pinkmonkey
2.4 hour party person
The Lion, the Witch and the Charity Shop?
It looks like someone went to the local tip and helped themselves to some of the contents.
Disastrous family seasonal attractions and the never to be forgotten Lapland New Forest Theme Park
- Thread starter Badgers
- Start date
It looks like someone went to the local tip and helped themselves to some of the contents.
Cloo
Banana for scale
Why is it only Christmas-themed attractions that end up being this shit? It's a growing problem in this country and something needs to be done!!!
I guess Xmas offers unparalled opportunity to set up a shonky and hard to trace 'business', spend a few grand on hiring some land and buying some Christmas related contents of a few skips, rake in bookings, get shut down after a few days (voila, no pesky wages to be paid) and then vanish with the booking money before anyone can track you down.
trashpony
Hag
I think you can for £20. Our local grotto is £6 and it's a fuck of a lot better than this.
quimcunx
imprimeo, lamino, distribuo
Thing is a shopping centre, say, with regular year round custom and investment in that can allocate a modest area of the centre to a grotto that looks pretty good. But kitting out a whole field to look properly magical is a big expense for only a few weeks trade. You need a lot of money up front to do it well. So you get fly by nights or naive types who don't realise that the £3k they spent on sheds, fake snow, tinsel, elf outfits and fairy lights isn't going to really deliver once they spread it around a whole field/industrially-lit warehouse.
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
It will all be done by hipsters next year. Dalston will be full of pop up shit wonderlands, visited by crowds of giggling young people with tattoos.
T & P
|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|
12 different kinds of egg nog. 16 different mulled wines.
Craft egg nog and artisan mulled wine
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
Ironically non-DBS checked Santa
Cloo
Banana for scale
andysays
Love and solidarity
Of course, I was going to over-priced shitty "laplands" in the New Forest back in 2008, before it all went mainstream...
True. But people seem to expect some sort of trancendental "Christmas Magic" to happen in these "Lapland" places.
This is not the case visiting a santa's grotto in a shop.
It's as if they expect the whole site to be like actually visiting Lapland. For £20.
People wouldn't apply this to other kinds of holiday, would they?
I think people expect far too much from these things and will always be disappointed with the reality.
These things need radio adverts with a gabbled footnote at the end.
YourSuspensionOfDisbeliefMayVary.SantaClausDoesNotInFactExistUnlessTheAbovementionedSuspensionIsInOperation.
little children are generally easily pleased...but when they are so horribly disappointed, it is cutting - a stab in the heart for parents (and grand-parents). I have just done the grotto experience with grand-daughter and for her, it was both magical and slightly terrifying. Also, Santa looked about 16...but on the whole, it only took some glittery lights, the ubiquitous Frozen figurines, lots of furry reindeer and, grandchild's favourite, a huge robotic snowman which was, in my adult eyes, quite rubbish. Because it was in a garden centre, we spent ages looking at fish, parrots and guinea pigs - ate some surprisingly edible chips with an endless number of ketchup and mayo sachets, a really lovely day. The money aspect in these scams, while obviously a massive annoying rip-off, is still nothing compared to the misery of a sad child on what should have been a special and exciting day.
T & P
|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|
The queues can be bad, but I'd advise families who don't live many hundreds of miles away from London to simply head to the Big Smoke. Yes, you can pay a small fortune in transport in some cases, but then Winter Wonderland is free, and by all accounts it seems as good as such festivals get. Couple that with a visit to the Natural History museum and the kids will have a guaranteed fucking ace time for no more than it will cost the family to get to London.
moonsi til
worked it out now!
Just read that it has now closed down with key financiers backing out!
neonwilderness
What would Badgers do?
neonwilderness
What would Badgers do?
That is probably the main problem, it needs some decent investment initially so it doesn't end up looking like that.
sim667
All aboard the 303 bus.
Well it must have had some decent investment to get it open in the first place.
Anyway I hate this kinda stuff so I'll always look for the shit aspect
neonwilderness
What would Badgers do?
Yeah, I image it'd need quite a bit of investment to get something that looks good though. A half arsed attempt is never going to cut it with kids.Well it must have had some decent investment to get it open in the first place.
Anyway I hate this kinda stuff so I'll always look for the shit aspect
This kind of fail is becoming part of the Winterval tradition for me
That's where they are being cheapskate - they could have employed REAL elves.
From Lapland. Or somewhere.
sim667
All aboard the 303 bus.
Yeah, I image it'd need quite a bit of investment to get something that looks good though. A half arsed attempt is never going to cut it with kids.
This kind of fail is becoming part of the Winterval tradition for me
Its just a reflection of british society though
"Come along kids, stiff upper lip, I know rudolf is actually a greyhound with 99p antlers on, but a bit of imagination goes a long way "
I feel sorry for the elf called Christmassey.
neonwilderness
What would Badgers do?
skyscraper101
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