CaptainMichael
Well-Known Member
:lookaroun
Gotcha. I would have liked to see the Fingers request show.
Not a surprise at all.
I've been here for a long time, it was time for a change.:king:
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The "Hurry up and reopen the Adventurers Club Thread" per Lee's request.
- Thread starter FantasiaBish
- Start date
Captain Hank
Well-Known Member
It appears that there is an additional captain on this ship now. Ahoy! :wave:
CaptainMichael
Well-Known Member
Aye Aye Capn'!
GymLeaderPhil
Well-Known Member
nibblesandbits
Well-Known Member
I would have loved to see new shows more frequently too.
Even though the shows were always funny, it would have been nice to get some new skits in there to spice things up. You know...make the shows even more different every time...something that Disney is desperately trying to do within their parks currently. (Which is another reason why I don't see why it had to go...it fits in with their whole "different every time" mentality they have right now...:shrug: )
CaptainMichael
Well-Known Member
I have to slightly disagree with you on that point. While the AC - as imaginative, creative, and well themed as it was, should be a blueprint for all the clubs at PI - there were other factors to it which made it an awful nightclub. Out of all the clubs, this was one where I noticed more people not drinking than in others. That, alone, is the single biggest killer of a club/bar.
I think AC had a place in PI - but that in order for the other clubs to survive, it needed to take a slightly different approach. Take in the theming and interactiveness of the AC, but also the modern-ness/"hip-ness" of a club in Miami or NYC applied to the rest of the island to truely keep up it's appeal. Mannequins had great potential of doing just that - but lost it's luster somewhere in 2004-2005. 8 Trax was an awesome concept - but badly needed an architectural update, and it was painfully obvious at how quickly Motion was thrown together after the Wildhorse Saloon left in 2001 by the lack of detail and theming.
ttalovebug
Active Member
I agree with you. The AC was so different from any other club in PI. But that's why I think it would do better on it's own than as a part of something bigger. I think that the AC , with proper marketing, of course, could do so much better on it's own right where it is than it ever did as a part of PI. But it would only succeed if Disney wanted it too, and they don't.
71jason
Well-Known Member
This only became a noticable phenomenon on slower nights after (i) CMs were given free access every night of the week, and (ii) the AC became one of only two clubs 18-20 year-olds (including a ton of CPs) could get into, effectively turning it into a CP clubhouse. If you were ever there when a convention was in town, it was a completely different story. The larger and larger number of families with kids each year didn't help either. Even so, I've heard from a couple different credible sources that the Club was still largely profitable--$10 drinks will do that. In any case, I think 21+ would have corrected the problem.
No argument from me. Given how quickly clubs seem to turn over downtown, I think the real question is how Mannequins survived as long as it did. And Motion was always a temporary band-aid that never was properly updated--but by the time they were ready to update, it was clear PI as a concept was on the way out.
71jason
Well-Known Member
Capacity, capacity, capacity. I'm sorry, but no, the Club can not survive on its own.
Assuming a return to the traditional seating format (which is necessary to drive drink sales), the Library holds 100 people. Do you sell more than 100 tickets a night, and hope nobody complains that, "I spent $25 and I didn't get to see the &#*$* Balderdash Cup?" Or sell exactly 100 tickets per night, and have the early and late shows be half-empty?
The Club was always designed for people to wander in, catch a show or two, and wander out, to CW, or for dancing, or to grab a cigar... That's why there is no plot arc over the course of the evening.
The Club was the soul of PI, but that means it was also tied to it. I can't see one without the other.
wilsonhanks
Member
It could be the theme for an entire indoor theme park, they need to take over bet, serve food and more........ they don't need pi
nibblesandbits
Well-Known Member
Actually, if we're being technical, I did pay full price (which I can't remember right now, but it was in the $20 range.) to go to this club, since the AC wasn't a club where you could pay the cheaper amount and just go into that club...like you could with the other clubs, and I ended up missing some of the signature shows.
But you know why it didn't matter? B/c I was being entertained in the rotunda area too. So, even if I missed the big show...I still got entertainment value for my money in the other room. Actually, some of the funniest things I ever saw happened in the rotunda room. I almost threw up from laughing so hard one night.
So, I can easily see the cover charge option being a viable one. Because I had been doing it already. And it didn't bother me, b/c I knew I was paying for all the entertainment I'd be recieving that night, both in the library and not.
CaptainMichael
Well-Known Member
Yeah, that's where the most room for improv was. I would skip shows on purpose just to hang out in the Salon and interact with the characters. Whether it was Hathaway Browne joyriding around the Salon in an ECV or Otis coming in mad because of the Holiday Broadcast, fun times were had.
71jason
Well-Known Member
I suppose it could--but that's so far removed from the idea of a nightclub themed to an explorers club of the 1930s it would seem weird to call it "The Adventurers Club."
