Flashing light toys and the theatre

[spudsie]

Does anyone else hate flashing light toys at the theatre? Bristol Hippodrome were selling them at the children's version of Swan Lake and whilst many parents who'd succumbed got their children to switch them off when the performance started, there were some who did not.
They get waved above heads, fiddled with and are totally distracting for anyone behind/next to one and thats not what i take my child to the theatre for.
I've asked for them to be turned off before but frankly its annoying and impossible if the owner is too many rows ahead.
I've written to the Hippodrome.
Am I just getting old??

I thought this the last time I went to the theatre. I just don't get it! Why would you want a child in front of you waving around a flashing wand whilst you are trying to watch something? It's madness,

This happens all the time at the pantomime and drives me mad!

I can't believe it's happening at other performances too. I mean pantomimes are billed as loud with audience participation etc and it's bad enough then but at Swan Lake?!

there were some who did not
I presumed if they were sold by the theatre they were for use in the theatre so had not made my child turn them off.

but i have only seen them sold at panto

I couldn't agree more, but I don't think you'll have any luck getting theatres to stop selling them.

Most theatres don't make much profit on the ticket sales. Sometimes the show can be an outright hire of the venue by the producers of the show so the theatre gets no profit at all from the audience, sometimes it's a split Of the profits between the producers and the venue, but however it's done the profit margins are low. Theatres are encouraged by the companies who own them to make as much money as they can on merchandise, hence the wildly inappropriate light up toys.

I'm sure there are other things they could sell to make money. Even glow sticks would be better (for pantomimes or music events), it's the brightness and the flashing that is so distracting.
Will see what the Hippodrome have to say x