I'll ask again ... does a roller coaster have groupies?

The answer is probably yes.

But that's not the point.  The point is Ice Charades is going to trout out another rant about the lack of ice shows in commercials.  I saw a commercial for Royal Caribbean this weekend and didn't see any hint of ice.  Not a blade, not a toe pick.  Nothing.

Yes, in past years, 2013, 2010, and 2008  I was so frustrated.  It seems the agencies that whip up these commercials didn't get my memo.

So I'll post it here.  Yup, I'm posting a repost within a post of a repost.  Or something like that.  You're welcome.

Way back in June, 2008, I railed on the theme parks for not showing their own ice shows in their advertisements. Whether it was in print or television ads, there was no skating to be seen.

Here's my short rant in short:

Calling the PR Department of

King's/SixFlag's/Busch'/sSeaWorld's/Knott's/GreatAmerica's Theme Park

Why is it that there is rarely any press/commercial screen time/endorsements of the ice shows inside your park? Are you hiding it?

When I skated for King's Dominion and Williamsburg Busch Gardens, both times the ice shows were the #1 live attraction. Now don't get me wrong, people, I know nothing beats the latest/tallest/fastest rollercoaster for these theme parks, but the ice shows were packing them in -- if nothing else, so people could sit down and cool off -- Virginia in August anyone?

When I was at Busch Gardens, the park orginally scheduled two shows daily. Then the wizards working the numbers and crowd control realized the park would make more money if they canceled the early show and made people who wanted to see the show (a.k.a. the groupies) wait until 9 pm, meaning they would have to eat at the park, rather than catch the early show and head to town for dinner afterward.

Can a rollercoaster do that? Do they have groupies?

Okay, yeah, they probably do.

So today I'm calling out Royal Caribbean Cruises for doing the same thing. Last night I caught a commercial (I'm excited that I now get some American tv stations in Panama) for the cruise ship that never showed one clip of skating. Not the show, not even a passenger on a public session.




I don't get it. Skating is the number one, most popular Winter Olympic sport, in part, because it's so well suited for television. Why? It's got beautiful costumes (usually) on beautiful skaters (usually - which reminds me of another post I'm about to do) and the fast motion of jumping, spinning or plain old stroking. To me, it's more zippy than most anything dancing can do ... yet, they show a clip of one of the musicals (people singing, rather than dancing) in that commercial.

I just don't get it. RC is the only cruise line to have an ice rink and you would think they might want to highlight that aspect more. And I can't imagine that someone in the ad biz can truthfully say that "We tested for audience reaction to skating and they didn't like it" because they've never put the skating in there.