We thoroughly enjoyed the show itself. The skaters were among some of the best in the business, all of them holding multiple national or world titles and/or Olympic medals. It didn't hurt that two of them (Kurt Browning and Paul Wylie) have been among my favorite figure skaters for many years, and the musical acts added another layer to the entertainment. The sound levels on both of the country singers made it hard to understand some of their words over the music, but Kool & the Gang sounded crystal clear (and just as good as they did when I first heard their music as a child).
A little patience is required at this event, given that it is being filmed to air on television at a later date. First of all, it has never started on time in the years I have attended. (Since it is being filmed for television, they don't want to start while there are still a lot of empty seats in the camera's viewing angle.). This year started 30 minutes late, and I believe last year was even later than that (due to an unusual-even-for-Charlotte traffic snarl in the area). There are long pauses between most of the skating routines while they change things around for the next skater or for the hosts, and occasionally a skater or host will have to redo part of a routine because of a slip (on the ice) or sound problem, etc. Last year was hosted by Scott Hamilton and Dorothy Hammill, and they were great about talking to the audience between takes and keeping everyone engaged. Scott was back this year, but Verne Lundquist was his cohost and there was much less non-made-for-TV commentary. Not bad, just not as entertaining during the down time between sets.
My only true complaint, however, had to do with the venue itself, so it is no reflection on Kaleidoscope. The venue sold an entire section of tickets (located immediately to the right of the stage used by the musical acts) that turned out to be covered in a sea of black fabric...in other words, no one could sit there. Those of us with tickets for that section stood around for a good thirty minutes before the event staff could figure out what to do with us. The first block of seats they offered to us were not only at the other end (as far from the stage as you could get), they were in the uppermost section (so that everyone on the ice looked quite small) or they were in the middle section, but a bank of TV cameras and operators obscured your view of the entire left side of the ice. We were told that we could go to the box office if we weren't happy with the seats, and most of us did. After being sent on what amounted to a wild goose chase back to the original section to find an event staffer, who we were told had replacement tickets for box seats (which turned out to be untrue), we were taken back around the arena to the entirely empty section near the stage on the opposite side. Here, we could have the same seats listed on our tickets (row and seat number) that corresponded in this section. These seats turned out to be just as good, if not better than the original seats, but what a lot of running around and confusion in the meantime! Thankfully, there were a lot of people in other sections who were late arriving, so the show didn't start while all this running and seat-hopping was taking place.