Christmas lights on St patrick's street

hoodwinked

Went in tonight to see the turning on of the christmas lights, and what a disaster it was,

the sound quality was terrible, from the choir which either wasn't good at all, or didn't come across well through the sound system used (i am not sure which applies) or the volume of the speakers,
up by the front you were deafened and when the music was performed the interference noise was terrible, the children were covering their ears when the music was on, yet when the radio station dj was speaking it was audible, clear and not too loud,

people standing by dunnes/GQ were complaining that they couldn't hear anything,

last year the children were given balloons, and cans of 7up/pepsi, and some crisps and entertained by the panto stars, this year i saw nothing but the odd green or orange balloon, (and i mean at max 10 balloons),

the lights were said to be turned on by 6pm, by 6,10 an announcement was made we would have them turned on in 20-30 minutes after another two songs from the 'choir'.

the children were getting bored, tired and cranky as the choir were performing songs like away in a manger and some ridiculous 'rap' as opposed to last year when it was songs such as "santa claus is coming to town" and "jingle bells" (although that was played after the event) last year the children sang along while the guy told us santa was on the way (and gave us regular updates) this year the first mention of Santa was just before he popped up from behind the choir on the stage, last year he arrived behind the stage and walked through the crowd meeting and greeting the children before going on stage. it just felt such a let down as such a buzz was created last year by the children meeting santa, this year there was none of that.

and the fact it felt that it was dragged out so much by the radio station involved was irritating, there was no need for it and they could have filled the time with a more productive show. And it meant that literally in 5 minutes after santa arrived it was all over, they placed the emphasis on the choir rather than the real reasons the children were there, to see santa and the lights.

the guest speakers were brought on at almost 6.30 and our lovely deputy lord mayor got the name of the radio station wrong instead thanking their rival radio station for the event, she stumbled over every word and to be honest it came across like she was just thrown in last minute with no preparation.

Brendan O Connor was surprisingly the best part, he was very funny, well spoken and imo was the only part of tonight i enjoyed,

after the lights were switched on there was a mass exodus of people, which lead to crushing and traffic issues, there was no park and ride open, most private car parks were closed, which lead to chaos for people parking in the city. imagine patricks day with no park and ride and no private car parks.

the lights being turned on was the main event, except the lights on oliver plunkett street and surrounding streets weren't turned on, in fact as you walk down patrick street from princes street to brown thomas there are no lights crossing the street and looks like the only decorations are ones the shops themselves put up.

overall it felt to me like they took last years, and made it worse. what was surprising was the crowds this year were much bigger, maybe they weren't prepared for that but still.

tl:dr crushing amongst people and bad sound, long drawn out event, and bad organisation.

was it just me or did anyone else find this event was a disaster?


edit- just re-read and It sounds like i am moaning, maybe i am, like i said Brendan O Connor was pretty much the only positive, him and the beautiful colourful christmas tree at the end of the south mall more colours like that are needed on the streets of Cork at Christmas.

Red Nissan

Comment from the same radio station this am: "fifteen thousand people turned up as opposed to three thousand last year, so maybe the council were caught out by the three fold increase .."

pwurple

Cripes, glad we didn't go if it was like that.

Patrick's day was a similar disaster for us. Tried to get the 202 into town that morning, 3 buses sailed past us full, before we gave up and walked home again. They just stuck to a sunday bus schedule on one of the busiest days of the year. Loads of disappointed people standing with us at the busstop. People consoling their crying kids etc.

Cork City Council are a shower of incompetent wasters who couldn't organise their way out of a paper bag.

CHealy

Same crap as always, they never ever get anything right. CCC must be the most incompetent collection of people ever assembled.

