I think the answer is simple; Over the last 5/10 years there have been huge cutbacks to these departments; There used to be 4 nights for cavalcade of lights and honestly they were pretty darn good; Its a great venue for unique fireworks (I've seen plenty of fireworks in my lifetime ... in Quebec in particular that has amazing ones), no its not a huge show by any means but its a very intimate venue and they do very neat things with city hall it self.

Add to that there used to be that summer time show, and more.


But cut after cut after cut and not much in the way of corporate sponsorship and you have what we see today.
 
isaidso said:
Toronto is a far more sophisticated place than it was 20 years ago but I find many of these shows the city puts on don't reflect that. They're low brow, boring, cheesy, and usually have some bozo yelling 'yo yo yo To-Ron-To, make some NOIZ'. Sorry, I'm not some homeboy from the ghetto.

Compared to the NYC show with Kathy Griffin-Anderson Cooper ending in 'start spreading the news' and confetti, why would anyone bother going to the Toronto New Years' Eve show? It's embarrassing. I went once; never again.

The tree lighting at Dundas Square was a welcome departure from what we usually get. The National Ballet's Nutcracker, costumes, razzle dazzle, etc. That's more in tune with what Torontonians expect in a show. The City Hall bash should take some notes.
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Agreed on all points, but no one is more boring than Kathy Griffin. More accurately: no one is more revolting.
 
Moonflake said:
Agreed on all points, but no one is more boring than Kathy Griffin. More accurately: no one is more revolting.
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Love Kathy Griffin. She's worked her ass off to get where she is. I completely see why she is offputting to some people, but I love her. If anyone is driving somewhere for a few hours and needs something to listen to, I highly recommend her autobiography book-on-tape.

ETA: Having said that, I've never seen her co-host NYE with what's-his-face. Don't typically watch that kind of thing. So I can't speak to whether she adds or detracts from NYE.

ETA: I just noticed that I still use the anachronistic "book-on-tape" rather than "audio book". No need to get a cassette player working.
 
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Skeezix said:
Love Kathy Griffin. She's worked her ass off to get where she is. I completely see why she is offputting to some people, but I love her. If anyone is driving somewhere for a few hours and needs something to listen to, I highly recommend her autobiography book-on-tape.

ETA: Having said that, I've never seen her co-host NYE with what's-his-face. Don't typically watch that kind of thing. So I can't speak to whether she adds or detracts from NYE.

ETA: I just noticed that I still use the anachronistic "book-on-tape" rather than "audio book". No need to get a cassette player working.
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She is a classic case of a narcissistic personality and she has the maturity level of an adolescent. As for her NYE appearances; here she is in 2012:

Even Anderson Cooper was completely embarrassed and told her "their are children here". She has no class or decency (and that is being far too kind).

I just read her Wikipedia page. The early life section perhaps explains her lewdness.


 
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Yeah, after someone says they love her, but at the same time is careful to be respectful of your earlier expressed opinion, I'm not sure doubling down to tell the other person he likes a narcissistic personality with the maturity level of an adolescent is the right way to go.

And, from what I understand, Cooper is the straight man and that's their shtick.

But whatever, you don't like her. We get it. We got it earlier when you said, without a hint of irony, that no one is more revolting. No one on Earth.

I don't think there is any risk of her hosting the NYE events at NPS, so we've probably now exhausted this side discussion.
 
Skeezix said:
Yeah, after someone says they love her, but at the same time is careful to be respectful of your earlier expressed opinion, I'm not sure doubling down to tell the other person he likes a narcissistic personality with the maturity level of an adolescent is the right way to go.

And, from what I understand, Cooper is the straight man and that's their shtick.

But whatever, you don't like her. We get it. We got it earlier when you said, without a hint of irony, that no one is more revolting. No one on Earth.

I don't think there is any risk of her hosting the NYE events at NPS, so we've probably now exhausted this side discussion.
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I never said or implied that you or others can't like her. I have no problem with that. I just wanted to show you some snippets of how she behaves when hosting New Year's Eve shows, and I think my description of her fits with what the videos show.

I'm pretty sure Anderson wasn't in on this. I think he was genuinely surprised and uncomfortable. I agree that this discussion has reached its end.

