OktoberZest

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I want to clarify. OktoberZest is still not (and may never be) what I would call a good show, but massive improvements have been made. Here is the new start of the show. As you can see, they start with Pachelbel's Canon. The last few notes of that song are still not fool proof, but they changed the notes little bit, making the expectations for a violin more realistic.

The violinist also now says the spiel at the beginning of the show. This is nice, because otherwise they cut back on the musicians' rolls significantly. They still have the non-instrumental slap dance, but it has been shortened to the point where I think they should just cut it entirely. Also, bits and pieces of the soundtrack have some added emphasis on the bass.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umMrwgbSqGY

After the opening segment, the show is relatively unchanged aside from more emphasis on the clock mechanisms in both the soundtrack and choreography during the wood chopping scene.
 
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mountaineers said:
Also saw today and it much improved from earlier.  The cast does very well with what they are asked to do.  Its not TIO, but better than the last two shows.  I'll take it.
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THIS!!
 
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mountaineers said:
Also saw today and it much improved from earlier.  The cast does very well with what they are asked to do.  Its not TIO, but better than the last two shows.  I'll take it.
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I have to give it another shot because I didn't love it when i first saw it but hopefully i feel the same!!
 
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once there is a video of the show out there on the internet, what is the point of banning filming of the show? There is already one out there, so why should they give a crap? Unless they are trying to cover up unpaid song rights or something like that.
 
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I have no real evidence for this, but my impression is that they want people to have to visit the park to see the show.

When we were interviewing them before BGW opened, they wouldn't send us any pictures for our article, and responded that people "could see the sets and costumes for themselves" at the park.

From a business perspective, it is a bit like my mother telling me never to give the milk away for free.  The shows probably bring people into the park.  Those people will buy food and possible merchandise.  Some of them might even buy tickets and passes, because of the shows.  If they can watch OktoberZest for free at home, they might be less likely to visit the BGW, or perhaps go to the park less often.  So, this could be driven strictly by business considerations.

As I said, I have no hard evidence, but profits seem like a more likely motivator for the park than some nefarious, autocratic need to control and upset their fans.
 
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Nicole said:
As I said, I have no hard evidence, but profits seem like a more likely motivator for the park than some nefarious, autocratic need to control and upset their fans.
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Exactly, the park has always done this ever since it opened in 1975; this is nothing new.
 
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What Nicole said is true, but they wouldn't need to worry about people not attending the park if they didn't have so many bad producs in their mix. If people saw shows like Celtic Fyre, that would be positive advertising. One show spoils all in this situation and it's not fair.

This is just another method that BGW is probably using to keep this from corporate, like how they rigged their surveys a while back. Corporate told them to stop, but it seems that they have finally gone to their last resort. They know how ridiculous this is. That's why they didn't do this sooner but now they seem to have abandoned all hope. That's probably the saddest part of all.
 
Lord Robert said:
Nicole said:
As I said, I have no hard evidence, but profits seem like a more likely motivator for the park than some nefarious, autocratic need to control and upset their fans.
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Exactly, the park has always done this ever since it opened in 1975; this is nothing new.
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Actually, I don't know of their prohibiting filming before London Rocks.

Also, I didn't mean to give the impression that I condone their doing so now.
 
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So...I didn't hate it. I went for the first time this weekend and actually it for the most part. I enjoyed all the classic german dancing I remembered from tiot. I though edielweiss was done beautifully. I also very much enjoyed the "stomp" section with the wood and glasses. I did hate the chicken dance and old country roads, but the entire fest haus was singing along so they obviously keep it in for a reason. I did find it hard to hear the actors anytime they were speaking so I definitely didn't hear any back story about the song. I enjoyed it enough that I would probably go again.
 
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Luke said:
I think they would do everyone a favor by banning recordings of any kind of this show.
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knowing.gif
 
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I visited the park during Memorial Day weekend and saw the show in its revised form. It was nice to see a show heading in the direction of the old TIO overall, but it just felt... inconsistent.

I didn't like how the violinist was done about five minutes in, other than to do the chicken dance. Why not user her to bridge the gaps instead of (or in tandem with) the clock music? Why doesn't she play while the children are being brought back to their seats? It just feels so random. I liked her parts, and really loved how her and the accordionist (randomly showing up half way through) interacts with the audience before some of the shows, so leveraging them a bit more would be an improvement.

They educate the tik-a-tok-a in the old style and then never bring it back. Why do it at all? It feels like a toss-in for fans of TIO but it just feels purposeless other than to get the crowd to yell a bit. At least in the old show it would reprise, I presume to keep the crowd engaged.

