3 Stage Curtains Open......

[tinafan80]

Hey, I went to the Fullerton location today where they have a 3 stage show, in horrible condition by the way. And they had all 3 curtains open the whole time. And the thing about it is that I went no more than 2 months ago, and they were all working fine. So was the rumor about having the curtains open all the time true after all?? Confused.....:x

[CEC3066]

as far as we can tell that was just something the techs at stores in TX were told to do as far as we know no other states were told to do this

[Harmony Howlette rules]

Hey, I went to the Fullerton location today where they have a 3 stage show, in horrible condition by the way. And they had all 3 curtains open the whole time. And the thing about it is that I went no more than 2 months ago, and they were all working fine. So was the rumor about having the curtains open all the time true after all?? Confused.....
Weird. Last time I went to that store, their show was impeccable...did you complain about the curtains, btw?

[tinafan80]

I didn't....
I just assumed that it was because of what I read on here. Maybe it is something that was sent out after all cause they were working just fine about a month and 1/2 ago. But no, I didn't complain.

[CEC3066]

well if you go back & they are not working then you have a valid complaint

[Jasper]

That sucks...

What's worse with that Fullerton store's stage is their sound system. Once in awhile you get a horrible, ear-piercing static noise during the show. When I go there during the non-peak times, they always keep the show volume at minimum. They gotta get new speakers.

[Shiney Happy Jenn]

I think it's high time Corporate invested in Bose Speakers for the remainder of the Cyberstar shows out there that are in a huge showroom, but still have the original crappy quality speakers. All Studio C shows have Bose speakers...and most are in small Showrooms when compared to the barns the C-stages are in.

This is a big problem in these parts...we have many original locations from PTT days with huge Showrooms that could really use a speaker upgrade. The only "Oldie" here that was lucky enough to get a full set of Bose Speakers was our Lowell, Ma location a few years back. They have a microscopic Showroom when compared to the norm and a poor quality 1-stage. How did THIS location of all places here score the nice speakers? It is a mystery indeed.

Large loactions that have the Cyberstar MMBB stages should all get a speaker upgrade when the upcoming remodel is done.

Come on now....it's not like CEC can't afford it!

[busytech]

At my store (844) I have the original speakers with a Roadshow, and the quality and level of sound is excellent.

It just needs to initially be set up correctly with the Amplifiers and Equalizer.

[CEC Kid Check]

IDK, Good old fashion 1 stage, 2 stage, 3 stage, and road stages or so cool and all, seeing all the characters, but all of you all have to agree that MOST of them are totally falling apart and need to be upgraded to Studio C. Now about those curtains, thats another thing I really dont understand. Why are they having to curtains stay open? The characters L8o k SO BAD JUST STANDING THERE, STARING OFF IN SPACE, except the one and two stages. Its the exact same way with Studio C Cappa, i've never visited one yet, but having no curtains, so many kids ask...."Why is Chuck e. just standing there doing nothing"? IT'S HORRIFIC!!! At my store we have some weird problems with the curtain, when it closes after some segments, it somehow keeps closing past where its suppose to stop and stops the end of the curtain in the middle of the track??? Its kind of like the opening form, but when it closes? Its weird and when that happens, kids see Chuck and ask that stupid question again, and we have to make up stuff like "We trained Chuck e. to sleep with his eyes open".... and so on..... IDK, this is all way to confusing, the curtains at our store had me and my Tech manager confused for months.

Anyways, now to that sound thingy, Bose speakers all the best out there, all "oldie" stages definently need an upgrade, in my opinion. I have a question for all you techs out there, this has also baffeled my tech manager and I for months, when we try to use the microphone to announce parties and so on...., our speakers in the showroom work just find, but the ones in the gameroom and kidroom dont work at all, anybody have any ideas on how to fix that? I saw someone else had the same problem at there store, in another topic a couple months ago, but I cant find it.

[busytech]

The obvious things to check:

a: Is the rack connected up correctly?

b: Swap over the 2 amps and see if the showroom sound goes off.

c: Look for any broken wiring.

These may be obvious things to look at, but from experience I have sometimes overlooked the obvious and tried to find a fault in too great a depth!!!

