You may have heard some of the controversy about the xmas attraction created by Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, over priced, unfinished and untrained staff which was forced to close a day later.
Well it's back, in full damage limitation mode after being under the media spotlight and is now trying hard to restore it's damaged reputation. But it is hitting out at the media saying a lot of the stories were exaggerated and mutated, and so the press won't be invited to the re-launch.
It's fascinating to watch online reputation management and business disaster recovery in action:
Today based on your feedback we have so far:
- Added even more Christmas trees
- Further staff training
- Added more snow
- Decorated the tippees
And much more, plus we've not stopped yet!
May be there are things we can all learn from it, but you can't help feeling sorry for the owners.
Here is the latest post from their facebook page: (Facebook Page now closed down)
Mythbusting
The presents are unwrapped: There’s a reason for this – the idea is that the children can look inside the sack and choose their present. It seems that in a couple of cases Santa hadn’t been briefed properly and handed out the first thing he got his hands on. Additional training has been given.
The train broke down: It did. For a minute, and some elves came to the rescue and pushed it while singing songs. It had run out of fuel thanks to a broken fuel gauge, this has now been fixed and we have a back-up train on site.
Elves were seen smoking: It’s possible that from the road someone may have seen through the trees to the staff rest area, which is hidden well away from The Magical Journey experience. We have erected extra screening by the road and given additional instructions to staff.
Father Christmas was boozing, smoking and swearing & An Elf told me to have a sh*t Christmas: Honestly? We can’t believe the papers picked this up. It came from a joke Facebook post.
A Reindeer bit my child: Our reindeer enclosure is safe with our elves supervising it. Reindeer are herbivore and lack bottom teeth - they won’t try to bite you because they can’t.
The downside with good old social media as our politicians are well aware, you are opening yourself up for all sorts of comments 
So is all publicity good publicity? I'd imagine their marketing plan has been re-written a couple of times over the last few days!
I'll bet there will be a sombre lessons learnt and interesting analysis in January. Be interesting to see if they do pull it off and turn it into a success. Brit's just love an underdog so takings will probably go through the roof 
what do you mean he isnt real - someone please tell me Centric is joking 
