Elf the Musical at The SSE Arena, Wembley with SSE Reward – Review

Seeing Elf the Musical at The SSE Arena, Wembley with SSE Reward, right before Christmas, was such an unexpected treat! We’ve taken Little Button to see quite a few shows, but not big ones at Arena type venues. I was a little bit worried that the experience would be quite overwhelming during the busy Christmas holiday period, but actually, it wasn’t at all. Especially as we were lucky enough to be trying out the SSE Reward experience. Here’s how we got on.

Getting to The SSE Arena, Wembley

We live in London, so by far the quickest way to get to The SSE Arena for us was by Tube. We got off at the closest station, Wembley Park, and found that the walkway up to the Arena was pedestrianised, yay! A welcome relief when you have an eager little one to contend with. The short walk (10-15mins) was lined with a few familiar coffee shop type places which would be perfect if you are catching a post lunchtime show. Pretty much everyone seemed to be heading towards The SSE Arena, so it was a case of following the gentle crowd (and signs), and in no time at all we were there.

Elf the Musical at The SSE Arena, Wembley with SSE Reward – Review

As part of the SSE Reward experience we had access to the SSE Reward lounge, and with it, a special VIP entrance into The SSE Arena which allows you to skip all the queues. 

It wasn’t obvious which entrance to use from the front of the Arena, so I asked one of the staff to point us in the right direction. Unfortunately we were given the wrong information and led to join a queue for the main Box Office. After a wait, the person at the ticket desk told us that we were in the wrong place, but wasn’t sure where we were meant to go. Ekk!?! 

By this point, in all honestly I was well and truly flustered. However, luckily, we did find a very helpful member of staff who knew exactly where we were meant to be, and we successfully headed off around the side of the Arena to the secret VIP entrance.

Which, as it turned out was gorgeous and had absolutely no queue at all.  

The SSE Energisers team here were so lovely and welcoming. I could feel the stress melting away as they happily chatted to us, checked us in, and then explained how the lounge worked. So although it wasn’t smooth sailing finding the VIP entrance for the first time, the team there really set the mood (positively) for what was going to be a wonderful all round experience.

SSE Reward Lounge

Once through the VIP entrance, one of the SSE Energisers team escorted us up to the SSE Reward Lounge, where we could relax and grab drinks and snacks from the private cash bar before we headed in for the show. The lounge was very spacious and had lots of comfortable seating available. 

We felt like rockstars!  

Believe it or not, the SSE Reward Lounge (with VIP entrance) is a free perk for SSE Reward members! There are limited places available, to keep it exclusive, but when you purchase event tickets, you can add the SSE Reward Lounge upgrade in, free of change and subject to availability. #Result.

Now. I said I wasn’t going to say this out loud… but I am. Personally, as a parent, I thought one of the biggest perks to having access to the SSE Reward Lounge was being able to comfortably use the private (very clean) toilets. There were no queues at all, and I was filled with huge peace of mind knowing that if a toilet break was needed, that we could just pop back to the lounge. That there would be no desperate crossings of legs. Nor, stumbling through dropped wet toilet paper strewn and left across the floor. This is also brilliant if you are solo parenting with slightly older children, who are not quite ready to be let loose on their own in vast public toilets. – Ok. Now I’m going to stop talking about the toilets 🙂 But you get what I mean, right?

On with the show – Elf the Musical

We were really excited to find out that our SSE House Seats were in a fantastic location to easily see the stage. The rake of the seats were pretty impressive and meant that Little Button was able to clearly see, even though a grown up was sitting in front of her. It makes a world of difference having a clear and unrestricted view. – Thank you #SSEReward.

Elf the Musical started off with a fantastic warm up act to get the crowd going and ramp up the excitement as people were taking their seats. There was even a real life Mexican wave that was super exciting to be part of. Woohoo!

Wow! Amazing seats with @YourSSE #SSEReward for #ElfTheMusical today! #London #ElfArena (Gifted) pic.twitter.com/GNiBeinqqo

— Annette, 3 Little Buttons (@3_LittleButtons) December 22, 2019

Once this had finished, the show quickly picked up pace and we all settled in to enjoy the story which is closely based on the movie ‘Elf’. 

It was soooo christmassy, heart warming and gave us so many giggles in all the right places. Everyone was amazing, but Tam Ryan who played Buddy the Elf completely stole our hearts. 

The music was very catchy and it was quite amazing to see how the cast really filled the huge stage, to give such an immersive experience of the musical. 

Little Button had so many favourite bits of the show that she enjoyed. But she especially loved the Cirque stars who performed the most stunning ariel tricks.*She was convinced that they were from The Greatest Showman movie… as you do when you are 7 years old.

My favourite bit was when Jovie, played by Kym Marsh, sings to Buddy the Elf and it snows. Awwww! 

 

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Gifted| We’ve just had the most magical time seeing Elf the Musical at The SSE Arena Wembley with #SSEReward 🎅🤩🎄. We were treated to a warm welcome from the SSE Energisers, who were so friendly and really couldn’t do enough to make sure we had an fab visit. 😊🌟 Hanging out in the #SSEReward Lounge was definitely a highlight, especially as the lounge had its own private toilets (no queues – yass!! *worth its weight in gold when you have little ones). 🌟🎄 And the #SSE house seats we had were completely amazing! We can’t recommend the show, or the #SSEReward experience enough. Thank you so much @your.sse 🤶❄️🎄🌟 . . If you are a @your.sse customer, you can access exclusive upgrades, competitions and experiences too. For FREE! Just head to www.ssereward.com to find out more.

A post shared by Annette, 3 Little Buttons (@3littlebuttonsblog) on Dec 24, 2019 at 7:57am PST

Not to give too much away, but there’s also a pretty spectacular ‘Father Christmas’ moment. It left me blinking into the oblivion and randomly shouting ‘is that Father Christmas?!?’ at Mr Button, who also had to do a double take. I won’t say anymore, but it was a lovely finish to the perfect Christmas show for all ages. 

Our overall thoughts

We had the best time! Elf the Musical was made up of all the right ingredients to leave us twinkling in our seats and ready for Christmas. It was a feast for the senses and I’m so thankful that we had the opportunity to see it as a family, with Nanny and Grandad Button too. We can’t recommend the show enough.

The SSE Reward experience completely enhanced our visit to see Elf the Musical, and who would have thought that it would be free to SSE Reward customers! 

Elf the Musical has finished it’s 2019 tour, but while you’re waiting for the 2020 tour to be announced, you can pop over to SSE Reward to see how you can register as a member. See you over in the lounge! 

Disclosure: Press trip| We received tickets to see Elf the Musical with the SSE Reward experience. All views are our own.