Manach

No doubt they will take on board these issues, and perhaps head on various junkets to see how other cities operate such lightings - on the property tax expense tab of course.

leahyl

I'm part of the "Bring Back the Old Lights" Brigade! So I say " Bring back the old lights"!!!:D They were tacky as hell but they were the best! Can't believe 15,000 turned up last night.

hoodwinked

Red Nissan wrote: »

Comment from the same radio station this am: "fifteen thousand people turned up as opposed to three thousand last year, so maybe the council were caught out by the three fold increase .."

thats the thing i would love to know where they got those numbers from,

i was there last year too, and i would say the crowd although it was bigger, it was at the most double the amount of last year, which i suppose you'd expect considering last year it was wet and freezing where as this year it was mild and dry.

but even so, taking out the crowd side of things the whole event felt like it was thrown together last minute, nothing seemed prepared right down to the speeches,time keeping, song choices..etc it felt a very amateur event before you even looked at crowd control and the crushing.

the lights being off on the surrounding streets after the turning on the lights event and the poor show of lights on patrick street, didn't help the night considering it was why we were there, i guess we hope every year they'll add a bit more colour but alas they didn't.

i would love to see more colour around the festivities, i know people call it 'tacky' but christmas decor always has been, with the gold and reds and blues and greens, i have since read that the blue laser lights decorating our main street were removed from Oxford street due to so many complaints about them not being Christmassy enough, yet Cork City Council buy them for christmas????

leahyl

hoodwinked wrote: »

thats the thing i would love to know where they got those numbers from,

i was there last year too, and i would say the crowd although it was bigger, it was at the most double the amount of last year, which i suppose you'd expect considering last year it was wet and freezing where as this year it was mild and dry.

but even so, taking out the crowd side of things the whole event felt like it was thrown together last minute, nothing seemed prepared right down to the speeches,time keeping, song choices..etc it felt a very amateur event before you even looked at crowd control and the crushing.

the lights being off on the surrounding streets after the turning on the lights event and the poor show of lights on patrick street, didn't help the night considering it was why we were there, i guess we hope every year they'll add a bit more colour but alas they didn't.

i would love to see more colour around the festivities, i know people call it 'tacky' but christmas decor always has been, with the gold and reds and blues and greens, i have since read that the blue laser lights decorating our main street were removed from Oxford street due to so many complaints about them not being Christmassy enough, yet Cork City Council buy them for christmas????

Totally agree with you hoodwinked - and another thing I'm annoyed about is the lack of a tree outside Brown Thomas this year - there's a huge gap and I think it's quite noticeable. As a Christmas nut I am not a happy bunny :mad: :P

hoodwinked

leahyl wrote: »

Totally agree with you hoodwinked - and another thing I'm annoyed about is the lack of a tree outside Brown Thomas this year - there's a huge gap and I think it's quite noticeable. As a Christmas nut I am not a happy bunny :mad: :P

to be fair, i think that will be the remembrance tree, and i think that its just not up yet

BanzaiBk

Pretty much the same feelings as the OP. This is the second city event I've been to in the past few months (Cork Rebel Week - Marina thing on the Saturday) and couldn't believe the disorganisation. I'm not sure I buy the line about the council not expecting the numbers, the problems were largely to do with the event itself imo. There was no atmosphere, the build up was poor, the choir which could have been used to good effect weren't exactly chipper-festive, loads of roaring kids bored out of their trees, harassed parents searching for something to do. It was all just so poor.

How difficult exactly can it be to organise these events? It was heavily advertised all week so surely they were gunning for big numbers. We can walk into town from where we live so there wasn't any hassle for us but the buses appeared to be operating to suit themselves. The lights themselves weren't exactly exciting either.

All in all I was disappointed. Perhaps I should have known better from the Rebel Week fiasco but still. How hard is it to make turning on some festive lights exciting?

VincentLeB

Red Nissan wrote: »

Comment from the same radio station this am: "fifteen thousand people turned up as opposed to three thousand last year, so maybe the council were caught out by the three fold increase .."

The council would of course be caught out by a threefold increase when of course it really is a fivefold increase :P

They can't even be caught out correctly it seems.

kcb

Not to mention the scrap between two kids (girls) outside McDonalds at about 6.10pm, surrounded by hundreds of innocent folks, babies in buggies etc.

