*I was provided with Sesame Street Live event tickets for the Grand Rapids show in exchange for this post. All opinions are my own.

My nephew Drew turned 3 in August and has been a fan of Elmo DVDs for about a year or so now. He now owns several Elmo DVDs, plus clothing and toys that are Elmo. So when I heard that Sesame Street Live was coming to Grand Rapids, I was excited about the possibility of being able to take him.

Tonight was the first day that the show was be in Grand Rapids at the Van Andel Arena. There are two shows tomorrow (Saturday) at 10:30am and 2:00 PM. Sunday there will be two more shows, one at 1pm and the other at 4:30pm. If you’re in the Grand Rapids area check out this Sesame Street Live Grand Rapids page for more info or to buy your tickets.

While Drew loves Elmo from Elmo DVDs that he has, he hasn’t actually watched Sesame Street but many of the Elmo DVDs introduce other characters so he was familiar with most of the characters that were part of the show. Aside from Elmo, Drew’s favorite character seems to be Telly who most would consider to be a minor character on Sesame Street so I wasn’t sure if we could even count on him being in the show but he was and he had a decent amount of stage time which was nice. The voices are not done by the people in costumes by instead are played through speakers with the actual characters voice, making the show seem a lot more real for toddlers. Prior to the show starting they had Grover, Cookie Monster and Elmo make 15 and 5 minute left until start warning announcements which got him really excited because he knew their voices. They made a little joke about how Cookie Monster had to finish eating up his cookies first which Drew thought was really funny. Once the show started, each time Cookie Monster would leave stage, Drew would ask if he needed to go find more cookies to eat.

The show is 90 minutes long with a 15 minute intermission which seemed perfect for Drew who is 3, as he started getting antsy at the tail end of the show, though we miscalculated our time and did have to wait about half an hour before the show started so he probably wouldn’t have gotten antsy at all had we not arrived so early and had to sit and wait.

When the characters came on stage, Drew was SO engaged in watching the show. It was funny just how closely he was paying attention. Then when Elmo came out for the first time, he screamed “Hi Elmo!” louder than I had ever heard him yell before and in a tone of voice that I had never heard from him either! He was just so incredibly excited.

While Drew knew of Grover, he had only ever seen him being Super Grover. During the first half of the show or so, grover is just regular ole Grover. Drew mentioned several times that “Super grover is missing his cape”. Of course, I thought he’d be regular Grover during the entire show so I tried explaining that the cape is a costume, and Grover is just a regular monster. Drew insisted that he truly IS Super Grover and he needs his cape to fly. So, you can imagine how excited he was when grover suddenly left the stage and reappeared seconds later as Super Grover. When I saw Drew’s thrilled reaction I grabbed my camera in time to express the tail end of his yay-there’s-super-grover-grin.

If you think you will want to buy food, snacks, toys or drinks, be prepared to pay more than you would at most places. Most items like popcorn, soda, and snowcones were $4-$5 each. However, I was really surprised at how reasonably priced the Sesame Street stands were. They had a handful of Sesame Street t-shirts for sale and all of the designs were $15 each.

I can only think of one thing that I think could be improved. Typically, I wouldn’t expect children to be able to interact with any of the characters at all. However, the characters would sometimes leave stage and come up to a row or cluster of kids  (perhaps 15 or so in a group standing together) to give them a shake, high five or to take a photo with them really quickly. They weren’t passing by while going from one destination to another, but were instead going just for the purpose of interacting, but they would only interact with 2-3 kids and then would disappear again. They did this several times and we were lucky enough that Drew was able to high five a character once but the grand majority of children didn’t get to and I saw multiple kids melting down over it. If they could have spent maybe 3-5 minutes they could have interacted with the entire cluster of kids. If that’s time allowance isn’t possible, I think it would be better to not head into the crowd specifically to interact when their time is so incredibly limited and nearly all of the children were ages 1-5 or so as it feels like a trick or taunting to them.

The show music and general chatter was not overwhelming but was loud enough that you should feel comfortable bringing babies without worrying if they’ll cry for a second or two before you can calm them back down or exit for a moment, etc.  It was a busy enough environment that there was no pressure to keep the kids from talking at a normal voice level which is great because that makes the whole thing more fun for kids when they can act more naturally. At the event we went to, there were a lot of people but it wasn’t incredibly packed. There were people in front of us by one row but nobody to either side of us so it wasn’t stuffy or stiff feeling which was really nice for Drew to be able to get up, dance, clap, change seats, or change whose lap he was sitting on without feeling like we were disturbing others at all. The environment was super baby and toddler friendly.

We had a great time. Drew sometimes clams up in crowds but the kid friendly environment left him feeling like his typical self – he even joined in on an impromptu toddler dance party with a group of kids between the rows. He enjoyed the show even more than I hoped he would. I think he’ll be talking about it for weeks to come.

If you aren’t in the Grand Rapids area, be sure to check out the Sesame Street Live website to see if they’re coming near you and how to get tickets.

Emily

Hi there! I am Emily Evert, the owner of Emily Reviews. I am 28 and live in a small town in Michigan with my boyfriend Ryan and our two pugs. I have a large family and I adore my nieces and nephews. I love reading memoirs, and learning about child development and psychology. I love watching The Game of Thrones, Teen Mom, Sister Wives and Veep. I like listening to Jason Isbell, John Prine, and other alt-country or Americana music. I created Emily Reviews as a creative outlet to share my life and the products that I love with others.

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