One of the colorful and exciting production numbers from the Andy Williams Christmas Show.
“It’s exciting because that’s the way a lot of people feel about Branson after they have visited it for the first time,” said Stephanie Milton, Director of Marketing for the Branson Tourism Center, one of Branson’s largest and most respected vacation planning services. Milton was referring to an article written by Patti Nickell, Contributing Travel Writer for the Lexington, Herald Leader entitled Branson, Mo.: a great trip for the holidays or any other time appearing on line at Kentucky.Com on December 4.
The article started off with a confession that many people who have never been to Branson might be able to relate to. While acknowledging that Branson has eight million visitors, a year the writer said, “I had never particularly wanted to go to Branson, Mo. It always seemed like a veritable kitsch soup whose ingredients were tour buses, tacky attractions and souvenirs and pseudo-folksiness.”
After her “inaugural” four day visit to Branson in mid-November, during Ozark Mountain Christmas however, the writer wrote, “I have another confession: I was wrong. This small community in the heart of the Ozark Mountains, just north of the Arkansas state line, is the real deal.”
During her visit she experienced the Branson first hand, going to eight shows and An Old Time Christmas at Silver Dollar City. She saw a wide variety of Branson’s shows and described them as “being nothing short of spectacular.”
The breadth of the shows she experienced covered the gamut of “A Dickens Christmas Carol” at Silver Dollar City’s “An Ole Time Christmas,” which she stated couldn’t “have been better staged in London or New York” to “The Twelve Irish Tenors” described as her favorite because of their mesmerizing talent and “rendition of the aria ‘Nessun dorma’ from Puccini’s opera ‘Turandot,'” which “alone was worth the price of admission.” The article described other Branson shows she saw during her trip including, the “Andy Williams Christmas Show,” “The Legend of Kung Fu,” “The Brett Family” and “Oh What A Night! A Musical Tribute to Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons.”
The article emphasizes the value of Branson’s show pricing pointing out that Branson’s prices are about a third of what shows in Las Vegas and New York would cost. It said they “are, in fact, a major reason to come to Branson.”
Milton said that the experience described in the article, from the quality and value of Branson’s shows to the way people feel about Branson after they have visited for the first time is what has made Branson such an exciting and successful travel destination. “In terms of family entertainment, value and excitement, Branson Missouri is the ‘real deal,'” she continued.