Does matinee now mean kiddie session?

housebound said :

Simple solution – advertise a pensioner special (on Thursday) – which is code to all young mums not to take their tots along to a potentially hostile environment. Then advertise a separate ‘family friendly’ day, which is code to the kiddy-haters not to attend. The movies do a similar thing with their ‘mums and bubs’ specials.

Of course, that requires two matinee sessions and customers who can read.

LOL!

Simple solution – advertise a pensioner special (on Thursday) – which is code to all young mums not to take their tots along to a potentially hostile environment. Then advertise a separate ‘family friendly’ day, which is code to the kiddy-haters not to attend. The movies do a similar thing with their ‘mums and bubs’ specials.

Of course, that requires two matinee sessions and customers who can read.

Hi Ql2

I POSTED while you were – didn’t see your post – i’m not chasing a refund! thanks for the offer, but no need.

Parts of the show were great – we loved the video montage backdrops, and the scene where the dancers walked from one side of the stage to the other over stepping stones of other dancers. I always like the more athletic parts of youth dance as well.

I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it, but we left at interval, so I’m not best placed to do a review.

And I wouldn’t want you to lose a huge amount of your matinee audience (relatives of the dancers) by excluding young kids – I just would have liked a bit of warning that there would be lots of young kids watching.

Keep up the good work!

I believe that it would be fair to expect that a matinee performance would have a significant number of children – and that the majority would behave just like little kids do.

An evening show could be expected to have far fewer children.

It’s just the way of the world Sepi.

I’m sure I’ve been to matinees previously that weren’t filled with tinies. Still, in hindsight a youth dance performance was perhaps not a smart choice for a child-free afternoon.

So can I really take my noisy two year old to matinees with impunity? I think I would still be too embarassed to have my child continuously shouting throughout a performance, even if there were other kids there. I am actually fairly child-tolerant – I have two of my own. But some of the toddlers present on the day were really too small for the event. I would guess they were two year olds.

I still think it would simplify things for all concerned if the theatre just specified that toddlers aren’t allowed – or conversly – actively encouraged them, by calling the matinee the ‘family session’. That way noone would get a nasty surprise after buying a ticket.

Sepi – sorry the show was disrupted for you. Drop me an email – manager (at) QL2.org.au – and I’ll arrange a refund of your tickets. And thankyou for raising the problem here.

I’m from QL2 Centre for Youth Dance, presenter of the Quantum Leap performances.

Looks like about 30% of the (small) audience at that matinee was on ‘child’ (ie under 15) tickets. Not sure how many toddlers or babies. But sounds like it was enough to make it feel like most had kids.

We hadn’t really intended that the matinee be primarily a “children’s session” or particularly more “family friendly” than the others; although we did suggest to participants that it was a good opportunity for people who can’t go out at night to see the show.

But it sounds like maybe we, or Canberra Theatre, need to look at how we promote the matinee. And maybe look at whether Canberra Theatre’s staff should be attempting to exclude – or send out – unruly audience members.

We had set the “recommended age for this performance” at “8+”; which is what the ticket office should have said if someone asked. But that information was not on any of our publicity, so people could assume it was suitable for toddlers — which it was not.

Our bad. Well, mine really.

We do want young audiences to see it, if they have the attention span. And we don’t want to unfairly exclude people with younger children, if they can be quiet enough not to disrupt the performance for others -even if those very young ones aren’t really watching.

So, what should we do? Say “no toddlers” on the promos, and actively exclude them (probably meaning some of those adults with them couldn’t come)? Or have the theatre staff try to shush, or send out, people who are noisy or disruptive (eg noisy or poking)? Not have a matinee to avoid confusion? Or advertise a ‘noisy audience’ show (which wouldn’t really work with this production)?

All suggestions gratefully received!

And if sepi, or anyone else who was there, wants to give a review here, that would be great!

Addison said :

wow – you go to a daytime performance and find kids there! have some of your own, your tolerance increases dramatically.

+1 !!!!!!

The most sensible response yet!

Your criticism of an issue aimed at a party which has no control over the circumstances is duly noted. *scrunch scrunch toss*

Is Matinee code for children’s session? YES! Get over it.

We took our kids everywhere (when they were little). They knew how to behave, and we knew what they were capable of. If the subject was so boring they couldn’t last an hour, weld take something for them to do (hint: if they can’t sit through a performance like that for an hour, then either they are not up to the task or it is not age appropriate to take them).

The thing is, you have to do it regularly, so they remember what is expected. A big reward afterwards for ‘very good’ behaviour always worked too.

Oh, and we were always complimented on how well behaved our kids were (funny how parents get all the blame/credit). They never poked anyone in the back of the head or ran up and down the aisles.