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Children left ‘crying’ as they were CUT from the TV3 Toy Show

Young students were left “crying” after their performance was cut from the TV3 Toy Show last minute.

The children, from St Cronan’s Senior National School in Swords, had practiced tirelessly for their scheduled performance on Friday night, however, their dreams were dashed on the night due to a “technical error”.

According to their teacher Rita Doyle and principal Loreto Desmond, the school had forked out €300 on a bus to transport the 49 pupils and their teachers to the TV3 studios in Ballymount.

“It was a huge commitment,” Rita Doyle told TheJournal.ie.

The students walked on set at 8.20pm to get into their positions, “They said crackers would go off with confetti and then the music would roll,” Rita said.

“The crackers went off and I was thinking ‘where’s the music, where is the music’ – I thought I faintly heard it and we started singing.” She thought the absent backing track was a sound error.

“There was no music. Then I could hear what I thought was the music for a couple of seconds – I thought it was still live music so I was conducting away and the children were singing away.”

The teacher later found out that the performance was not live on the show, and that the show had finished up before the award-winning choir got to complete their performance.

The children and their parents were left extremely upset, “One mother said to me the excitement for this event did not just start today, it started two weeks ago. The children were crying afterwards. There were tears galore.”

TV3 have since apologised to the school in a statement obtained by TheJournal.ie.

“Regrettably, a technical error on Friday night meant that the choir who were supposed to sing out our Toy Show Teaser were cut prematurely.

“Understandably the choir, their families and TV3 were deeply disappointed that this happened as we had fully intended to have their performance play out.

“We apologise to the choir and their families and to make it up to the St Cronan’s choir, we have offered to have them on The Six O’Clock Show to perform and have offered to go to them to film them singing if coming to TV3 is not convenient,” a spokesperson for TV3 added.

The 49 children were from 4th, 5th and 6th class, and had to wait six hours before their scheduled performance.

“By the time we got home, Twitter had gone mad the parents were really disappointed,” the school’s principal said.

“We have 600 children in the school. They had every granny belonging to them up and down the country primed to watch. One child even talked about her granny is in hospital and had everybody told in the ward. That is the level of disappointment for the parents.

“It’s not the end of the world but it is disappointing and they are disappointed for the children and how excited they were. I am most disappointed for the wider community and the grannies and all of those who were watching and tuning in to see their grandchild or neighbour’s child – they would be hugely disappointed,” she added.

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