Now we can get back to talking about those incredible City TV New Year's Bashes. I think those are the only gigs Shawn Desman can get. He's probably performed at half a dozen of these shows. The fireworks at midnight tend to reflect the mediocrity of the performers. Gord Martineau must be in withdrawal ever since City TV stopped hosting these events a few years ago.
 
We have Drake, though, the world's coolest big city ambassador. (Or so we're led to believe). "The Six" could be laser lit across the City Hall walls and the general skyline, or beamed onto low lying clouds (weather permitting).

Naomi Klien could do a speech lambasting capitalism and corruption, and then bring down Trump Tower a la Fight Club.

Richard Florida could read out all the "10 Best Cities Lists that Toronto appeared in for 2016 ...and then be catapulted out of town for overuse of his single, catchy, meme worthy soundbite.

Let's use our imagination, people!
 
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Looks like the Sheraton bridge is finally on its way out. They're reinforcing it with temp pillars.

There was a dispute on who was responsible for paying to remove it. I doubt that the John Tory administration would be spending more money to rebuild it than the cost of taking it down... oh wait. :rolleyes:

94945


94946
 
My guess is that the bridge is no longer useful to the Sheraton and they just would rather not have to upkeep the door there and it would also reduce their heating cost if they could replace it with a window. It wouldn't surprise me if the whole thing come down at some point
 
isaidso said:
Toronto is a far more sophisticated place than it was 20 years ago but I find many of these shows the city puts on don't reflect that. They're low brow, boring, cheesy, and usually have some bozo yelling 'yo yo yo To-Ron-To, make some NOIZ'. Sorry, I'm not some homeboy from the ghetto.

Compared to the NYC show with Kathy Griffin-Anderson Cooper ending in 'start spreading the news' and confetti, why would anyone bother going to the Toronto New Years' Eve show? It's embarrassing. I went once; never again.

The tree lighting at Dundas Square was a welcome departure from what we usually get. The National Ballet's Nutcracker, costumes, razzle dazzle, etc. That's more in tune with what Torontonians expect in a show. The City Hall bash should take some notes.
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Totally agree.

My wife and I ended up down there last night with some friends from upstate NY, and it was really dismal. Huge crowds but no connection to the show if you were not right "inside" the square. And the vibe was low energy. We won't go back.
 
The positioning of the stage is terrible for large events at NPS. They should take advantage of the green roof and overhead walkways and use those as a stage. That way the musical acts can be seen from more than one small area. The crowd on Queen Street looked much larger than what the square was able to hold... it's time to spread out the entertainment a bit more so you don't have thousands standing around doing and seeing nothing. (Even more/bigger screens would have helped - Kind of like the Pan Am set-up)
 
MetroMan said:
Looks like the Sheraton bridge is finally on its way out. They're reinforcing it with temp pillars.

There was a dispute on who was responsible for paying to remove it. I doubt that the John Tory administration would be spending more money to rebuild it than the cost of taking it down... oh wait. :rolleyes:

94945


94946
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Excuse me for quoting my own post but I'd like to steer the discussion towards what could be significant news: removing the Sheraton walkway.

Do we have any experts in demolition here? Would reinforcing the pillars make sense in that context? My guess is that they'd build some hoarding under the walkway, then remove the walls first, the deck next and the pillars last. Would reinforcing the pillars be needed? Maybe, added weight from equipment for the demolition? Maybe certain phases of the demolition will weaken support and it needs to be more widely distributed?

If it's preventative, then reinforcing only this elevated walkway and leaving all the others doesn't make much sense since the Sheraton walkway is the newest one. If this one was in that kind of disrepair, so would the others. Something is definitely happening that's specific to the Sheraton walkway.
 
If the Sheraton bridge is going to be demolished (which is a good thing) I hope they do this at the same time as they replace the bridge at The Bay. This is (or was) scheduled for 'early 2017'. Queen Street will need to be closed for several days and best they do everything at one time and have only one closure.
 
Removing the bridge is going to take longer than one day. I think that the approach will be to build hoarding under the bridge to allow it to be dismantled in pieces without disruption below other than the time it takes to assemble the hoarding and then to take it down. They can probably do that overnight or on a weekend.

Not to get too off topic but has Saks/Bay bridge been confirmed? Last I read, it was just a concept and that they had no definite design or timeline to replace it.
 
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