As we head into the holiday season, families across the UK will soon be awaiting the sights and sounds of Christmas fairs and festivals. This year, some very high-profile festive offerings have been greeted by a torrent of #fail and criticism. Parents are losing their Christmas cheer this holiday season. They ask if Santa experiences somewhere like Harrods and other winter wonderland extravaganzas have been lost to commercialisation and bad management.
Harrods lies at the center of that firestorm. This historically white, prestigious retail destination has faced some very public backlash for its Santa experience. After a handful of complaints that Santa was only seeing “rich kids,” the store decided to rectify things. They could have allowed the 160 children whose parents hadn’t paid £2,000 in total to see Santa. According to Santa’s final report, 96.4% of Santa’s time was spent on families making over $100,000. In the process, their stories left thousands of other families feeling overlooked.
Harrods: A Christmas Disappointment
These criticisms of Harrods’ Santa experience clearly struck a nerve. We heard from hundreds of attendees who were disappointed by the content and quality of the show. One of those parents was Jessica Adkins, who was disappointed by Santa’s less-than-stellar presentation. They said about him, “His beard was drooping down and you could see his street clothes under his costume.
One dad fumed, “Harrods is playing the Grinch who stole Christmas.” That feeling was seconded by a number of other attendees who had felt duped by the store’s shiny facade.
One extremely outraged mother screamed at the director, “How could you do this!—just look at my kids, they’re all crying and their little fingers are turning blue!” In exasperation, they continued, “You are a bunch of extortionists, profiting off us!” This outpouring of frustration highlights the disconnect between expectations and reality for families hoping for a magical Christmas experience.
The Magical Journey and Other Winter Wonderland Woes
The Magical Journey in Sutton Coldfield ran into the exact same issues. Created by famous interior designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, the event was meant to be an attraction that would attract millions of visitors. It got shut down after one day because of an avalanche of complaints.
Things only got worse when it did reopen under draconian media rules. Then, just nine days before its planned expiration, it shut down permanently. Visitors felt they had been swindled and ripped off due to the absence of high quality experiences offered.
Another attendee was very frank about their experience, stating that it was “nothing short of diabolical to say the least.” This was the prevailing mood of those who, like me, left TWC feeling upset with the event’s performance. What was once excited anticipation of a new winter wonderland soon found parents taking their business elsewhere to find a more preferable option.
A Series of Festive Failures
Lapland New Forest threw open its doors in November 2008 full of optimism. Sadly, it was soon targeted by a wave of one-star reviews on Tripadvisor. Families that had forked out hundreds of pounds for tickets were left with long queues and disappointments. Along the way, they repaired a very broken ice rink and even saved a reindeer whose antler was injured!
One sad patron went on record calling the experience a complete bust. They were promised an immersive village experience, but all they got was a field of burger vans and a tokenistic funfair. This lack of authenticity and transparency really had a lot of families wondering where was all their money spent.
In yet another example of a high-profile drone disaster this week, a drone show with an aerial Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer went spectacularly awry. One such attendee noted, “In the opening, a lot of these drones just weren’t there at all. This left massive holes in the formations and made it really difficult to figure out what the pictures were even meant to be! Adding insult to injury, the predicted grand finale didn’t happen, leaving viewers looking up at a “black sky.”