Holiday Performance Survival Guide

Dance recitals. Choir and Band concerts. Theatrical productions. ‘Tis the season for rehearsals, shows and after parties! How to keep it all organized, especially as the parent of multiple children in multiple performances? We’ll show you how with these five holiday life hacks! You’ve got this!

1. Organize, organize, organize: Or have SignUp.com do the organizing for you! Create a (free) online SignUp sheet for each performance, including rehearsal dates and times. Send invitations to other parents whose children are involved and ask them to sign up for carpooling, snack duty, or volunteering backstage. SignUp.com provides automated reminders and real-time calendar syncing so you don’t have to keep track of it all in your head, and eliminates the endless email threads discussing schedules. Get started now!

2. Multi-task: Use the time you spend waiting at rehearsals to write your holiday cards, to plan party menus, and/or to do your holiday and grocery shopping online. Most of the major retailers now have apps that make shopping easier than ever. AND, if you start your shopping at a site like ebates.com, you can earn cash back.

3. Plan for Emergencies: The day of the performance is not the time to have to send people out for emergency supplies. Compile an emergency kit as you come across items you’ll most likely need on show day. Fill it with nutrition bars, bottled water, bobby pins, hair spray, make-up essentials, band-aids, a travel sized sewing kit, baby wipes, extra tights, clear nail polish, safety pins –and bring enough to share!

4.Thank everyone! Take up a collection for the director and assistant director of your event and present a gift card along with a bouquet of flowers on opening night. Bring flowers for your own child (and bring a few extra for parents who forgot.) Handwrite thank you notes to the other parents who worked so diligently driving carpool or feeding the kids –a small expression of thanks is often a tremendous motivator to volunteer again next year!

5.Make a memory: Find out ahead of time if the event will be recorded, videotaped, or if the organizers will allow you to take photographs. But don’t get so caught up in documenting the event that you forget to enjoy it! After all the hard work and planning, don’t forget to soak in the magic. That’s your kid up there!