Elmo’s Green Thumb

Elmo's Green ThumbThis past weekend, my husband and I took our 17 month old son to see Elmo’s Green Thumb. Of course my son had no clue why, but we were beyond excited to see how he’d react to the characters, music, lights and crowd. My husband grew up with Sesame Street in his home, but I was a Romper Room girl. Anyway, I know how my son squeals in delight when he sees Elmo’s World come on and I couldn’t wait to see his face light up when he saw a life size Elmo right in front of him!

I purchased floor seats and we were 7 rows from the stage. Our seats were located on the center aisle which proved to be a real treat since Grover and a purple monster with a horn nose (I have no clue what its name is) came over and interacted with our son. He absolutely loved the personal attention from the monsters! We knew he wouldn’t have character phobia since he regularly goes to Walt Disney World. Unfortunately, the 2 year old girl behind us was terrified and screamed pretty much the entire time. I’m still wondering why her parents didn’t choose to move to higher seats so they wouldn’t have to worry about the characters coming close to her?

My son sat perfectly still during the entire first half of the show, he was completely mesmerized by the lights and music. We could tell he thoroughly enjoyed the show, he clapped often while the characters were singing and dancing. Unfortunately, the lights popped on for a 15 minute intermission and he was like WTF? Where did my show go? At that point, we knew it was going to take a small miracle for him to stay still. That miracle never happened so we decided to leave a few minutes into the second half.

All in all, it was a fun experience for the first half and we will take him to other productions. I’m still wondering how the story ends, guess I’ll just have to wait and see next time the show is in town.

I’m still scratching my head over these things:

  • Ticketmaster charged $30 in fees (which cost more than an entire ticket)! How ridiculous is that?
  • There were a TON of open floor seats which means Ticketmaster either held these premium seats back or ticket hawks purchased them with hopes of ripping off families willing to pay top dollar for seats.
  • Do you really need to get up 10 times during a 45 minute show and a 15 minute intermission? There was a family sitting beside of us and the pregnant mom kept getting up and trampling all over our feet trying to move her daughter up to closer seats. Finally, when intermission was over she and her friends moved to the very front row, center stage which made me happy since I didn’t have to worry about moving out of their way anymore.
  • Some people do not understand that you cannot let your child run up to the stage hoping the characters will dance with you. The family I referenced above ALSO let their child run right up to the stage and she was almost trampled by the monsters. Needless to say, ushers quickly grabbed her and lectured her mom (and then she decided to trample on our feet again to return to her seats).
  • Intermission, is it really necessary? OMG, my son was a complete angel until the lights came on for intermission and ushers flooded the floor with 3D Elmo balloons, cotton candy displays, merchandise for sale, etc. It was like a small circus was created in front of us. We lost him at that point because he felt it was time to run around instead of sitting still waiting for the show to start. Perhaps we should have found a quiet place where he could have gotten out his energy, but we were afraid of what he’d do when we returned to our seats.
  • Parents, if your child is screaming and kicking hysterically, please remove them from the situation instead of torturing them (and those other paying customers sitting close to you).

If you have taken your child to a live show, what was your experience like?

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