OK back from work. Here are the details. It sounds like many of you have heard something about it. Most of your discriptions are very close.
There are "spoilers" ahead [hmmm, fun getting to type that
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Well first off, based on advice on this board and others I will say this proved true: when a CM pulls you aside and asks you if you want to preview something always say "YES"!!
OK, it was definitely different than anything else we saw all week. It was in a very small theater. There were about 50 people or so sitting in the theater on benches and then a small area up front. The creators were standing around the room with clip boards taking notes. The area upfront was for kids to go up and sit down. It was in front of a movie screen. The images on the screen made it seem like you were looking through a glass window into an ocean scene with water, rocks, the ocean floor, etc. There was an image of a microphone on the side.
The premise is that Crush will come out and talk to and interact with everyone in the theater. There was a CM that moderated everything on the theater side, introduced the attraction and then got the crowd to call for Crush. The CM had a mic in his hand and would go around the room with it when Crush called on folks to ask a question.
So, we call for Crush and he comes out. He is a vitual reality movie image that swims around on the screen, talks, makes expressions and reacts to the crowd. Basically the whole show is interactive he can look into the audience and see what the crowd or kids are doing. He asks questions and then the crowd (mostly the kids) ask him questions. What made the attraction great was that he was absolutely hilarious the way he interacted and using the virtual reality technology, how he was able to move and react, make expressions etc. For example someone's "shell phone" went off in the middle and he had several one liners for the guy. It was really cute and had me laughing off my seat. Duuuuude!!
At the end the overwhelming rating from the crowd was a 5 out of 5. Positive comments from the crowd included the interaction especially with the kids and having the kids sitting upfront so Crush could call on them and ask their name etc. My kids loved it even though they weren't called on.
I personally was impressed with the virtual reality effects. How was he able to react so quickly and make expressions etc?? Obviously there was a cameral or two sided mirror someone was looking through but the movement of the turtle image was amazing.
Some kinks I think they need to work out was the CM with the mic had to step over kids and others to get to them to ask a question and although the interaction was great, I think there should have been a little more structure around the performance.
That being said, it just goes to show you how marketing and advertising plays such a huge part in hype. The SGE attraction was so hyped up on all the message boards. I saw that on Tuesday and I thought it was incredibly lame. This attraction was so, so much better yet very few have even heard of it...
