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The Kungaloosh Society held their private party at Adventurers Club this evening. I thought this was to be the final event ever at AC however PI sources indicate that there is yet another private event in AC on Saturday night. Attendees were rather subdued; not a lot of noise as they lined up and filed in when the doors opened. A few dressed up in period costumes but most didn't. Once everyone was in the doors closed and it was close to impossible for passersby to know that something was happening inside. Will Adventurers Club ever return? Things look very bleak now, per the post below added earlier today. Please note that these photos were taken at great personal sacrifice. I had to suffer through 3 separate sessions of Celebrate Tonight during my visit! Yes, I do it for you.
Update: Videos of Friday night's show are beginning to be posted to YouTube. Some of the best lines I've seen so far include the Colonel saying "I can't wait to get to Hong Kong" and "We're watching you.....don't take anything!" At the Introduction Otis references "packing it all up and selling it at (Disney) Property Control". Somewhere in there someone mentions someone else hanging out at Pat O'Brians (CityWalk). Hilarious stuff.
9 comments:
don't you think that if the Mannequins dance floor was still there don't you think Disney would name a $ price $ and let all of the Mannequins people party? now you know that we could fill the place heck we did on the last night!!!!!!!!!!! I would be there!!!!! I know that the lights where not Disneys but they could get some old lights and put in a sound system for one night "if the price is right"
Brian
No, they wouldn't, because the building is falling apart. It's leaking on the second floor down to the first and the entire sound and lighting system has been stripped. They are not going to rebuild a club for one night. The sound system has been sold in pieces at property control.
Whatever their plan was when they closed PI, they wanted to make damn sure Mannequins/8-trax would not reopen. Now you could make a case that 8-trax could be rebuilt fairly easily given it wasn't a very complex setup, but mannequins is an entirely different story. They never planned to have any of the clubs available for rental. That happened when the deals they had fell through.
no what I am saying is that Disney wants it closed and yes they would if the PRICE IS RIGHT come on you and everyone that lives in Florida knows that Disney is all about the money. "money TALKS"
Congaloosh was a lot of fun. I heard a manager type reassuring another guest "oh, you neved know what will happen," but then the cast made frequent jokes about bulldozers waiting over the horizon and needing to hurry and wrap the night up so the stuff could get packed up for Hong Kong... add it all up and I'm still of the opinion that nobody close to the front lines really has any idea what the plans are. (Personally, I expect the worst, but then I'm a glass-half-empty kind of guy.)
In their more serious moments, the performing CMs seemed pretty clear that they don't expect to be playing those roles again, though. (They also poked fun at their other roles around property, which was well-received.)
In other news, I'd barely been to DTD in a year, certainly not late at night. Thursday was completely dead, and Friday at midnight, even with the extra crowd coming out of the AC, all Disney would have had to do is release some animatronic tumbleweeds and they'd have themselves a real ghost town backdrop.
Without turning on the PI emotion but just looking at it objectively, you compare that lifeless moonscape to a typical night at Citywalk with hundreds of thousands of dollars changing hands, and someone, somewhere at Disney has to realize they've made a terrible mistake. I don't know if they just lack the institutional courage to admit they mishandled the whole thing or what, but this would still be fixable if anyone was willing to make the call.
Bill, thanks so much for the report from Adventurers Club. The whole situation is sad and whatever is planned for the island is moving at a snail's pace. No one seems willing to admit to a mistake and unfortunately the largest stockholders probably don't even know what's going on and the profits that have been given away.
Disney Execs don't admit to making mistakes.
If they had any brain power, they'd have re-opened AC/MDP/etc for occasional "special event" buyouts or sell it as a "hard ticket" like MNNSHP, and made TONS of money.
Alas, Disney Execs don't make mistakes.
One more update from the second night of Congaloosh:
One prominent CM is of the opinion that the AC will be torn down and replaced with another building occupying the same footprint. He allowed that this might be best, since none of us could stand to walk by the club and see a TGI Fridays inside the same building.
The keynote speaker, Disney historian Jim Korkis, was not optimistic, but said that you have to remember that the decision making process at Disney is only as solid as "jello." He did say, though, that as far as he knows nobody in upper management (as opposed to the guest interaction cast) is advocating anything like PI-style entertainment. He notes that their professional experience is likely to be in something like retail, and they basically don't understand that kind of thing.
Korkis gave a wonderful talk about the backstory of PI in general, and of course the AC in particular. I did grab him and ask him to put forth any of that kind of thing he had on Mannequins; not sure if he took me seriously or not. I seem to be the only person that was equally addicted to both clubs. :)
It was interesting that part of his talk highlighted the reason for PI in the first place, which was Eisner seeing all the dollars leaving for Church Street Station. As someone who never went to Citywalk until the closure of the PI clubs last year, I've got to say that history is repeating itself. I actually don't LIKE Citywalk all that much, but it wins by merely existing.
Bill, thanks again for your report. I think it's likely that everyone that attended the AC Congaloosh events this weekend felt they got their money's worth.
Someone posted these pictures of ConGaloosh on a Disney fan board site:
http://linux.daguru.org/gallery/main.php/v/congaloosh_2009/
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