COTA’s Winter Wonderland – Advent Calendar, Dec. 4, 2017

Tags

atx, Austin, Christmas, Christmas trees, Circuit of the Americas, COTA, Singing Christmas trees, Texas, Winter Wonderland

Today we’re going to the brand new “Christmas show” at the Circuit Of The Americas in Austin. Circuit Of The Americas, or COTA, is primarily a Formula 1 circuit but is also hosting other events. Just a few weeks ago, they announced a brand new show: Winter Wonderland.

I decided to go despite the $16 ticket, mostly because I am rarely disappointed by Christmas shows. Well I was this time.

I was wondering whether to post about it or not, and I decided to do so because 1) it has been widely publicized, and I think it’s important that people know what they are paying for, and 2) there were a few nice things that I’m also sharing below.

One problem, I think, is that this is a huge venue, and it seems they tried to cover the whole circuit, which resulted in an impression of not so much to see, instead of keeping everything in one narrower area.

For example, making people walk around the circuit with decorations every 60 feet or so seemed a bit cheap. Here’s a panoramic picture of what I am talking about. Click on it to enlarge and then to zoom in. It’s not great quality – it was dark – but it will give you an idea of what I was talking about.

There were other things to see, of course, such as trees covered with lights, and a big wheel (although quite small for Texas), but mostly, the singing Christmas trees were the most original and the camel rides (not included in the price of a ticket). Other attractions also required an extra.

I completely understand that this has a cost, and the tickets are paying for it, but it seems that the attractions would have been better if kept on a smaller area of the circuit. There’s an expression for that in French, whose English translation isn’t as good as the French one for this particular case: “Qui trop embrasse mal etreint” (Jack of all trades master of none).

Here are a few things I liked. And a video of the singing Christmas trees. Ok, I liked those :)

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