relaxed theatre

This is a style of theatre-going that originated in the UK a decade ago. It was originally intended for children with a range of conditions that it made it difficult for them to sit still and be quiet in darkness for the duration of the performance.  In particular children on the autism spectrum needed to be able to make a noise or move around to feel comfortable and required dim lighting rather than darkness and some adaptation of the performance to mute bright lights and sudden noise that they would find to be a sensory overload.  Because it was understood that it was not just autistic children who would benefit, the term relaxed was chosen as an inclusive and descriptive term.  The normal rules of theatre-going were to be relaxed for this group of children. They could bring fidget toys and even digital devices (muted) if that helped them to process the performance.

It seems that now the children have grown up and are working towards relaxed theatre for adults as well.

I notice that relaxed theatre has broadened to relaxed performance to cover concerts as well.