[mrmunch]

a new "random movement" program chip is being developed right now for the cyberstar. In a short time, 3-stage curtains will be tied back and no longer used.

[pizzacam]

OMG! Are you kidding!? Man this shet sucks!! >: >: >:

[MatHat13]

Basically, this must be because after they decided to keep the 3-Stages around longer for awhile, guess they decided they should cut the curtains so they won't have to replace or fix them.|I

[mrmunch]

looking from a technical perspective, the only con to this is a little more wear and tear to the cylinders. i will gladly exchange this for cables, limit switches, cables, ceiling track, cables, dry cleaning bills, and more cables. And what about the gobo spotlight ("the chuck e cheese show")?

[CEC3066]

if this "test" is a success might the 1,2, & Road stages be not to far behind in saying "bye bye" to their curtains as well?

[MatHat13]

Yeah not only that, but for techs that don't maintain the show much, this could be even more hell for the shows, the characters just may be played around with when "not" moving.:x

[busytech]

I have always had the problem of kids playing on the stage at all times.

My curtains were never designed to close, and th stage is actually only about 12 inches high, so it makes it very easy for kids to walk on to and play around with all the characters.

See the recent pictures by SunGun12 in a previous thread for the Mississauga pictures to see what my stage looks like.

My characters have also always been set for random movement during the intermissions

[Harmony Howlette rules]

So will Dep 18 have to eventually write this into the shows? You know, instead of saying "We're gonna go eat some pizza and be right back", they'll say "Hey kids, we're just gonna stand here and twitch for a few minutes"?

[pizzacam]

PROBABLY NOT, WHEN THEY USED TO DO THIS IN THE 80'S AND AT BUSYTECH'S STORE..THEY SAY BYE, WE'RE HUNGRY..ETC..AND THEY JUST START TURNING. THIS IDEA FOR 3 STAGES IS SO STUPID! THE CHARACTERS COULD USE MORE WEAR AND TEAR CAUSE THEY'RE BRAND NEW >:

[CEC3066]

THIS IDEA FOR 3 STAGES IS SO STUPID!

This idea for ANY stage is stupid! sure CEC did it in the 80's but why go back to it NOW.

[Harmony Howlette rules]

Budget cuts?

[pizzacam]

Well, my point was that for the 1 and 2 stages it doesnt look so weird cause most of us have seen this before. They had the Irving store like this for a short period and it's not bad, but A 3 STAGE!? WOW odd.:x

[Jasper]

With all these budget cuts, I wish they went ahead and phased out the 3 Stage. Might as well have a new, fully operable one-character stage than a junky 3 stage that can't even live up to its full potential anymore.

The stages without curtains...the ones that have the random character movements during intermissions - really do bring down the entertainment value of CEC.

[MatHat13]

Jasper, I kind of have to agree with you on the 3-Stage, yeah I know many people favor this show, and its very awesome looking, but fact is, its pretty ugly looking. I mean the character masks are awful looking, The last time I went a 3-Stage store, it look as though Jasper and Munch had no eyeballs, and you'd have to bend and see them, plus, Its all hard to see their mouths moving as well, I couldn't see Jasper's mouth moving(it worked, but the mask is so droopy you can't see it). It use to be neat where you could actually see all 5 character's faces, but the look of it now, its just pretty sad, still, the 3-Stage is one interesting set up.:(

3-Stage isn't even my favorite set up, the 2-Stage is.

[pizzacam]

Well, I DO agree with what Jasper's saying except some stages are still in tip top shape- ours WAS but after today's visit I guess ours is no longer what it once was. The ironic thing is the Austin-Ben White location is the best 3 stage that I've seen to this day and it was THE FIRST ONE TO GO THROUGH CU! :lol :lol

[RodHouTx]

The last 2-stage here removed their curtains a couple years ago and turned on the auto-movement. The other locations was converted to Studio C.

I haven't been to our Studio C locations yet to see if they are still using their curtains.

I thought 2-stage(etc) and Studio C curtains were less prone to breakage compared to the old 3-stages? I just love those pneumatic transports.

