To think that parents at school concerts...

[Katisha]

...should not talk all the way through?

Have just been to the annual massed strings event at a local school and while I understand that smaller children might not be enthralled by the concert and may make a noise, I do wish that certain parents would not just chatter to each other throughout while the children in the orchestra are playing.

Have seen this happen so often now. Happens at special school church services as well. Parents yapping away non-stop.

YANBU - it's effing rude. They do it at my school also, including 3 parent/governors who talked to each other behind their hands all through a communion mass a while ago.

I could have stabbed em with a blunt knife.

My in laws do that. I sat through a 'Britains Got Talent' type show and clapped in all the right places, tried to listen to the jokes and laugh in the right place etc, couldn't hear most of it. My in laws were behind me gossiping and saying things like 'oo I couldn't hear that one'. Took all of my strength not to turn around and say 'that's because you're fecking talking'! If someone had done that to my DS they'd be the first to complain.

Grrr...

I also find it annoying when people bring their short children and stand them on their laps so that they can see. Yes, now they can see, but about ten other people now can't.

I once saw a parent answer their mobile during one of out school concerts.

And of course people yap all the way through films at the cinema as well...

Grrr.

i was sat next to the only parents who yapped through the concert last week... i was moreupset and annoyed at the glaring looks people directed at me, and dd sat next to me, thinking we were the ones yakking. she was an angel, and didnt yap ata ll. it was the old bag on my other side, yacking to what was either her son, or her toyboy.

My parents used to sit at the back of my orchestra concerts and read their books.

I spent £62.50 each on tickets to Billy Elliott for me, dh and my parents for Xmas and some idiot behind me talked all the through 'Electricity'

YADDDDDDDNBU! As a music teacher who knows how much effort goes into such concerts from both the pupils and the staff it is a plain pig ignorant, insensitive, unpleasant, moron who proceeds to talk through even the most excruciating of performances.

It's hard enough for children to stand up and perform in front of an audience without someone with the social graces of a baboon talking all the way through their performance.

And they always sit up and shush everyone else when their little PFB starts scraping away too!

And breathe!

My girls were in a kids ballet fairly recently and there were a couple of old dears next to me literally shouting the whole way through - in a proper theatre, too. My hubby reckoned they were deaf and didn't realise how loud they were.

They were saying things like "oooh, that one's the best, I think, isn't she? Better than the others," and "I don't think that one's really got the face for ballet, do you?"

I was thinking, people have kids in this and you're going to make someone pretty pissed off if you don't be quiet!.

I once sat in front of a mother who gave each of her three boys a packet of crisps during a performance!

I mean, ffs!

it's the seat reserving at school plays i hate. i wander into an almost empty school hall and the few parents there have all their stuff all over the front seats for their friends, and then the friends sometimes don't use the seats anyway

No-one dares do this at our school concerts as the head is really scarey! She hs been known to stand up in the middle and tell the audience to be quiet, and respect the kids. She patrolls the edges of the hall, getting parents to take noisy toddlers and crying babies out. She "shusshhhes" people from the side.

Do not encourage the wrath of Mrs McCombe!

Hoorah for Mrs McCombe! If I was the teacher at the front I would have no hesitation in asking parents to shut up. But as another parent all I can do is glare.

I just think people have no idea how to behave at live performances or other such events - it's not as if it's a rock concert when you can bellow away happily. People have no idea or maybe just don't care how their behaviour impacts on those around them.

DS's school firmly issue an invitation for parents who cannot come without the small (noisy) siblings of the performers to come to the dress rehearsal - implication being please do not bring your noisy brats to the real thing.

The funniest thing is always the fathers of the smallest children, who have been dragged along to see their precious LO perform - the nursery class tend to make a 30 second guest appearance and then get ushered off, and you can see them all thinking "WTF? I took the afternoon off for that?"

YANNNBU! They do it at my DD's school too, although the teachers are getting better at pointedly asking the parents to be quiet. It's not just rude, it's a rotten example for the kids.

If you had gone to the bash at dd's old school you would have chatted all through it... It was excruciatingly bad and badly managed, badly run and badly organised.

We have sent her to a new school after a musical evening there because it was so well managed. No one chatted as it was actually worth listening to everything - even the very small children who had been playing violin for less than half a term. Nobody played for more than about 30 seconds - quite long enough for those little kids to play on a couple of open strings, while the bigger ones, who'd played a bit longer played some more complicated stuff. Then the really good ones who could actually play did so.

It was the same with all instruments (including voice). Everyone who wanted to be in the show, was in the show. No one did anything beyond their ability, everyone looked (and sounded) good.

Consequence, no one talked, everyone listened. Everyone enjoyed it.

YANBU. This sort of thing really annoys me too and I always turn round and glare at anyone doing this.

The other thing that annoys me a bit - and this might be slightly controversial - is when people bring much younger children and then make little or no effort to keep them quiet. If they are too young to understand that they should be quiet when the other children are performing then they are too young for the concert IMO.

People talking in the cinema - I have noticed this too and also that the volume of the films are much, much louder these days then it was years ago. I can't make my mind up whether people talk more because the film is so loud they feel they can or whether they had to make the films louder because the concept of being quiet and having consideration for other people is alien to so many people now.

I know a Mrs McCombe who is a head of a primary school! It's not the same one is it? (Retiring very soon?)