The Merry Misfits
Christmas Town 2025
- Thread starter tursiops
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This is a reminder of how much the event has deteriorated. This show had 17 performers and full production . Its current replacement has 3 and no production.
I really liked Miracles, but this example is nowhere near this black and white.
Miracles was overtuned for its theater. The production was too large and too expensive for the theater's capacity overall, its captive audience vs induced attendance viewership, and its complete lack of weather resiliency. The show required a huge stage extension eating up valuable theater capacity and the resulting stage wasn't suitable for dance—particuarly in the unsheltered cold. Furthermore, in the wake of the scale reduction at Il Teatro di San Marco San Marco, there have been a number of smaller entertainment products introduced to the event.
A show on the scale of Wisemen is, unfortunately, just a far more reasonable fit for this location than the enormous production of Miracles. That being said, for the record, despite the scale being more correct, I do believe they likely overcorrected—there's probably a good middle ground between the current trio and an enormous multifaceted theater show. Also, probably even more importantly, I simply believe Wisemen is a bad show—easily the weakest point in the park's entertainment lineup quality-wise, overly single-religion-focused at an event that now has Gloria back, in my opinion generic and boring, and in the spectrum of current BGW CMT shows, a show that brings absolutely nothing novel to the table.
CMT is sorely lacking live musicians right now and I think a medium-to-small-scale, "inspirational," "sentimental," holiday production in the tonal vein of Miracles with a focus on live instrumentation would be my ideal fit for this space. Maybe a trio of musicians with a pair of vocalists—something like that.
On net is the overall entertainment product as strong and expansive as, say, like 2015-era Christmas Town? No. I don't think it is. That said, BGW Christmas Town entertainment has endured notably better than BGW Main Season and Howl-O-Scream entertainment and, crucially, VASTLY better than the industry average. Because of that, I believe condemnation of the scale of the park's current spend at CMT is really sorta out of touch.
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We can't say there is zero production to Wisemen... There is that cheesy video projection screen 
But I pretty much agree with you. When I'm in the park I never plan to go to Wisemen... Sometimes if I have time between other things I'll drop in for part of the show. Which is a bit of a shame since as is usual with BGW productions the vocalists are good. I also agree about the loss of live musicians. Which is why shows like Merry Misfits while also low rent at least has a couple of live players out there. What would possibly be interesting is if we could add a couple of players to that to come up with a 4-5 piece group of instrumentalists (I so miss the days of the Starlight Orchestra - but know we'll never see the likes of that again 
). Something similar to the more recent Mix it Up show from several years ago but with a couple of less players. Still for the most part I enjoy what is there and try not to get caught up mourning something that will never be seen again.
But I pretty much agree with you. When I'm in the park I never plan to go to Wisemen... Sometimes if I have time between other things I'll drop in for part of the show. Which is a bit of a shame since as is usual with BGW productions the vocalists are good. I also agree about the loss of live musicians. Which is why shows like Merry Misfits while also low rent at least has a couple of live players out there. What would possibly be interesting is if we could add a couple of players to that to come up with a 4-5 piece group of instrumentalists (I so miss the days of the Starlight Orchestra - but know we'll never see the likes of that again ). Something similar to the more recent Mix it Up show from several years ago but with a couple of less players. Still for the most part I enjoy what is there and try not to get caught up mourning something that will never be seen again.You have valid points about the venue versus the show. A show like this should have been in the Abbey Stone, while a show without dedicated dancers is a good fit for the outdoor theater at this time of year. Onto Us was appropriate for that space and was a more produced show.
I highly doubt if the reasons listed were the reasons for the show elimination, knowing the recent budget cutting history of this park. It is my feeling that this show was eliminated 100% because of the budget.
It is not the only show that got cuts. Gloria now has a five man band instead of a full orchestra. The poor percussionist looks like a circus act changing instruments so much. That’s show feels hollow to what it used to be with a full orchestra.
The Feathaus show used to have a full band. The ice-skating show used to have a professional skater. I am unsure if there were any cuts to Scrooge because that show has too much chatter in it for me. Even when they brought the Irish dancers in for Christmas, they didn’t spend any money on producing a new show.
Regardless of the reasons for the elimination of Miracles, anytime a fully produced beautifully choreographed show with emotional music is replaced by a stand around and sing show with three guys, it represents deterioration of an event.
This event never had the best Christmas lights, even when there were more and bigger Christmas trees. The live entertainment was it’s greatest strength. And unfortunately, that is not the case anymore.
I
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The final day was awesome. Small crowds, but unfortunately cold. The performers pulled out all the stops. They gave spectacular final performances. The swings joined the finale of Gloria. Merry Misfits put on a rocking final show. Most of the Christmas merchandise was discounted. There were even deals in the candy shop. It was a great day to be at the park.
I saw the final performance of Scrooge no more for the season, I wonder if anyone got a footage of the last shows of Christmas town live, Gloria , and wisemen
