Parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles, friends, Romans and countrymen…okay maybe not Romans…but the rest of you, you know how when we are all gathered at pretty much any and every event in the life of our children where they aren’t the only children there like concerts, awards ceremonies, games, graduations, competitions and other stuff where the emcee has to stop every once in a while to remind us all of the rules of the event…the rules that apply to us all at the event. Have you ever thought how much time is wasted when the emcee needs to stop and remind us more than twice, three times, four times..six times…in an hour…of every hour…of every day of the event you are attending?

Have you?

Well I did this weekend, at the event that started Friday afternoon and lasted until Sunday night.

People, THIS is why the emcee at the dance competition we attended Friday afternoon and evening, all day Saturday and all day Sunday had to stop to remind us at the very least four times every hour…in very clear, concise, simple language. At dance competitions like these, public events with our children performing copyrighted choreography on stage it is very clearly prohibited for anyone in the audience to video record a dance…with our children on stage. But that rule must apply to everyone but ME says pretty much every parent, grandparent, auntie, uncle, random stranger who might wander into an open, free, public event.

Ew, to the thought of some random stranger wandering in to a dance competition and taking pictures or recording young dancers on stage!

Ewww!!!

So this is why there is this rule prohibiting photographing or video recording the children on stage and YES it applies to everyone which is why they had to keep stopping…to remind all of us parents, especially the self important ones who were certain that they could not possibly mean THEM, or their iPhone and who were genuinely irritated when kids, my kid actually blocked their view and even more irritated when a staff member of the Rainbow Dance Competition came up to her and told her to stop recording or her kid’s dance would be disqualified.

Yeah, I was clapping. Because self-entitled dance mom you so deserved it.

Seriously, lady, just put down the 12 bucks and buy the damn dvd of your kid’s dance! You want have some person’s shrill voice shouting “You’re actually going to ignore the rules and video record this, aren’t you? Well, aren’t you special!“  and you won’t have people walking into and out of the shot blocking your little darling as she pirouettes across the stage. It is quite good. Note the previous blog post.