It’s the most wonderful time of the year: the season where British people traditionally complain about spending too much on rip-off Christmas events. This year’s festivities have already kicked off in earnest, thanks to the malfunctioning Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer drone show in Haywards Heath this week. By all accounts the drone show was a classic of the genre. It made big promises, offering families “a night of magic and wonder” complete with “state of the art production [and] 600 LED drones”. Then it charged big money, with some families paying hundreds of pounds to attend. And then, of course, it comprehensively underdelivered.
Reports describe the event as not only being too short – about just 15 minutes – but also, due to the failure of several drones, completely unintelligible. “From the beginning, large numbers of drones were missing, which left huge gaps in the formations and made it nearly impossible to understand what the images were even supposed to represent!” wrote one aggrieved attendee on social media. “The ‘finale’, the moment the entire audience was waiting for, didn’t even happen. Just a black sky.”
Honestly, you’d have thought we’d learn by now. The recent past is littered with festive events gone sour due to a variation of bad planning, technical difficulties or plain old fraudulent behaviour. Here are some of the all-time greats from the past decade and a half.
2008: Lapland New Forest, Ringwood
What was promised: According to the BBC, organisers were offering a place “where dreams really do come true”, which included “Hollywood special effects”, a “magical tunnel of light” and log cabins.
What was delivered: A two-hour queue to see Santa, a broken ice rink, two plastic polar bears and a reindeer with a broken antler. The nativity scene was, according to one visitor, “a large picture far across an inaccessible muddy field” and the tunnel of light turned out to be a 6ft net of lights strung between two trees. “I took my son to the toilet and he saw ‘Santa’ having a cigarette break at the side of a Portaloo,” claimed another visitor.
What happened next: Total chaos. Furious at being charged up to £30 a ticket, several of the 40,000 visitors went nuts upon seeing what they’d paid for. An elf reported being screamed at (“I can’t believe you’ve done this. Look what you’ve done to my children. They’re crying, their fingers are blue. You’re rip-off merchants, you’re taking the mickey out of us”), slapped and run over with a buggy. Two dads had a fight in a gingerbread house and one disgruntled employee reportedly told a visitor that “Santa’s fucking dead”. After six days the park closed to visitors. Three years later the organisers were found guilty of eight charges of misleading the public, and jailed for 13 months each. This is still the yardstick by which other Christmas disasters are measured.
2013: Winter Wonderland MK, Milton Keynes
What was promised: A spectacular event offering “the magic of the holiday season” that would cause visitors to “fall under a magical, festive spell”.
What was delivered: One visitor called it “a whole load of burger vans with a small funfair”. Another called it “a tent with some statues”. One said of Santa that his “beard was falling down and you could see his normal clothes underneath his costume”. Another said it contained “no reindeers, no huskies, no rides, no live music, not even a single bloody light!!!!”. One said it “did nothing but distort and maybe even destroy my child’s belief in the magic of Christmas”. But the most damning visitor comment was: “My little Anais asked, ‘Nanny have we been bad?’”
What happened next: Winter Wonderland MK closed after a single day of operation. The organiser issued 200 refunds, with PayPal offering to refund everyone else. Nobody knows if little Anais ever recovered.
2014: The Magical Journey, Sutton Coldfield
What was promised: An immersive 90-minute experience – designed by Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, no less – in which guests would discover a “winter wonderland of magic and drama”.
What was delivered: A 40-minute queue to see a Santa who handed out cheap plastic unwrapped presents. According to one visitor, there was a small wood full of “people dressed as elves try to slow you down”. According to another, the atmosphere was like “a waiting area at an airport”.
What happened next: The event was such a disaster (one attendee claimed that it had “ruined Christmas’) that it closed after a single day. It did eventually reopen, banning the media from attending, only to close permanently nine days before scheduled. Refunds were offered. Llewelyn-Bowen said that the whole affair had left him “not feeling very Christmassy at all”.
2019: Christmas Grotto, Harrods
What was promised: A “snow-covered woodland filled with sparkling surprises”.
What was delivered: A snow-covered woodland filled with sparkling surprises … that was only available for children whose parents had spent at least £2,000 at Harrods. Needless to say, the move did not go down well with shoppers. “Harrods is behaving like the Grinch who stole Christmas,” said one angry father. “Visiting Father Christmas shouldn’t be reserved for those that are fortunate enough to frequent the store and spend thousands of pounds.”
What happened next: Harrods bit the bullet and decided to allow 160 children whose parents hadn’t spent £2,000 to visit its Santa, although reports calculated that this meant Santa would still devote 96.4% of his time to the rich kids. Santa has not returned to Harrods since 2021.
2022: Enchanted Balgone, East Lothian
What was promised: “A family-friendly Christmas experience in a stunning rural setting”.
What was delivered: The connoisseur’s choice of disappointing Christmas experiences. The centrepiece of Enchanted Balgone was the Santa Train Room; a grain shed, completely empty save for a shop mannequin – glowering and handless, its Santa suit held together with a belt made of electrical tape, standing on a white piece of cloth next to a plastic palm tree. This was signposted by a sheet of plywood with the word “ACTIVITIES” spray-painted across it. Visitors were nonplussed. “It was nothing short of diabolical to say the least,” said one.
What happened next: The event was closed, refunds were issued and the estate that hosted apologised. The handless Santa still haunts the dreams of all who encountered him.
2024: Elf on the Shelf Experience, Bluewater
What was promised: According to the ticketing site, a “never-seen-before interactive, theatrical experience will transport you to the north pole on an immersive adventure where you’ll help the Scout Elves spread Christmas cheer by completing a series of magical games and challenges”.
What was delivered: According to one attendee, “a half-empty blue room with a few ‘activities’”. Pictures of a bare, low-ceilinged, strip-lit retail unit appear to back this up. Another visitor said: “I thought I was in an episode of The Apprentice and this was the team getting fired. I am disgusted that I was charged for such rubbish.”
What happened next: The event was pummelled with one-star Tripadvisor reviews (“They are robbing families of money and magic at Christmas”, “There weren’t any elves!!”), and this year it has been replaced by a Bluey Christmas trail.
