I was going to start my own thread as I've noticed that the forum does give occasionally frequent feedback about entertainment at the resort, but as this thread exists I'll revive this thread after 10 years of inactivity, especially after the past few seasons being Entertainments-heavy in the post-COVID recovery.
Ever since I first visited the Resort back in 2014, I've noticed a far shift in the variety of Entertainment from having the stilt walkers Park Maintenance street performers, to the pirate show in Mutiny Bay, the Ice Age 4D cinema, to the introduction of ATTP in 2017 with their segways, to the brief Forbidden Valley dance show in 2018.
Meanwhile recently we've seen the stage shows and the new events in Mardi Gras, Oktoberfest, Festival of Thrills, bring the theme park more alive. However I feel as though the recent events the general reaction by most of the park-going public seems to be unaware of the entertainment offering, or "Oh this is really good, but I wasn't expecting this". Or if people visit outside of events like Easter or the Summer Holidays, its very possible that the vast majority of guests outside CBeebies Land won't even have any interaction with any form of entertainments. It's also very very apparent guests also view the quality of their trips by the quantity of rides they get on and I feel like this is a severe misjudgement on what a theme park is.
It also makes the experience of the park very dependent of the operation of the rides, at a time that throughputs have been slowed because of increasing RAP and accessibility on the rides, a general decrease in throughput for various mechanical/technical changes as a ride ages (See Oblivion or Hex this season), operation of rides in unfavourable weather (13 or Spinball). Meanwhile Entertainment offerings are nowhere near as dependant to unforeseen technicalities that the rides can be. For example, I was at the theme park one of the days in the summer when the CCTV went down and the summer stage shows still went ahead because it didn't affect them at all and all 250-odd tables were full of families, yet outside of events or some unfortunate event, it was very uncommon to see more than ten tables at a time occupied. I partially attribute to the lack of advertising within the park about show information as outside of the display billboards and icons on the resort app, the visibility of entertainment offering is really poor which is a huge let-down when the offering, when present, is really good.
Even having spontaneous street teams (or even dance breakouts) across the park, who can perform mini-performances near crowded pathways would help to alleviate people rushing into queue lines, much like ATTP and Park Maintenance have done in the past. Or potentially introduce a new permanent stage show back in Mutiny Bay courtyard and use it as an excuse to overhaul the courtyard, and improve capacity with F&B and Entertainment, like something in-between the temporary stage shows over Oktoberfest/Scarefest and the BBQ Smokehouse that was proposed during the construction of Wicker Man. Potentially even explore the possibility of introducing a night-time show as the park have trialled water-projection and drone shows over the lake in the past couple of seasons, although I recognise there might be a caveat in most the public have a "home by teatime" mentality.
Whilst I'm discussing Entertainment, The Dungeons location is really poor, it's in an isolated back corner of the theme park (where people have already paid money to get in) and isn't even on the way or next to any of the thrill rides. The attraction always seems deserted and I strongly believe that is a combination of price and location as opposed to the actual product offering itself. It would be much better suited outside the theme park as part of the theme park near the monorail and golf by the hotels, and probably even have the added benefit of longer resort stays if it was bundled with something like Adventure Golf. Perhaps in the shorter term, the attraction could use something like a 2 for 1 or having a happy hour where tickets are half price or dare I even say include the attraction for free for MAP/Season Pass holders as an incentive (even if it's limited to off-peak periods) and reduce the volume of MAP users elsewhere in the park, improving the experience of the theme park for everyone.
There's so much more that can be done to improve the presence of entertainment within the resort and from my perspective, there's a bit of a chicken-and-egg mentality as if it's not well advertised then it won't get attention but without attention the entertainment offering won't expand, but I believe it would provide a huge benefit to the theme park and the wider resort.
So what thoughts does everyone else have with entertainment offerings as of recent?
