them to stop talking. But found this to be distracting and took away from the overall enjoyment of the performance.

The music was great. It's MANCINI !!!! The seats were great and the prices were great. It's GOLDSTAR !!!! Loved the evening. Oh, did I mention fireworks too. It's THE BOWL !!!!