Not a policeperson in sight...

leahyl

hoodwinked wrote: »

to be fair, i think that will be the remembrance tree, and i think that its just not up yet

Oh yes forgot about that Is that one lit up usually?

hoodwinked

oh my god i finally have some time to listen to the playback of monday mornings show covering this event,

the way they describe it is ridiculous, its like everything we all saw go wrong they are sticking their fingers in their ears going "la la la we are so great, la la la we invested so much money in the sound, la la la there were 15,000 people there..."

in other words we won't listen to the people on the ground who attended the event, who agree there was no atmosphere there, who had to deal with the numerous problems they are now claiming didn't exist!

and then he disses last years events??? its bad enough they deleted the comments on their facebook page giving the factual accounts of how badly it went (and got over 25+ likes before they managed to delete them) but this is unbelievable!

i used always promote that radio station as to be honest i used prefer the bit of fun it represented, but no more.

absolutely unbelievable the ignorance shown by the staff and the radio station involved. :eek:

hoodwinked

leahyl wrote: »

Oh yes forgot about that Is that one lit up usually?

i think so, i'm sure its the one with the colourful lights, but its lovely seeing it covered in the colourful cards too!

probably won't be up until december though...

Gummybear2013

I thought it was very boring and crap this year pretty annoyed all that standing in middle crowd. music was bad i thought and really did drag on to much was thinking of leaving and i thought they would have turned off all lights on patrick street then light up all it but i saw barely nothing turned on so boring i wont be in mood go next year. was not worth going in at all and waiting that long for what exactly?

Sonics2k

The lights are okay, nothing great by any means, but they do give a decent look to the street.

I didn't go the opening, it's always a bit bloody boring tbh.

freshpopcorn

hoodwinked

more decorations like that would be perfect!

can't help but notice, look at how many motorbikes are parked down the street in the middle,
compared to the tiny parking bays the motorbikes are given now. :eek:

pwurple

Oh gosh, ye must all have your rose-tinted nostalgia glasses on! Those things were so bad, I didn't like them at all! Always reminded me of huge man-eating furry tarantulas straddling the streets!

CB19Kevo

freshpopcorn wrote: »

Almost make's Cork look like London, Patrick street looks great there, Think it may be the normal street lighting that takes away from patrick street at present, Too futuristic and lacks any character in my opinion.

murphym7

Those old decorations were great, always loved them. The new ones you would barely know were actually Christmas decorations. Too slick, too cool, too subtle.

leahyl

pwurple wrote: »

Oh gosh, ye must all have your rose-tinted nostalgia glasses on! Those things were so bad, I didn't like them at all! Always reminded me of huge man-eating furry tarantulas straddling the streets!

Oh pwurple they were brilliant!! Just looking at that picture makes me all warm and fuzzy inside :pac:

the beer revolu

I liked those lights too.
Looking at the buses and cars, the pic doesn't look that old but then there's all the Honda 50s parked that you don't see so many of now.

Anyone have a date for that pic?

Sonics2k

pwurple wrote: »

Oh gosh, ye must all have your rose-tinted nostalgia glasses on! Those things were so bad, I didn't like them at all! Always reminded me of huge man-eating furry tarantulas straddling the streets!

Half the lights were gone constantly, and they never changed them.

pwurple

leahyl wrote: »

Oh pwurple they were brilliant!! Just looking at that picture makes me all warm and fuzzy inside :pac:

Fuzzy like you've been biten by a giant spider?

Don't get me wrong, the new ones are not good either... And since when was blue christmassy?

But those furry yokes, all dirty and broken. Jebus they needed replacing.

I like the oliver plunkett ones, and I know a street as wide as Panna is a challenge... but the choices are surely not limited to creepy multicoloured spiders, vs blue industrial muck..

Grafton street gets it right.

Sonics2k

pwurple wrote: »

Don't get me wrong, the new ones are not good either... And since when was blue christmassy?

But those furry yokes, all dirty and broken. Jebus they needed replacing.

I like the oliver plunkett ones, and I know a street as wide as Panna is a challenge... but the choices are surely not limited to creepy multicoloured spiders, vs blue industrial muck..

