Hot Summer Lights

I'm afraid to watch it in the first place. No matter how awesome it is, I'll dislike it and be disappointed. I will be ashamed Cedar Point changed their show. I know it's for the better and for most people a great change though.

The laser show held a sentimental place in my mind, ranking with the three things I love most about Cedar Point. 1. The Rides (duh) 2. The Laser Show and 3. A pearly white Lake Erie beach.

I watched it on Friday and honestly it didn't impress me hardly at all. I didn't like the majority of the music that was played. The firewater was cool for the first minute but then to me got old really fast. I didn't like the ending at all either.

I did however, like some of the new fireworks that were used throught the show.

But overall, the show didn't do anything for me.

Sounds like FireWater is a good hit. Do they still do all the fun stuff with the rides, the College Team Logos, the songs, and just the funny stuff?

I hope so!

As long as the college section is still there I'm game. :) Nothing beats having a cheer-out with the MU, ND, and OSU fans (by the way, OSU has always won when I've been there).

That's still there, and seemed to be most people's favorite part of the show.

When the Michigan feature came on the screens, I started booing really loud, and this older couple in front of me shot me the nastiest look I think I have ever seen. Then when it was time for OSU, I started cheering, and I got an even nastier look. I think they thought I was drunk. (that, and I think they were Michigan fans.... so they probably had to be the ones doing all the drinkin')

I give it a "meh". I wouldn't go out of my way to see it again, but if I'm in the area when it starts, I'd stop by.

The firewater effect is cool, though.

Just like the last show, I'm sure I'll never see it. I'm always in line for Millennium Force. ;)

When people say there are 2 screens, where are they? I've only noticed the one on the main midway, but the last time I was there was 3 weeks ago.

There is one on the effects pole closest to the main screen on either side of the main midway. They have a wide truss hanging from them, and from the truss hangs the retractable screen.

After watching the show last night, I can now understand everyone's complaints. Although the trivia, college portion, and the "God Bless the USA" portion were pretty cool... the rest was rather dull...

I like the idea of the 3 screens with different images, but I felt more could have been done to make it more entertaining. I felt like I was watching a visual plugin for WinAmp or Windows Media Player for 90% of the show... Random colors and patterns get old fairly quickly...

The firewater was pretty cool, but as someone else said, it got old rather quickly. However, I did like the piano glissando timed with the fire during the Detroit portion.

Where the show really was dull was when there were only the images and the lights around the perimeter of the screen such as during Hoku's Perfect Day. I found myself even looking around the park instead of watching the show. This could be improved by even adding a bit of humor to the visuals of the show (ex: the you/ewe reference from the Summer Spectacular of the past) Even though its not comic genius... it still was entertaining. A rotating sun is not...

The music selection was VERY poor. At the end of the day, people want to sing along with songs they know... Songs like Abracadabra and Pinball Wizard are not normally crowd favorites. (Even though I like those songs personally, they aren't good for a large show).

Finally, as everyone has said, the Halloweekends portion of the show was fine for me, but I know that many younger children will find it rather disturbing. And it just felt out of place for the "fun" theme of the rest of the show...

Overall, while general expectations were high for the show, I would take Stone Mountain and the lasers back anyday. Hot Summer Lights lacked pacing, humor, and plain old entertainment value. I hope some changes are made in coming seasons.

I thought the show was horrid. It was like watching a bad movie with some flames.

The lasers need to return, without them the show is boring.

I have yet to see the show, but here's my thought...
So you have the new company, "Interlaced Productions." This new company is owned by the former president and vice-president of Stone Mountain. Now I could be wrong on this, but how much physical show design do you think the president and vice-president were doing? My thought is not much, if any... until now... Sure they may know what they're doing, but they may not have the experience of planning out the entire show that some of the show designers from Stone Mountain had. *** Edited 6/5/2006 9:35:24 PM UTC by DBCP***

Well I was able to catch the last 6-8 minutes of the show last night and what I saw, save a few good seconds, was an utter disaster of a show... it was awful compared to summer spectacular... even the part where the teams are show and everyone cheers or boos was without energy, and the audience responded appropriately as a large crowd didnt even cheer for any of the teams, just a half-hearted "eh.."

Cedar point has really dropped the ball on letting this show make it all the way though production and not be fixed.... Although yes I like the firewater, it was not nearly as good as I expected, and the lasers need to come back, firewater AND lasers would be much better (hint hint cedar point)

I also noticed the lack of audience energy... This was probably a combination of the quality of the show and because there wasn't much of a crowd at all.

Outside of nights that were a washout, the midway was normally full for the Summer Spectacular... Last night you could walk right to the front of the crowd. There was a lighter crowd in the park, but it still seemed really empty nonetheless.

One other thing that I noticed is that none of the Ride Hosts are spieling about the show like they would spiel for Summer Spectacular. When I worked at the park I would always spiel myself and hear spiels around the park saying "and don't forget to check out Snoopy's Summer Spectacular tonight at 10 PM..."

I rode plenty of rides yesterday, and not one Ride Host mentioned Hot Summer Lights... I found that to be quite interesting

Well, last night I saw the show for the first time actually sitting on the midway...let's just say I rescind my previous statement on the first post of this thread...it got to the end and I was like, "that's it?"

Here's my thoughts after seeing it properly:

PROS:

- Fire Water
- More POV footage
- Trivia with kickin' Pink Panther remix (loved it!)
- Lots of fireworks

CONS:

- Too short! (~18 minutes)
- Bad songs (I don't know where I'm a-gonna go..?!?!? Come ON people!)...although I LOVED the Pink Panther remix and that one song with WT and the girl dancing
- Irrelevant things in the show
- Too much 3D animation
- No lasers (as someone said before)
- Too many "commercials"
- Patriotic section didn't have ANYTHING from recent news...not even 9/11
- Patriotic section was too short
- Not enough visual "story-line" such as the horse and cowboy, Mars mission, and Superman animations from last year
- (there's more, I just can't think of any right now)

Cedar Point, take heed...if they were trying to cut budgets, then they made a VERY bad choice of where to cut the fat. They better do SOMETHING to help this show, or they will have just wasted all that money on a rather $#!++y show.

I don't think the change had as much to do with cutbacks, but rather the changes that occurred at Stone Mountain.

Yeah, if you want to see the budget cuts... look at staffing ;)

Don't even get me started.... :)

I thought the show was great. I watched it Monday and Tuesday night, the crowd seemed to enjoy it.