Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Can you hear it? Your child’s internal clock ticking down to summer, with its long, warm days and fun with friends? If so and you’re already starting to plan summer activities, the City of Snoqualmie has something that might help.
Back by popular demand, the City of Snoqualmie announced this week that it will be sponsoring ten, weekly “Movies & Music in the Park”events starting Thursday, July 2, 2015.
Last summer the Snoqualmie Parks Department hosted two very successful Movies in the Park evenings, with the outdoor showing of Frozen drawing over 1,000 local parents and kids sporting in their favorite Anna and Elsa princess costumes.
Responding to community’s desire for more similar events, Snoqualmie Parks and Public Works Director Dan Marcinko decided to increase the number of outdoor movies this summer.
Marcincko said, “We want these events to be about families spending time together in their own backyard.” He explained that the city’s goal is simply that parents have something to do right in Snoqualmie with their kids
The ten Movies & Music in the Park events are FREE of charge to all attendees and begin around dusk. Each outdoor movie showing will happen on a 70-foot screen at Snoqualmie Community Park, adjacent to the Snoqualmie Valley YMCA.
Music in the Park, which includes two 16-piece bands, will be in the amphitheater space at the intersection of SE Ridge Street and Center Blvd SE – right where Center dead ends on Ridge Street. Visit the City of Snoqualmie website for a complete schedule of events at www.cityofsnoqualmie.org.
2015 Movies in the Park include:
- Hunger Games, Mocking Jay
- Guardians of the Galaxy
- Despicable Me 2
- Big Hero 6
- The Lego Movie
- Return of the Jedi
Comments
As someone who lives across the street from the park, and whose kids go to sleep at 7:30pm, this makes me very angry. I remember the showing of Frozen last year, and was annoyed, but it was just one night, so oh well. (We must have been out of town for the other showing last year.) But ten weeks is excessive.
I also think some of the movies are inappropriate for a young crowd. Hunger Games and Guardians of the Galaxy are both PG-13. I haven’t seen the new Hunger Games, but I can bet that it’s violent. And Guardians of the Galaxy has foul language, violence, and other inappropriate content. The only way to avoid having my two- and four-year-old hear the foul language, etc., would be for us to go somewhere else to sleep for the night. This is absolutely ridiculous and an outrage that we will basically be forced from our home fort the night to avoid exposing our children to stuff like this.
This is simply not okay. The City of Snoqualmie needs to pick different films, making sure they are all PG or G. And please go back to just two nights. Ten is too big of an inconvenience for those who live in hearing distance of the park.
Amanda’s point about G/PG movies is a good one, but I think the complaint about this happening essentially in her backyard with too much noise isn’t fair. That park is clearly community property (even called Community Park — can’t be more clear than that!) and this is a fair activity for the community. It’s not as if someone bought a house one day and the next day the house next door was razed to make room for a park — that park was always there and belongs to all of us for this type of activity.
Fair point, Andrew. My biggest complaint is the inappropriate nature of the movies for children because those who live nearby can’t help but hear. I actually love living near the park, and I love most of the events that happen there. But I don’t like events that continue past 8pm and are loud. Movies in the Park is a fun idea, but I don’t think it needs to happen six times in one summer. I am more than willing to put up with noise and disturbed bedtime for an evening or two, but six is a little much. (It was clarified to me that there will only be six movies, and four events will just be music in the park–and those end at 8pm.) I’m the one who has to struggle getting my kids to sleep because of all the noise and then deal with two grumpy and whiny children all the next day. And I definitely don’t want my children exposed to bad language or other inappropriate content for their age. Yes, this is a community park, but it is also in a residential neighborhood. There needs to be balance, and there needs to be respect for those who live here.