Zimmy said:
oh good, the park is going to waste more money developing, producing, and staging a new show.
Scott G. fiddles while BGW burns.
As much as I agree that the park is not really in the place to develop a new show, I can *sorta* see the justification for this.
I think it is smart that the park is adding a new show while taking away two older ones. We all know that Entwined garnered poor guest satisfaction, and as much as I loved This Is Oktoberfest, it was really just a shell of its former self and felt like a place-holder that the park had reluctantly returned to the roster. After the initial cost of developing/producing a new show is done, having "Roll Out The Barrel" as the the only show in the Festhaus would be the equivalent of dropping one of the existing shows in the venue. So you get all the benefits of cutting a show (read: money saved).
However, this is much better from a marketing perspective. When people inevitably ask, "Why did you cancel Entwined?" or "Why did you get ride of This Is Oktoberfest?" the park will be able to turn around and say "We have retired our older shows in order to make way for our brand new show, Roll Out The Barrel!" Whereas, if one of the two shows were simply lopped off with no replacement, people would complain for exactly that reason. I guess it just looks better for the park? I dunno.
But after the 2015 season, assuming the new show sticks around for 2016 and beyond, it's economically no different than having simply cancelled one of the Festhaus shows. That is, at least, how I have this justified in my mind, but maybe I'm over-analyzing things.
My hope, however unlikely, is that some of the production/developing has already taken place, from back in 2011 before Roll Out The Barrel was scrapped at the last minute for Entwined. Maybe they'll be able to simply pull the show out of the filing cabinet, dust it off, and put it on with some of the work already having been done.
But who knows...