Grafton street gets it right.

The stores along Oliver Plunkett Street are asked to pay €350 per shop to contribute to the lights. So a small shop like the Mr Simms is asked to pay the same as Penneys. Madness.

pwurple

Sonics2k wrote: »

The stores along Oliver Plunkett Street are asked to pay €350 per shop to contribute to the lights. So a small shop like the Mr Simms is asked to pay the same as Penneys. Madness.

Good ould city council strikes agin.

ofcork

Id say that cork photo is the 90s,the blue transit looks modern.

freshpopcorn

I loved the old lights because they were the lights when I was a child. The first few years of the blue lights I didn't like them. Then after a while they grew on me a lot, especially since lights in Opera lane.
I know of a lot of people who give out about the newer lights in Cork saying they preferred the old ones, but I know people in Dublin who say the exact same thing about the lights there.
If they didn't change the lights in Cork I think they might looked aged now just due to natural wear and tear and the color of them might look a little dated now.
Even our Christmas decorations at home have changed over the years. We still have some of the old stuff but we had to add new stuff to it as well.
Young kids will grow up with these lights and these will be the lights they remember from their childhood Christmases and when they change them again in 20 years time they will reminisce about the old blue lights and how good they looked.

Flesh Gorden

ofcork wrote: »

Id say that cork photo is the 90s,the blue transit looks modern.

Early to Mid 90's I'd say, as the newer Volvo buses only came in 97' and also that there's a double decker for the number 8, which disappeared around then.


I think I'm more shocked by the fact there's actual parking spaces on Patrick's Street, and two proper sized lanes heading north.

Red Nissan

hoodwinked wrote: »

absolutely unbelievable the ignorance shown by the staff and the radio station involved. :eek:

It's not ignorance, it's station orders. They get a script and they follow it, no one might have turned up and there would still have been a fantastic reception.

I could go on about match reports, traffic reports, getting that CASH for the weekend from their various give aways and secret sounds and even who wins them, but I won't here.

We all should remember Wayne in the studio playing aircraft sound effects.

Red Nissan

Sonics2k wrote: »

Half the lights were gone constantly, and they never changed them.

They got quite crappy all right, they needed to be replaced, but with similar, not necessarily the exact same but those lights did impart a better atmosphere.

Red Nissan

Flesh Gorden wrote: »

I think I'm more shocked by the fact there's actual parking spaces on Patrick's Street, and two proper sized lanes heading north.

Indeed, "progress" has seen the DESTRUCTION of Cork.

murphym7

Sonics2k wrote: »

The stores along Oliver Plunkett Street are asked to pay €350 per shop to contribute to the lights. So a small shop like the Mr Simms is asked to pay the same as Penneys. Madness.

Nor sure what the deal is with the retailers/City council these days regarding Oliver Plunkett Street now, but back in the 80's, the purchasing and hanging up of lights was down to the retailers. There was a shopkeepers association that the shops were paid members of and they paid for the lot. My old fella had a couple of shops in the area and I remember him talking about it years ago.

Henry94

I don't like the trend towards towards blue and white lights. They traditional red and green created a warm atmosphere. Blue and white just remind us that it's cold.

leahyl

Best lights and decorations in the city this year are in Merchants Quay shopping centre - absolutely stunning. So colourful and festive! And they have the little elves in the middle of the escalators working away on the toys :pac:

hoodwinked

leahyl wrote: »

Best lights and decorations in the city this year are in Merchants Quay shopping centre - absolutely stunning. So colourful and festive! And they have the little elves in the middle of the escalators working away on the toys :pac:

aww i haven't seen it yet but am looking forward to it now,

Santa arrived at wilton last friday night and the indoor lights/decoration there were fabulous too, they also had the old decorations up on the roof outside of santa and his sleigh...

Marcus Halberstram

It could be worse lads, the council in Limerick switched on the lights at 3pm in broad daylight.

PanaDrama

Thought twas grand, good ole buzz around