After singer and talk show host Kelly Clarkson said on a podcast recently that she didn't understand why her children's school held their concerts at 10am instead of in the evening because it conflicted with her work schedule, I posted a video response on Instagram (you can see that on IG here). In this post I want to expand on my reasoning more completely, since I can't say everything I want to say in a social media reel! So here is why daytime concerts work better for my school community than evening concerts.
Elementary-aged children can't all come to school at night
The most fundamental aspect everyone needs to understand about this question is that elementary school students cannot all come to school in the evenings. There are lots of reasons that vary from family to family, community to community, whether it's needing to take care of younger siblings, having no transportation, having a busy extracurricular schedule with soccer games and piano lessons that happen after school, etc. But no matter what night I pick, there will be students that can't come to school at night.
There are certainly ways to help combat this issue, and my first few years of teaching I, with the help of my school principal, did them all: communicate the date and time months in advance, provide childcare and food for students after school, make sure students and their families understand the importance of attending, etc. But there never was, and never will be, a way to ensure every student can be there outside of school hours.
Concerts are important educational opportunities
The second thing to fundamentally understand is that the reason we have concerts in the first place is for students to have the opportunity to practice, and learn how to, perform. It's part of the music curriculum that I teach, and it's embedded in the national standards for music education. If I want to ensure equal access for all of my students to all of the educational opportunities I am providing, I can't do my concerts outside of school hours.
Most performances depend on all members
Besides the individual students who miss out on the experience of performing if they can't be there for the concert, their absence negatively effects the rest of the students' performance experience as well. The type of concerts we're talking about here is ensemble performance- choir, band, orchestra, etc- where students are performing together in a group. Missing voices and instruments means even the students who are there will not be able to perform their best, and their experience will not be as positive.
Most kids perform better in the morning
Maybe a less obvious switch I made was from afternoon to morning concerts. I used to do dress rehearsals and sound checks in the morning and have the concert in the afternoon, and it was always frustrating to see them so often do better in the rehearsal than they did in the performance because they were tired later in the day. You also have the added hassle of either trying to keep their concert clothes clean and their hairdos intact all through classes, recess, and lunch, or needing to change clothes in the middle of the day at school. And anything that happens in the morning can throw students off their game, whether they're frustrated by a difficult math test, or hurt because a classmate didn't want to play with them at recess. It's hard enough for adults to set all of that aside and put on a great performance, but it's even more challenging for children. Doing the concerts in the morning ensures more students are fresh, alert, happy, and calm, and they don't have to stress about keeping their clothes clean all day.
Teachers perform better in the morning too
Just like the students, I am definitely much fresher in the morning! As the conductor of the music and coordinator of all the logistics, I have to be at my best to make sure I can make the concert a positive experience for my students. When I used to do evening concerts it was so much more difficult for me to perform at my best because I was so exhausted from a full day of teaching on top of preparing for the concert.
Not every working parent works during the day
The other factor that convinced me that evening concerts were not worth the trouble was finding out how many of my students' families work in the evenings. Of course it's important for my students to be able to have their families and loved ones there to support them! But I did not find that more families came when I had concerts in the evenings- I actually have a bigger parent audience now that I do my concerts during the day. Family members all work at different times of day, and I find the ones with daytime work hours seem to have an easier time getting time off, or adjusting their work schedule, to be able attend than the ones with evening work hours.
Students and teachers can attend
I know it's a bummer for family members who can't come to their child's school concerts, and it's sad for the students who can't have their family there. I've definitely had to console students who were discouraged seeing their classmates' families cheering them on while they had nobody there from their family. But that will happen even if the concert is in the evening, and when it's during the day time the rest of the school is there to cheer on all of the students, so I know every student has someone they know that can cheer for them, whether it's their other teachers, their classmates, or siblings in other grades. The audience is so much bigger at daytime concerts not only because more families come but because the rest of the school is there to watch as well! And as an extra benefit, the students who are not performing have the added educational opportunity to hear the music, attend a concert, and practice being an audience member.
In my mind, there is no contest: for elementary school concerts, daytime wins.
To see all of my posts on concerts, click here. For my posts on teaching elementary choir, click here. Have thoughts or questions to share? Please leave a comment below!
