It sounds like the much-trumpeted Nokia White Christmas didn’t turn out to be quite the amazing event its promise had once held.
Having not heard much about who had tickets and who hadn’t, we put a call out on Twitter and Facebook late yesterday to hear about people’s experiences. From those we heard back from, it sounds like a bit of a damp squib – shame really because the potential was high.
Anne-Marie Evans told us that her kids were extremely disappointed by it, “It was a lot smaller than expected, no elves and no santa as stated in the County Press and as for Marco Pierre-White inspired food, the only food there was Danish pastries which, although nice, might as well have come from Morrisons!”
No Ho Ho
It can’t be Christmas without a Santa, right? You’d have thought so, but apparently Nokia felt different.
Anne-Marie recounted their attempts to find Mr Claus, “To top it all, when my son asked a member of staff when father xmas was going to turn up, the staff member told him “he’s not” and then laughed!”
Another Islander on Twitter told us, “It was poor to say the least. And fun did not really occur at any juncture. And I am somewhat a connoisseur of all things Christmas!”
David Pugh couldn’t have known about the disappointments when, as the winning of the event was announced, he told the County Press , “We are already working with Nokia to make this a great family event to remember.” Whoops.
Some good bits
It wasn’t all long faces. There were some highlights like “the kids loved throwing snowballs in the snow tent and seeing 2 real reindeer,” which does indeed sound like a lot of fun.
The Island wasn’t the only winner
Much to our surprise, it sounds like the Island wasn’t the only winner of the competition in the South, as Worthing, who were placed second in the competition, also had a Nokia White Christmas delivered to them too.
Video footage of the Worthing bash, plays testament to the complaints that it also was pretty tiny and not as exciting as anticipated.
Let down
Anne-Marie Evans’ summation of the Island event was pretty damning, “It was merely what you could see at hundreds of garden centres throughout the UK.”
If your experience was any better than this, share it with others by leaving your comments below.
Thanks to Matt for sending through his pic of the event above
