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PageyMoon said:
Pft, forget all this Irish crap, they should bring back Rockin' the Boat! That fit perfectly into the space and the English hamlet theme! Even better, how about Totally Television?

I'm sure my point will be missed.

No, it's well taken. There have been things that the park has done for years that missed the theming mark. That doesn't mean, however, that that should be the norm.

Celtic Fyre is one of only two shows I could watch every performance of the day and not get bored. I'm drawn in by the performers' energy and the little differences between shows

Are you guys seriously watching the same show I'm watching? This is the Celtic Fyre that they have in the Abbey Stone, right? The one with the convoluted storyline, and the American guys who show up and dance for no reason, and the hard-to-follow songs and the boring lighting? In Kilarney, right?

Am I going to trash BGW because of those changes, which they thought would improve interest in the show? No, but I'm going to let them hear my opinion and keep hoping they see the light and get rid of the junk they've added.

I'm not trashing BGW. Outside of Disney World, it's the best park going. I just want them to be the best BG they can be. That's all.
 
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PageyMoon said:
I used to make a point to see the Oktoberfest show every time, having been raised on polka, but the changes they've made are awful. I know, I know, the kids, think of the kids, they love it. But I'm not a kid, and if I wanted a cartoon-y "Strudel" and puppets, I'd go hang out in Elmoland. And what is with the words to the Chicken Dance? Am I going to trash BGW because of those changes, which they thought would improve interest in the show? No, but I'm going to let them hear my opinion and keep hoping they see the light and get rid of the junk they've added.

Will you be my friend? :)
 
DoctorMoneyMD said:
Are you guys seriously watching the same show I'm watching? This is the Celtic Fyre that they have in the Abbey Stone, right? The one with the convoluted storyline, and the American guys who show up and dance for no reason, and the hard-to-follow songs and the boring lighting? In Kilarney, right?

I'm not so sure what's convoluted? This guy owns a pub in a little town, some people got married and have their reception at said pub, everyone dances around to traditional dances (like my family polkas at weddings because we're Polish... the Irish would do... Irish dancing because they're Irish), the bride is friends with a couple of Americans who are in town for the wedding and the groom gets all mad that some dudes are showing off for his woman, the rest of the Irish people get irritated with them because they're American and acting like jerks (as Americans sometimes do because we're totally better than everyone), everyone gets drunk and fights and works it out because, hello, they're all drunk and that's what you do at a wedding, HOORAY! If you pay attention to the people in the background, they seem to get more "intoxicated" as the show progresses and always have "drinks" in their hands. True story.

No, they don't sing "Danny Boy," but I don't see what's difficult to follow about the music?

I think maybe the issue with shows at the park is your experience in promoting and putting on shows. You know ins and outs and little technical things that the average Joe doesn't, so you look at it more critically and can see that things like the lighting might be off by a bit. I just like a fun show with likeable people, skilled dancers, and talented vocalists/musicians.

Haberdasher1973 said:
Will you be my friend? :)

Of course! New friends are always good. :)
 
You got all that from CF? Okay, so here's what happens from my perspective:

There's a super fake looking bar sitting on the stage of this theater. The show starts, but I couldn't tell because they basically just leave the house lights on and there is absolutely no mood whatsoever. Some guy comes out overacting and tells a bad joke. You are fed the setup: there's been a wedding and they're coming here for a reception. Who is getting married, and the fact that they're getting married, I couldn't care less about, because I am told absolutely nothing at all about the people involved. Some nondescript people show up. The bar tender sings a terrible song about Dublin. The sound system sucks. Nonetheless, I can hear about some kind-of interesting characters. I'm immediately disappointed by the fact no one in the show is as interesting as the people I'm hearing about in the song. Something else forgettable happens. Two people who are supposed to be a bride and groom show up. I only know that because the chalk board says that's what's going on. If left on my own to guess, I would have guessed mortician and ballerina, because the dude is wearing a REALLY STUFFY costume tuxedo that sort of looks likes something Lurch would wear, and the woman is wearing something that appears to be a ballerina costume from some sort of winter themed show. She's also too pretty for the guy she's with. Whatever. Anyway, these people who are supposed to be Americans show up. They're friends of the bride, I guess, but this is supposed to be the early 1900's and no one else there seems to know them, and that's pretty unlikely for the period. I also don't care about these people because I know nothing about them. In any event, the one dancer is the coolest guy in the show...which is stupid because he's not even the main character. Then again, there aren't any characters...which would be fine if this were an abstract show without a story...but there's a story...without any characters. My brain hurts by this point. It's helped along by the bright lighting in the theater. I mean the bar. Anyway, some Irish people I don't know anything about pretend to drink something that is quite obviously not liquid, and they also dance. One guy sings a drinking song. I guess I'm meant to clap along. The music starts going back toward that bad song about the interesting people I didn't get to meet in the show. Then the show ends for no discernible reason. I still can't tell, because the lights more or less stayed pretty much on the whole time.
 
