Dem and I took the girls to see The Fresh Beat Band today.

They're one of the more tolerable kid shows. Picture going to see The Wiggles, only not wanting to hang yourself. We were thinking the girls would be too young for it, but there were a surprising amount of kids there around their age. Helena started going downhill halfway through it and Dem had to go away with her, but Celeste loved the shit out of it. I think it blew their mind. They knew it was the FBB, but they didn't really get the context.
Anyway I'm bringing this up because I was really surprised by the lack of production values for this show. For all four of us to go this was like 200 bucks (they were a Christmas gift from Santa, not that the girls knew or anything) so I was kind of expecting more. It was pretty much just the "band" members (they don't play shit, just sing) and they had four back up dancers. Between songs the group just talked to the crowd a bit, which mainly consisted of "Hey you guys need to make noise!" Followed by a bunch of Mom's screaming their heads off.
The stage was set up fairly simple, with just a large screen behind them that showed off random graphics that sorta went along with the songs. They always show commercials for their show on Nick Jr and I can say it was nothing like that commercial, which I guess shouldn't be surprising. On the one song in the commercial it ends with all of this confetti falling on top of the crowd. During the same song at the live show they dropped this ONE confetti bomb on a group that was to the front right. That was it. So about 20 people got confetti. My sister took her daughter to a later show and I brought that up, she said they got tons of confetti. I asked where she was sitting, and of course it was where the bomb dropped.
Also, the first thing they say when they come on stage, seriously, like the second line out of the one guys mouth was "Buy our new CD." Fuck you dude, we just got here, sing some fucking songs first. I know he has to say this as it's part of his script, but shit. They mentioned that CD like 10 times during the show and guess what? It was already in my car.
Between songs they just kind of seemed bored. Those moments were usually quick, but they repeated the same shit a lot. Whoever wrote this thing is an idiot. To their credit, the cast and the dancers did what they could with what they were given, but I just expected a bit more pop. I wanted lasers and shit. Anyway, every single kid loved it, so I guess that's all that matters. Still, Nick is just making money hand over fist with these shows if this is the production value they've given them.