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RocketTom
12-11-2001, 04:36 PM
Our church has participated in the Candlelight for the past 5 years. One of the folks told of the following story - - -

He met with a lady that was leaving the Saturday performance with tears in her eyes. She and her sister fly out EVERY year from Chicago - just to see Candlelight and visit the park. She loved everything about it, except for the venue. It used to be held by the participants walking down Main St and assembling on bleachers set up against the hill where the main train station is located. This was something that could be viewed by 10K people. It's now being held in the theater waaaay in the back with a capacity of 1700.

This lady had tears because she realized that this was probably the last time she was coming out for this event. Small venue, crowds, many turned away. If the management won't put forth the effort, why should the folks who pay? (My son works back stage and reported that attendance to the park was big - lots of calls going out for help and some folks held on for a full 8.)

When the attendance numbers go down, management shouldn't look at what is going on this year. Look at last year, or the year before that - then ask what is going on. What did they do THEN that keeps the folks away NOW? Dont' they know (or care) that it takes much more money to get folks back than to keep them there in the first place?

innerSpaceman
12-11-2001, 08:07 PM
Once you've experienced the Candlelight Procession in Town Square, I doubt if you can avoid being saddened by the change in venue to Fantasyland Theater. I can't watch it there.

I think that RocketTom may have inadvertently overstated the figure of 10,000 in audience. While it's possible that thousands of people were able to see the event in Town Square, the great majority of those people were invited VIPs, not Disneyland guests. There was probably room for maybe 2,000 paying guests to see the show; once the crowd reached Main Street, the view of the show was effectively blocked by that otherwise splendid Christmas tree.