My husband, my mom and I all were excited to see The Nutcracker this winter. While performances were taking places in various arts centers around South Florida, we chose to go to the Aventura Arts & Cultural Center since we haven’t been there before. As soon as we got to our seats (which were each over $100) we noticed there was no orchestra accompaniment. Then the show started with a host who spoke for ten minutes about how expensive it was for them to put on a show and essentially asked the audience for more money. There was no grand opening or introduction. The host was also very underdressed for the occasion. Once the performance started, things gradually got worse. The show was dominated by children who were certainly not professional dancers. While the parents of the children obviously would be proud to see their kids on stage, for those of us who paid over $100 each to see a professional al performance, it ended up being a scam. Were the children even getting paid to perform or were they being exploited for the theatre? The music was blasted over a very crackly sound system which left much to be desired and all the dances were entirely out of sync. The theatre should have advertised the show as a children’s performance and kept it a private show for parents who wanted to see their kids get some experience. We spent over $400 total on this performance and were definitely ripped off. I really believe we deserve a refund for a falsely advertised show. There were only a handful of professional dancers in this performance and it hurt to watch the rest of the dancers prance around in an uncoordinated fashion. Pretty disappointed and would not be a patron of this theatre again.