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This seems like a massively silly criticism to me. I mean, you don't like the show. We get it. But what kind of "storyline" did Emerald Beat have? It was just random singing and dancing. If you prefer EB over CF I can certainly appreciate it. But to make some sort of "I mean, what am I looking at here? What's the story? I don't get it?" criticism of CF as the reason you don't like it vs. EB just doesn't make any sense. I mean, what were we looking at in Emerald Beat? What was the "story?"
 
DoctorMoneyMD said:
You got all that from CF? Okay, so here's what happens from my perspective:

tl;dr

But from what I skimmed, I ask you this: You do realize this is a theme park show, right? They don't have an hour or two to dig into character development and deep storylines and dramatic interludes. If you pay attention during the opening song, the introduce many of the characters, if you need names, FYI. Maybe I'm too low-brow for my own good, but the story's pretty clear to me and everyone I've seen the show with. And the lights stay on at the beginning because they're trying to set the atmosphere like you're in the pub with the rest of the partygoers. I know, I know, they failed miserably, the lighting sucks, if only they'd [insert suggestion here]. But the rest of us enjoy it.

Like Shafor said, you just really hate this show for some reason, so it might be best if you stick to award-winning Broadway productions and we all agree to disagree. :)
 
Shafor said:
But what kind of "storyline" did Emerald Beat have? It was just random singing and dancing...But to make some sort of "I mean, what am I looking at here? What's the story? I don't get it?" criticism of CF as the reason you don't like it vs. EB just doesn't make any sense. I mean, what were we looking at in Emerald Beat? What was the "story?"

EB didn't need a story, because it didn't presume to have one. It was an abstract performance, like the circus. The lighting, the mood, the costuming...they all supported the abstract quality so that the audience understands that they shouldn't expect something straightforward. Those types of things cue people to let their mind wander...just like abstract art. Celtic Fyre, on the other hand, is a show that is set up to be far less abstract. They attempt to present a story, characters and a definitive setting...like a movie. Those types of shows benefit from clearly defined stories, etc, just like movies.

More importantly than that, however, are the missing characters. To demonstrate this concept, think of this: take a great movie like Star Wars (the first one), just as an example. Now, keep the exact same story they already have in the movie, but instead of cool people like Obi Wan Kenobi, Han Solo and Chewbacca, I want you to imagine the movie with replacements...total strangers. My boss, that guy you saw at the store the other day, and the person sweeping the sidewalks at BG right this second. Is it any good? No...because the characters are mundane, boring and uninteresting. Literally nothing that happens matters to anyone because none of the characters interest the audience. The same can't be said in reverse. You could take a cool character, like Vader, and have him do almost anything and it would be interesting (an they have, right? Darth Vader sells lightbulbs and Christmas cards and Volkswagens).

Characters drive stories, and stories are the skeleton of certain types of shows. Some shows can get away with not having stories, granted you set the correct tone so that the audience doesn't expect anything else. Little abstract things. Celtic Fyre is not one of these shows and makes a clear attempt NOT to be. They tell you a story...or try to. But they present no characters. The set no mood. Nothing at all is believable or interesting, except the dance moves, which are put to waste in such a humdrum setup.

You COULD fix Celtic Fyre, in all seriousness, to be a GREAT show with the same general premise. But you'd have to replace all these nobodies with Han Solos and Princess Leahs. And you'd need to fix the boring lighting.


PageyMoon said:
DoctorMoneyMD said:
You got all that from CF? Okay, so here's what happens from my perspective:

tl;dr

If you didn't read it, son't critique it. I understand it's a theme park show...but that doesn't mean you trhow away some basic quality rules.
 
That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. If you replaced those characters with other characters and kept the story the same, the replacement characters would become the cool characters because they'd be filling the roles of the original characters. I mean, if you want to delve into Star Wars, since it's one of my areas of expertise, Luke appeared to be a random kid living on some random planet. Beige everywhere. It doesn't get more uninteresting and nondescript than that. That's the whole point, Luke, Han, Chewie... they're everyday schlubs (or at least appear to be at the beginning) who get thrown into a fantastic situation. But in Star Wars, you have 2+ hours to tell a story (which is still full of loopholes and inconsistencies and assumptions), not 20 minutes, which is what you have for a theme park show. Which is nothing like a movie, since it's a show in a theme park. And it's Leia, not Leah.

I really wish you could take off your producer/whatever hat and sit and enjoy the show as a regular park-goer. It's a lot simpler to see the story that way and you might even enjoy it. People are hanging out at a bar dancing and drinking and signing songs. There's the simple version. It doesn't need to be any more complicated than that for a 20ish minute theme park show. Tell you what, next time we're at BG at the same time, I'll get the Magners and we'll sit and examine the show in person and each explain what the other is missing. :D
 
Disagree entirely about Star Wars. Same would go for Harry Potter or LOTR or Robocop or Forrest Gump. The interest of the stories depends on the characters and charcterizations. Otherwise, why would they spend time casting people who play it "right," or on costuming, or on designing the characters, at all? The characters in a show, and how people relate to them, matter.