The show is difficult to watch in repeat. For TIO, they traditionally had variations of the show so if you weren't in a hurry (or it was raining, as it was at points over the weekend), you could sit through two shows and at least see something a bit different in each. As someone who sat patiently in the Festhaus on every single visit as a child for many years, I can say I never really got tired of TIO because it was always a bit different. Each one of the shows, being identical, made it harder to enjoy when we stopped in by the third day of the weekend.

The recorded music, which should feel full given they don't have to pay a band, felt hollow to me - definitely doesn't feel as full as when the band was around in TIO's heyday.

What was very clear: They have great performers. They put a lot of energy into the show. That can make or break a show, and in this case it helps make the show feel fun. Watching it a couple of times, you could see little interactions between them that were clearly them having fun in the moment. I also appreciated that most of the show, even though they leveraged some of the same elements and music from predecessors, it looks like nearly all of it (except one of the old classic dance moves of the women holding up the men) is new choreography. (Ironically, one of BGW's favorite numbers for the old TIO, the one showing the inner workings of a gristmill, would visually fit in with the clock theme here.)

I also liked the narrations (they've always been a good touch with a show like this), but if BGW is looking: Ending the last song by proclaiming "This song is a dedication to Germany" is almost laugh out loud when you think you're in a section of the park themed to Germany watching a show that's inspired by Oktoberfest. You can do better than that. And that John Denver name joke fails the first time, let alone the fourth, but the performers do their darndest to sell the joke each time. Playing off the irony of a John Denver song being popular at a German celebration would work better, IMO.

All in all - better than what preceded it, great performers and musicians that are clearly energized, building blocks of a great show, laid out and executed in an inconsistent way. It really feels like they tried to do what they thought worked in Celtic Fyre and Mix It Up, add in elements of classic TIO, and you got a bit of a spaghetti show. I think if they work to evolve it from here it could become a strong show. It certainly wasn't a bad way to spend a half hour, once or twice, but I could see season pass holders getting tired of it in its current form.
 
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Yes, the inconsistency is by far the biggest problem with "OktoberZest". I would love to see a full band, a consistent tone, the two instrument players getting bigger roles and other changes here and there. I do remember when "Mix it Up!" had these problems when it opened in 2011, the changes that occurred had it turned from a horridly inconsistent show into one of the best shows to see every visit to this park.

"OktoberZest" has potential, but it needs some very big changes if it ever hopes to be a really good show that can be right up there with "This is Oktoberfest!". In fact, the way it is right now, the show eerily reminds me of "Festival Italiano".
 
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Lord Robert said:
[...] In fact, the way it is right now, the show eerily reminds me of "Festival Italiano".
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Doesn't it, though? However, I would say that Festivale Italiano had a massive edge over "OktoberZest". The two share the same sense of random acts being thrown together, but Festivale actually used that as their theme, because they based it off of popular street performances.

So you have a unified theme with Festivale, rather than trying to create a theme, only to not follow through. Even though most of the acts weren't specifically Italian, they had Italian music throughout. It was supposed to have a Carnivale tone, which was consistent.

Also like OZ, during the first season they pushed it too far with audience participation. Seriously everyone, we have nothing like it today. They had two forms of participation. One was shameless embarrassment such as posing people in wood cutouts of mismatched Venitaian garb. The other was an old Theatre trick that was largely pioneered by Germans (go figure) in which members of the audience sat on the stage itself.

I know that sounds wierd, but Celtic Fyre uses a similar method with the tables, and yet people seem to love it. The difference is that in CF, they not only choose people beforehand who are smiling, but the people seem to actually enjoy the show. Otherwise, you just make people uncomfortable.

I have heard that the director of OZ has also taken full place of the choreographer recently. To me this is great news, because I love the work that she did for the park years ago. She should know better than anyone else how to gauge audience reactions, as she also took part in "Rockin' The Boat", which had numerous impromptu changes that were ultimately driven by guests.

In this show in particular, they can continue making slight changes until they have something that hopefully the whole public can enjoy. The best part is that they don't even need to record extra soundtrack. They just need to decide if/when to cut back on time. If they fail to do this, the entire show will belong to the instrumentalists, which may be fine, but it would defeat the show's whole purpose.
 
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Lord Robert said:
Who is she??
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For whatever reason, the park has shown a great deal of hesitation when it comes to associating specific management folks with this show in particular. In light of that, I'm going to have to point to this rule:

Posting inappropriate content. We define inappropriate content as:

5. Posts identifying park employees, who have not stepped into the public spotlight;
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Sorry guys. :(
 
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