Hard time from friends?

[Billysanfranfan]

I've brought up the idea of taking in some shows in the past of BETM with friends, but have always been given grief over it for some reason or another. I think I might have been able to attend some shows but it would have been by myself and there would have to be some travelling that I didn't want to do alone.
Has anyone else ran into this situation? I'm talking about friends and family that won't even give Billy a chance.
I think the show I saw was great. I just wish some people would open their eyes.

Anyone else identify with this?

[Billysanfranfan]

How did you convince them to go? Was it family or friends? I have friends that would not understand, and won't even give it a chance. If I get to go in the future, I would like someone to join me and share in the joy.

[rob_hanson1979]

I find overall people are more accepting of things like the arts and dance and so on now.
However I find Billy isn't doing itself any favours by putting out the image of a boy wearing a tutu. When you see the show, its context is very clear. However when they are advertising to people who aren't familiar with the show or storyline, it's giving them the wrong image of what to expect.

[ERinVA]

For the tour, the tutus were used as publicity around the country, encouraging people to wear them, or having talk show hosts wear them, etc. However, I don't recall seeing a single publicity shot of a Billy wearing a tutu as part of a local photoshoot in the runup to the show's opening in any city. The boys wore jeans and the white shirts with the big BILLY on the front. Admittedly, there might have been some clips of the finale included in broadcasts where Billy had on his tutu, or a still production photo of the chairlift used, but mostly the tutu thing in local promotions did not involve the Billys at all.

[akugafi]

The first BETM I saw was in Sydney. I went with a friend who is not into musical. I managed to persuade him to watch the show with me.

We were actually startled with the strong language, but we did have fun watching the show. He was, ok with the show (since he's not into musical in the first place). He did ask me why Billy kissed Michael at the end of the show. He was actually asking me if Billy turned out gay in the end of the story. I said thats a kiss from a friend to a FRIEND. Lol..

Next December, I am going with some of my friends to watch this musical. They read good reviews about them.

The thing is that, if a person is NOT into musical in the first place, it will be hard to convince them to go. Its like asking me to watch a football match.. like.. like hello.. however great they may be.. I prefer to give it a miss and just prefer watch BETM for the hundred time. But I might just enjoy it. They will not definitely ask me to join them to watch football hehe

So, just enjoy what we love about the musical

[accessmenj]

The connection between the tutu and the musical in the promotions almost caused me not to see the musical the first time. Boy am I glad that I did not make that mistake!

[Todd]

I've found that most skepticism of the show from newbies usually disappears when they find out that Elton John wrote the music for it. That seems to give it a sense of legitimacy, as people automatically think of his successful recording career or his score from "The Lion King." The flack I usually get from people is more along the lines of, "How many more times are you going to see that show?" or "Why don't you try a different show for a change?" So trying to explain why it's such an addictive show or why it's captured my imagination so much more than any other theatrical production is what I have a hard time getting across to people.