Elmo Live...not for the over-thirty crowd

One: We didn’t even know Elmo was in town. I just happened to see an ad on the sidebar of my Facebook Home page and clicked it. Tada! So with two days to go before showtime, we managed to get super good seats. Who knew? The advertising budget must not have been very good this year. Even my son's daycare had no idea the production was in town.

Sent an email to a few friends, one replied back with 'WOW...that's steep!' Really? $20 a ticket is steep? I went to Disney with a toddler...$20 a ticket is a STEAL...but I digress. It's not like we do it every weekend. We would have spent mroe than this hiring a sitter and going to see Sex and the City like we had originally planned, but the sitter couldn't sit this weekend...so we ended up at Elmo Live. Sex and the City versus Elmo Live...by the end...you get popcorn at both and sit in a dark theatre for a few hours. However, the Sex and the City crowd would have been mostly potty trained, I hope. Or at least more bathrooms, but that comes later.

Arrival at the Landmark Theatre in Richmond was easy. Parking garage, $5. Lots of available parking. Strolled over and went inside.

Problem number one: Landmark is an older theatre and apparently in the old days, people had larger bladders. I didn't remember that there is only one set of restrooms. When you are a childless couple attending a Broadway production, potties are not the number one sought out amenitie. This was going to get interesting with the potty training crowd with three stalls in the ladies room. There was already a line, and there were maybe twenty people in the entire theatre at this point.

Problem number two: We arrived early, so we had to mill around the lobby area for twenty minutes or so before we got in to our seats. No big deal. We just milled around away from the Sesame Street stuff for sale. And there wasn't much...thank goodness.

Made our way to our seats and I notice problem number three:

There will be no interaction with the characters at Landmark. The stage is not designed to allow the characters off and into the crowd. So there went that. Oh well. We still had excellent seats. Back row of Section C (center) on the aisle. PERFECT. We can make a mad dash if he flips out.

Show starts! Elmo and friends come out! Kids go nuts. The little girl in front of us proceeds to completely flip out and daddy had to run with her. I didn't see them again the rest of the show.

About twenty minutes in, the crowd is subdued. My husband has dozed off. Looking around, lots of dads have dozed off.

More parents arrive about forty minutes late…dragging their children up and down the aisles, looking for their seats, ushers are trying to herd them along…it’s a mess. Seriously? You just paid $20+ a ticket, and you arrive HALFWAY through the show. Give me a break. It wasn’t just one set, it was MANY sets. Very weird.

Intermission is 45 LOOONG minutes later. So far, Elmo and friends have danced and sang their way all the way around planting a sunflower. I just want them to dig a hole so I can get out of here and go eat lunch!

My son decides to have a melt down moment in the aisle because I won’t go buy him some toy that he saw another kid with. By the time the husband gets back from his snack/caffeine run, he’s all good and back in my lap.

Show starts back up again…only forty five more minutes to go! The husband has now broken out the I-Phone and I catch him surfing Facebook. No fair…I have a toddler on a my lap, I’ve completely zoned out on the show and am now checking out the lighting rigs, the tech board behind me and marveling at some of the architecture in the theatre. It really is a beautiful theatre. I'm also trying to figure out how they are making the mouths on the characters move...it's gotta be remote controlled.

About five minutes in, I could doze off. Kids are starting to lose interest and parents start leaving about half way through the second half. This show could have easily been shortened by thirty minutes. Take out something. Maybe the song and dance number with Oscar the Grouch and his weird girlfriend. Kids are getting crabby, adults are bored.

Grand Finale: FINALLY! The characters sing and dance about planting the sunflower…wish it would have grown magically or something to show it was happy…then the cannons go off and shoot streamers down into the audience. The kids who initially did not freak out over the characters first appearance, have now been traumatized. Not once, but twice…because the cannons go off again.

Out the door and to the right…quickly. Wanting to avoid the BIG Elmo balloons. We almost make it, but the Toddler spots one at the crosswalk to the parking garage and wants to barter his tshirt for it. No can do.

All in all, a good show. If we had more than one kid, I would have reconsidered the amount we paid for the ticket. With TicketMasters prices…we paid $85 total, including all those fancy taxes and fees, for floor seats. We could have paid cheaper in the balcony, but I wasn’t thinking that the characters couldn’t get off of Landmark Theatres stage. I’ll remember that next time...and won't pay for down front seats.

I'll give it a four star for the kids entertainment. Two star for the adults. Two star for facilities in this theatre for the younger crowd. Five star for parking.