As for a restaurant in BET, aside from refurbs, when was the last time Disney (not Levy, not E-Brands) opened a new restaurant essentialy "from scratch"? It's a fight just to get the doors to the already-finished bar opened, I really don't see WDW spending the money on a new restaurant, as well.
That's great for die-hards and repeat visitors. But try telling that to Joe Tourist who thinks "Disney World" is that park with the castle in it. When a $20-$25 ticket covered all of PI, it's a little easier to swalllow the whole, "well, maybe you can catch the next show"--guest can wander out and sample another club. When guests are paying exclusively for the AC, it becomes more like a theater and I think they will have a different mindset.
wilsonhanks
Member
You're so technical, whar r u a lawyer? u took all my hopes and dreams and squashed them like dried brown goo
nibblesandbits
Well-Known Member
I have to tell you...I didn't become a fan until a year and a half ago...I paid full price the first time b/c I had heard great things about it. Simply put, that first time I went in there, I was "Joe Tourist." I was paying all this money, just to get into this one club, where I simply had no idea what I was really getting myself into. After the first time though, I went into the club with the full mindset of going in just for that one "theater" show. I had the theater mindset.
(And if we're being technical...I pay a lot more to get into the theater here than I do seeing an Adventurer's Club show...and I bet you most other people do too in their local cities...it's the experience you're paying for and you know that when you go to any type of theater, that's what you're paying for...so you know what you're getting into when you spend the money. Now, it might not have worked under the old club plan, but it could have worked if Disney had advertised the club better as what it was...a theaterical experience. I'd personally rather spend my money seeing a show like the Adv. Club than seeing La Nouba).
The one thing you should know, I would never really consider myself a die-hard...I only went a few times. I certainly don't know everything about the club, not near as much as some of the other posters on this thread. I don't have near as much experience as the die-hards do, yet, I still loved the club. It was honestly some of the most fun I had on Disney property. It was truly unique.
With that being said...I found the entertainment value to be worth spending full price for admission to get in. Even if I wasn't seeing every single library show. There was plenty of entertainment value for me throughout the entire club. There was the salon, as was mentioned, the Mask Room, and the Treasure Room, all of which had different things to keep my attention peaked.
The Adv. Club was simply a place that I looked forward to going to. The entertainment value was there for the average tourist...but Disney didn't do a great job of advertising what exactly it was. I only found out about what it was (sort of) through websites like this...not a single speck of Disney advertising told me what that club had inside. And that, I believe is what lead to the most confusion about the whole place. Maybe if Disney had avertised it as a theater type show, it would have done better for the club as a whole. Unfortunately, they didn't.
71jason
Well-Known Member
Nibblesandbits, I don't disagree with your points about the Club being entertaining and unique. OK, I maybe disagree that you're not a die-hard--you quote the song in your signature!--and I think that's the point. The guests I'm talking about are probably not going to know even what little as you did the first time you visited.
Look at all the posts across the internets from guests complaining they couldn't get into Fantasmic. Do they focus on the day of fun they could have had at DHS, or the 30-minute show they missed? Same mentality would doom the AC. Sure, the Main Salon is fun when it's just interaction, but everybody gets a chance at that, it's seen as a preshow (that's more where I was going with the theater analogy, not so much a pricing issue). Those shut out of the Library will complain--or worse, we'll get a line at the doors as soon as they close, like happened pretty much every night the last month.
Imagine if half the crowd at Cirque got to see the bird-man do his thing, while the other half could only continue to watch the Chinese 6-year-olds play with their sticks. You don't think there would be demands for refunds? I don't think casual visitors to the AC will go for being shut out of the main shows. The Disney World mentality of "queue-preshow-main show-buy a T shirt" is too strong.
Look at all the posts across the internets from guests complaining they couldn't get into Fantasmic. Do they focus on the day of fun they could have had at DHS, or the 30-minute show they missed? Same mentality would doom the AC. Sure, the Main Salon is fun when it's just interaction, but everybody gets a chance at that, it's seen as a preshow (that's more where I was going with the theater analogy, not so much a pricing issue). Those shut out of the Library will complain--or worse, we'll get a line at the doors as soon as they close, like happened pretty much every night the last month.
Imagine if half the crowd at Cirque got to see the bird-man do his thing, while the other half could only continue to watch the Chinese 6-year-olds play with their sticks. You don't think there would be demands for refunds? I don't think casual visitors to the AC will go for being shut out of the main shows. The Disney World mentality of "queue-preshow-main show-buy a T shirt" is too strong.
KungalooshAL
Member
at least the frenzy of AC stuff on eBay had ended. Dunno if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
CaptainMichael
Well-Known Member
That makes me sad because I don't have everything I would have liked to get. I still need 3 of the cups.