[VegaNova]

Most of the 3-stages around my area are pretty well worn down and I've yet to see any show that has all the movements working. In all honesty, if CEC looks at the big picture, it would be much better to just have them replaced with Studio C. I'm pretty sure that the only reason this hasn't happened already is because of the high cost up-front of doing this systemwide. Over the long haul I do believe this would save them in opperating and matinence costs.

Everyone's gotta remember that the 3 stage bots haven't been produced since 1983 and if they're in a CEC they've probably been running for that long. That's a long time for any machine to run, consistantly, every single day. Maintainence can help keep them going, but I think you reach a certain point and you begin to fight an uphill battle where things start going wrong all the time no matter how often you patch them up. With as frustrating and expensive as the upkeep can be, I'm not surprised if techs get frustrated and only keep it running as good as it 'has to' run.

But yeah it really does crap on the entertainment value when the shows go downhill. When a parent pays upwards of $100 to have their kids party there and they see a store (show) that's half broken, I'm sure they'll start to wonder why the party is so expensive and where their money is going. Maybe the kids won't notice, but from a parent's perspective I can totally see it leaving a bad taste in one's mouth.

But even with Studio C, I don't see why better precautions aren't taken to protect that expensive bot. Everytime I've seen Studio C, Chuck is getting mauled by kids pulling on his hands and face. That desk that alpha had was nothing more than a jungle gym for kids to climb on. :\

-VegaNova

[pizzacam]

Yeah, why couldn't they have just redone that so its pneumatic...probably costs too much

[CEC Kid Check]

I totally agree with veganova, about the alpha desk being a jungle gym, but it is now the exact same way with the three stages especially now with the curtains being open. Kids can and will just walk on to the stage and touch any character and most likely, the arm will just fall off, LOL:lol . Anyways, another thingy about three stage CHUCK, is that his face (mask) is so old, that it doesnt even come close to the newer looking Chuck e. Im sure, there is at least one person out there, (that is NOT a CEC fan), that goes to a three stage, looks at the coupon ad, sees the new Super Chuck on it, and looks at the Chuck e bot, and asks that question.

[CEC3066]

ok forgive for asking this but I looked and didn't notice that my ? had been answered. are 3 stage shows the only ones losing their curtains or is this ALL shows that have them?

[pizzacam]

For now I think its just the 3 stages, but Look at the studio c "cappas" they don't even come with them, so you can draw your own conclusions from that. Man this company operates like it's so poor! sigh :rolleyes

[JAC07901]

In response to the speaker thing:

When I went to East Hanover about a week ago, they had what looked like bose speakers throughout the showroom (they had BOSE on them). However, for some reason, they were soft when I had entered and when I left, they were loud.

[Shiney Happy Jenn]

Just thought i would "save" this thread from being lost, as it was near the bottom of the list on Page 5!

This one is too good to lose!

:cec_thumbs:

[cec080]

In response to the speaker thing:

When I went to East Hanover about a week ago, they had what looked like bose speakers throughout the showroom (they had BOSE on them). However, for some reason, they were soft when I had entered and when I left, they were loud.


If they were BOSE speakers then they must have the crown amplifire in which there is a setting that when the showroom is quiet the music is soft when it get's loud in the showroom the music automatically goes up. Something similar to the light dimmer that they used to have.. If it was the 3 stage then they must have had to replace the speakers and amplifire from the old Kiplish one's that the Rockafire had. Studio C alpha i believe has this feature as well.

:cecwink:

[Toonygirl]

The curtains were open when I went to the one in West Islip today!
Bellybutton from Veggietales and I Love my lips form veggietales are both stuck in my head! What a weird thing!

[Toonygirl]

The same thing happened to me. Chuck E's curtians were open. Why does this happen?
Ok. May you list what locations have curtian close promblems?

[pasqually333]

there is nothing wrong with the curtains ALL CEC stage curtains are supposed to be kept open from now on. (maybe so they dont cause wear and tear on the curtains.) and also the characters are supposed to move randomley. plus Micheal only programs the curtains for Studio C (THE ONES THAT HAVE REAL CURTAINS) so I hope I anwsered your question!:p

[Munch's Make Believe Band]

Well the fullertion ca store is a studio c beta now