Originally Posted By believe <<I don't care much for the parades that stop and do a long show>> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>For me, the best parade DL has ever done was the Lion King Celebration. That's high praise when you consider that it's nowhere near the top of my favorite animated features.<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< It was really good when you were in the location where they stopped, but what if you were watching in a location where they just "paraded" by??? Most people think of a parade as something moving along - maybe they'll do something a minute or two long - but certainly not something 15 minutes long. I guess my point is, you might as well have them perform the same thing at the Fantasyland Stage where everyone gets to see the whole show.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt I can probably think of at least 5 DLR parades in the past 10-20 years that had performance stops. There's nothing really all that rare or unusual about it, and it makes for a different experience each time you see it.
Originally Posted By imadisneygal I think the bigger issue wasn't the concept of show stops, but the fact that there were only two instead of four like in Lion King. You could be anywhere on the parade route and see The Lion King Celebration show stops. Light Magic stopped in the it's a small world mall area, and on Main Street. That was it. Show stops are great, they add to the parade, but not when people wait hours and then don't get to see any of the show stop at all.
Originally Posted By Hista98 especially considering with LM the fact that a majority of the show took place along the showstops and when it was moving all you saw was either dancing or if you were right before the show stop, sleeping pixies.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt "Light Magic stopped in the it's a small world mall area, and on Main Street. That was it." Great observation. I didn't realize that it had less show stops than the Lion King Parade.
Originally Posted By FerretAfros "...but not when people wait hours and then don't get to see any of the show stop at all." This sentiment has always confused me a little. How many people out there actually waited for hours in the areas where they couldn't see anything? Why didn't they have CM's (or something on the maps like they do now) in the area tell them that they would miss the stops there? I can see people lining up 15-30 minutes early in one of the random spots, like they do for parades now, but how many people actually waited a long time to see nothing? Yes, having only 2 stops greatly reduces the size of the viewing area, which can add to the waits for those people, but if it was anything like the parades we have today, people just don't wait that long to see it.
Originally Posted By Hista98 your forgetting one thing ferret. No matter how many signs and cms there are alerting people that they will miss stuff by standing there, its disneyland!! most people there won't pay attention even if people tell them right to there face what is going on and that the parade will not stop.
Originally Posted By DlandDug Light Magic was NOT a parade. This was according to the official publicity. Light Magic was a "streetacular." It was a SHOW performed in the streets of Disneyland. It rolled into two positions, stopped, and there was a performance of the show. This created a problem, of course, with the unbelievably reduced capacity for the audience. It is true that cast members spent the whole late afternoon and into the evening politely shooing people away from areas where the show would not stop. But by show time, the two areas where it did perform were packed. There were no "floats" in Light Magic. There were three huge, identical show units. They rolled into place, stopped on very carefully placed marks, and didn't move again until the show was over. If they were off their mark, the projections would not work. There was so much that was so wrong with Light Magic. At least it was a learning experience-- Disney was never tempted to try anything quite like it ever again.
Originally Posted By DlandDug Oh, and yes, the show barges were broken up and disposed of. There was, I imagine, a certain amount of salvage. But it was at a huge loss, especially considering that LM was intended to run for years and years, just like that old, tired MSEP it replaced. (The one that kept drawing bigger and bigger crowds, eventually finally running its "final" show in October!)
Originally Posted By believe >>>>>Light Magic was a "streetacular." <<<<<< If I am not mistaken, LM in 1997 was probably the first time they did a "streetacular" where the the floats stopped and did a show. Since guests had never even heard of such a concept, they assumed it was a parade with continually moving floats. So that's another reason why it failed, it was ahead of it's time.
Originally Posted By imadisneygal Well, the Lion King Celebration did stop and perform shows as well, but it stopped at every location along the parade route. Wherever Guests were seated along the entire route they'd see a show stop. The Light Magic streetacular only stopped in two locations. Even though this was the intention from the beginning Guests were not able to see the shows from anywhere along the parade route. The 80-foot rolling stages had to stop along Main treet and in the it's a small world mall area because of the projectors, but as a result of that decision there were many Guest upset because they missed the show stops entirely. Even the best communication couldn't have fixed the fact that fewer Guests were going to be able to see the shows.
Originally Posted By DlandDug >>If I am not mistaken, LM in 1997 was probably the first time they did a "streetacular" where the the floats stopped and did a show.<< It was the first nighttime show to so this. As imadisneygal pointed out, The Lion King Celebration had a show stop. The Party Gras Parade in 1990, did, too. There was also the Main STreet Hop, which was part of the Blast to the Past in 88-89. The difference is, each of these was designed to be a parade, with all the pageantry and performers, which just happened to stop and perform. Light Magic was designed as a show, which did not "parade," and then stop for a performance.
Originally Posted By gadzuux I'm suprised - and disappointed - that they ripped out the fiber optic lighting on the Main Street storefronts. All those lights looked gr-r-r-eat! I understand that LM needed to end, but they still could've kept the fixtures and lighting effects on the buildings. I suppose they wanted to expunge any remnants and evidence of this hugely expensive failure.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt Unfortunately I saw the parade over my Small World and never had the chance to see the Main Street Light effects.
Originally Posted By TempestsPrince I can see maintenance on the fiber optic equipped buildings becoming a big headache. Even something as simple as painting can be painstaking if you have to work around a lot of details like the end points of a big fiber optic display. Having read Jim Hill's story about it I am sorry that it flopped the way it did. I'll bet it could have been spectacular if only...
Originally Posted By Disneydanny i tyhink what also sucked about LM is if you wanted to see a specific character you were better off watching the Main Street performance since only 3 of the 4 rolling stages were used in Fantasyland
Originally Posted By BrianStarr I think the idea of a "streetacular" had a lot of potential to be successful. I believe what truly made Light Magic a failure was the pixies and fairies concept. It was bizarre to see a bunch of Irish step-dancing (odd looking too) fairies dance around for a long time. Then add in Disney characters (random ones in their PJs) also step-dancing and you got a disaster. The whole story was way too cheesy and kiddish for most people. Overall I think the show was appealing to only a small group of people. After doing the Electrical Parade for years and years (which had something for everyone) then falling back on Pixie-Land, what was Disney thinking?!
