Mesa Easter Pageant

The Easter Pageant is a great experience. It gives you a chance remember the meaning of Easter. The Pageant itself is done really well and the best way to experience it is with some Petes Fish and Chips on a blanket. Sometime with Holiday meanings getting lost its refreshing. I give it 5 stars and a Happy Easter!

This is an impressive volunteer effort top to bottom. The costumes, the lighting, the choreography and animal training – and oh, that vivid finale. You can gripe a little about realism being set aside in favor of sweeping sentimentality, but a) it’s an outdoor devotional pageant aimed at an audience well disposed to the the mainstream Christian «origin story,» and b) no cover charge and no donations asked or accepted.
So, is there such thing a «free lunch?» Not really, no. The pageant committee is just a tiny, wee bit naughty in its claim (website FAQs) that LDS missionaries won’t proselytize pageant attendees. Technically true! No duly designated missionaries took the Mic to preachify. However, certain pageant committee members did summarize the missionary appeal in the guise of giving the pageant invocational prayer. As far as «altar calls» go, it was a subtle and light touch.
Lastly, kudos to the committee for the perhaps courageous decision to leave out some of the sketchy historical details in the Jesus story: Herrod’s massacre of the innocents and the Bethlehem Taxation Pretense. That right there is a little spoonful of chicken soup for this religious skeptic’s soul!

One of the MOST beautiful depictions of The Savior, Jesus Christ’s life. It goes through All the scenes starting with birth in Bethlehem and resurrection. All faiths would benefit. Worth the wait cause you need to arrive early. This is free and NO DONATIONS are asked for. They do talk very briefly 2 min max at the end how the Mormons believe after his resurrection he appeared to the America continent to give his gospel to his“other sheep”(Where the Book of Mormon came from)
It’s beautiful for all ages. Live animals also in production. Cast and animals come out before to meet and greet.
The peace of Easter is there. Arrive early for best seats.
Bring your own food and drink (there are some food trucks that pull up outside add well) bring blankets and come ready to be in the Easter spirit.

This weekend I had planned a night with my family to attend the Mesa Easter Pageant. Over the years our family has attended the Pageant and as a young boy our church groups would go every year to experience the event. So you could say I am a little bias from past experience but I’ll give you my experience this last time. For those who don’t know the pageant is a live reenactment of the birth and life of Jesus Christ played over about 60 minutes. Each year there is expected over 100,000 people over the two week period.
Because the last time I saw the play I was a young boy, I didn’t know when to get there to find good seats. I heard people begin showing up to the play at 5pm, which was amazing to me because it doesn’t start until 8pm. I figured Thursday night wouldn’t be too packed, so I headed down there at 630pm. There weren’t too many people there yet so we were able to find good seats in the front left portion of the seating area. Now the waiting began.
I never have been good at sitting in one area waiting for something to start. I used to do that when the Star Wars or Lord of the Rings movies came out at midnight but after awhile I got worn down. I decided to get up and walk around to check out the surrounding area. They have a center there with all the pictures and statues of Christ in the building to the south of the play area. There were missionaries there talking to people about their church. The bathrooms were closed inside, but they had portable bathrooms out to the east of the visitor’s center. The best time to use the bathrooms is at least 30 minutes before the play starts because I went back there right before and it was packed with people.
When I was younger we would sit out on the back lawn area where you can spread out blankets. For families, that is the best place to sit, although the view is not as good because it is far away from the stage. One problem I realized, people were saving seats, which is not allowed. People would come without their families to save 15 – 20 seats, and their families would come 20 minutes before the play. The people coming before then are out of luck. It was especially difficult when it was the last 30 minutes before the play because so many people were coming all at once. The hosts have a difficult job working with the people who are saving the seats.
The whole time I was waiting I saw large families with young kids, elderly families, and middle aged families spending time together. For me that is the purpose of the event is to bring families together. The lights go out at 8 o’clock so you will want to be in your seat then because it is hard to see when they go off. Any where you sit, the sound system is amazing. You won’t have a problem hearing from anywhere in the area. The play was amazing with dancing, narrating, acting, etc. Anyone who loves theatre would enjoy the play.
The end of the play is tough, though. With around 20,000 people all bunched together it could be rather slow getting out, and if you are like me you will not want to wait. I suggest sitting in an area on the side so you can make a quick exit to get to your car to beat all the other cars out. For not having been for a few years it was a great experience with my family that I will enjoy next year. The Easter Pageant is one of those events that only takes place once a year. I would suggest to anyone to attend next year. I had a great experience and know you will too.