As far as my "producer" hat...I've never produced a musical show like that. I'm just looking at it going "I don't like this show...what is it that I don't like about it?" Then I go through the things I know about storytelling and find culprits. I'm certainly not trying to not like the show. I'd love to love it. I just don't. The same thing happened with Kinetix. I wanted to love it...but I just didn't think it was any good.

If you'll be at the park for HoS, maybe we'll run into each other and go to a show we both agree is fantastic: Revamped.
 
My family just returned from BGW, and Celtic Fyre was by far our favorite show at the park, and that includes many years of visits. I've previously explained my thoughts about the unfortunate decline in the number of shows and the overall quality of shows at the park, but Celtic Fyre shows that BGW still knows how to produce a fantastic show. We felt it is in every way a mini-Broadway show of the highest quality. The story and concept, the singing, acting, dancing, set, and every little detail like the placement of the sword on the wall, the birds, and the live musicians are a complete joy to watch. We watched it three times during our visit, and it makes me so happy every time.
 
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gardener14 said:
My family just returned from BGW, and Celtic Fyre was by far our favorite show at the park, and that includes many years of visits. I've previously explained my thoughts about the unfortunate decline in the number of shows and the overall quality of shows at the park, but Celtic Fyre shows that BGW still knows how to produce a fantastic show. We felt it is in every way a mini-Broadway show of the highest quality. The story and concept, the singing, acting, dancing, set, and every little detail like the placement of the sword on the wall, the birds, and the live musicians are a complete joy to watch. We watched it three times during our visit, and it makes me so happy every time.

I feel like I am living in the Twilight Zone.

Honest to God, I am starting to wonder if there are two shows called Celtic Fyre.

Time to get to the bottom of this. This is getting it's own thread...
 
Some people are easier to please than others, and if people are pleased they ARENT willing to accept what you see as wrong.

That pretty much sums up me and my feelings of HOS, along with what you feel and are going through and will go through for ages... I'd hop off the soapbox right now if I were you, lol.
 
Youhow2 said:
Some people are easier to please than others, and if people are pleased they ARENT willing to accept what you see as wrong.

That pretty much sums up me and my feelings of HOS, along with what you feel and are going through and will go through for ages... I'd hop off the soapbox right now if I were you, lol.

Now see, with you and HoS, it's like this (and HoS is sort of a park-wide show, so I think that's on topic): content wise, it's a matter of preference. You want to have a heart-attack from fear...but not everybody wants that. So that's something where nobody is right or wrong, they just like different stuff. But when you say "well, this place could be a better version of itself by improving the lighting effects/adding some more atmosphere", well, that's not really anything someone can really disagree with, because it's pretty much an objective truth. All of the areas could be improved with better staging/lighting/props/actors. That doesn't mean they have to be more terrifying.
 
DoctorMoneyMD said:
Youhow2 said:
Some people are easier to please than others, and if people are pleased they ARENT willing to accept what you see as wrong.

That pretty much sums up me and my feelings of HOS, along with what you feel and are going through and will go through for ages... I'd hop off the soapbox right now if I were you, lol.

Now see, with you and HoS, it's like this (and HoS is sort of a park-wide show, so I think that's on topic): content wise, it's a matter of preference. You want to have a heart-attack from fear...but not everybody wants that. So that's something where nobody is right or wrong, they just like different stuff. But when you say "well, this place could be a better version of itself by improving the lighting effects/adding some more atmosphere", well, that's not really anything someone can really disagree with, because it's pretty much an objective truth. All of the areas could be improved with better staging/lighting/props/actors. That doesn't mean they have to be more terrifying.

My point is, and has always been to make HOS scarier and a better quality event they could do "etc, etc etc". Making it scarier would be a matter of improving atmosphere...
 
Although I did reply on the other thread, just wanted to put more open-ended comments here. Although I haven't analyzed CF like DoctorMoneyMD has, overall I find the show lackluster. I do think the storyline should be stronger, don't like the lame jokes/soft opening for the show, and I actually don't think the dancing is as skilled or well choreographed as it was in IT or EB. Also, as a personal preference, I'd like more of the Irish dance and less of the Broadway-style stuff. Not that I don't like Broadway-style shows, that's just not what I want from this venue.

I don't hate it but I've seen it this year and probably won't bother again (this year). Maybe next year. Maybe. But I really loved IT and EB so much more.
 
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new to forums and just wanted to add I love the germany show except getting tired of the chicken dance..walk out at that point
 
Confirmation yesterday of another show that won't be returning:

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