This photo collage was from the end of the 2023 season. Phenomenal season, cast, shows, and interactions.
But then things changed. For the record, these are my personal thoughts, feelings, opinions, and reflections…
At then conclusion of the 2023 season–their second season, Luke and Wendi Yellin (Silverwood’s Entertainment Creative Management team) left. They’d been heralded both externally and internally, and for good reason. They were fantastic. Equally as important, and I wrote this repeatedly online during both the 2022 and 2023 seasons, they had the knack to not hire not only talented cast members, but really good people. In fact, we’ve stay in contact with the vast majority of the former cast members since. Their departure left a gaping hole on the Entertainment side that Silverwood attempted to fill with inexperienced non-professionals, and the quality of the shows, the quality of the interactions, all suffered accordingly.
But then during the 2024 season, more disruption: Stephanie Sampson, the former PR manager, also left before the season completed. (Under Silverwood’s organization, both the Entertainment and PR/Marketing are under the same umbrella, which is a discussion for another time, perhaps). But this is also notable because Stephanie is a part of the Norton family.
This season? Long-time resident magician Nick Norton (and son of owner) was suddenly removed and replaced without any explanation. More on that will be coming out in the future, and I’ll link here when it does…but in the meantime, that is all I will write because the information is not mine to tell. But there is a LOT to tell.
To top off the disruptions, there’s the accessibility issues we’ve dealt with this season that hadn’t been an issue in any previous seasons. Scroll through my IG to find more, but one particular post on that, among several.
The aftermath of all this? This season we went maybe a third of the number of times last season, which was down from the 2023 season. And it’s very unlikely we’ll be doing season passes for next season…unless someone wants to sponsor to be able to continue reviewing. 🤷♂️
The theme song for this post, that sums it up best, would be BB King’s The Thrill is Gone.
Update 11/29, to add to the tumultuous 2025 season: there was an unreported death at Silverwood.
