At the New York Solstice, we tried an experiment that got overall positive feedback this year, to address both children and “people who don’t like the dark section of the night where it gets sad.”
We divided the event into two sections, with a roughly 10 minute intermission (the intermission went longer for practical reasons—there were too many people who needed to use too few bathrooms). The first half was explicitly and completely childfriendly. The second half was “explicitly sacred, sad and dark”, which would give parents judgment over whether it was appropriate for their kids, with an understanding that if their kid is making noise, they should take them to outside for a bit.
As it turns out we only had one 3 year old who was pretty well behaved (might have been taken out of the room on occasion by her grandmother, I wasn’t sure).
I asked people what they thought about the intermission afterwards on the anonymous feedback form, and answers have mostly ranged from “great!” to “eh, I wish it wasn’t necessary but it was—I wouldn’t have thought to get water if it wasn’t there.”
At the New York Solstice, we tried an experiment that got overall positive feedback this year, to address both children and “people who don’t like the dark section of the night where it gets sad.”
We divided the event into two sections, with a roughly 10 minute intermission (the intermission went longer for practical reasons—there were too many people who needed to use too few bathrooms). The first half was explicitly and completely childfriendly. The second half was “explicitly sacred, sad and dark”, which would give parents judgment over whether it was appropriate for their kids, with an understanding that if their kid is making noise, they should take them to outside for a bit.
As it turns out we only had one 3 year old who was pretty well behaved (might have been taken out of the room on occasion by her grandmother, I wasn’t sure).
I asked people what they thought about the intermission afterwards on the anonymous feedback form, and answers have mostly ranged from “great!” to “eh, I wish it wasn’t necessary but it was—I wouldn’t have thought to get water if it wasn’t there.”