'Villains Unleashed' hard ticketed event coming to Disney's Hollywood Studios in August

[doctornick]

There's an empty space behind TL that's only a parking lot right now. That would be better than gutting yet another attraction for replacement in Magic Kingdom, an actual addition.

I don't disagree in principle. I'm always in support of adding new attractions instead of replacing ones. That said, I have this dream of moving Laugh Floor to DHS (maybe to the Premiere Theater once the sing a long gets moved out) and using that building and the unused/parking area behind it to make a large E-ticket addition to TL -- IIRC, when the Tron coaster was being tossed around for MK a few years ago, that was the basic footprint it was going to use.

 

[drew81]

Guest Relations was not scanning paper tickets. They took them and gave you the credentials for the party. Anyone could have printed several copies and gotten others in.

Starting Hamsterville and Gantu at 9 and 930 was a bad decision to begin with. They were 2 of the rarest and guests wasted over an hour or hour and a half of their time. Starting them when the party started would have made more sense.

 

[merry68]

We didn't have high expectations for this event. We figured there would be long lines and craziness. We walked by several rare characters but didn't get in the lines, we did see roaming characters and the few characters we did get pics with didn't take long. We did ride a few rides as most were walkon.

But we also didn't get to the park until after 7, and we had eaten supper before walking over to DHS.

We didn't have park tix so for us, we felt we did ok as it was less than the cost of a regular admission day. And we watched that nasty storm in our resort- really felt for people who got stuck in that awful storm.

I guess we had some fun people watching, oh my, some guest costumes were just big fat fails.

 

[Mania4]

There's an empty space behind TL that's only a parking lot right now. That would be better than gutting yet another attraction for replacement in Magic Kingdom, an actual addition.

That parking lot, which is referred to as "Park1", actually is really needed for CM working at MK. So much so it was expanded to accommodate more spaces. It would be very hard to close it as there are no any CM spaces near that unless they would keep the Pluto lot permanently open.

 

[Mike S]

That parking lot, which is referred to as "Park1", actually is really needed for CM working at MK. So much so it was expanded to accommodate more spaces. It would be very hard to close it as there are no any CM spaces near that unless they would keep the Pluto lot permanently open.

Make a new lot then. They do have that "blessing of size" to work with.

 

[Cosmic Commando]

That parking lot, which is referred to as "Park1", actually is really needed for CM working at MK. So much so it was expanded to accommodate more spaces. It would be very hard to close it as there are no any CM spaces near that unless they would keep the Pluto lot permanently open.

27,000 acres and they can't replace 100 parking spaces? It looks like 95% of the CMs park north of the MK... the managers can, as well.

 

[AllyInWonderland]

So was the Maleficent there the live action version for the whole night?

I'm thinking Disney is trying to fix that horrible new look of the classic Maleficent.

 

[doctornick]

27,000 acres and they can't replace 100 parking spaces? It looks like 95% of the CMs park north of the MK... the managers can, as well.

Yeah this. Putting a surface lot somewhere else adjacent to MK would be remarkably easy and shouldn't be any sort of limiting step. Heck, the existing parking lot in TL more or less used to be on-stage and guest accessible when it was a stage; MK ran fine back then without the extra parking in the area.

I'm sorry if it would result in some execs having a longer walk after parking, but that shouldn't be a deal breaker.

 

[Disneyhead'71]

Maybe. I talked with 15 random people leaving the party last night, 12 had good experiences. The key problem seems to be the meet & greets.

Anyone who went into this with just wanting to enjoy all the shows, walk around, have fun, meet a few random characters, they seemed to have a great time.

Anyone who went into this looking to meet every rare character known to humanity.... well, their night sucked . Over five hours, a character M&G might be able to see as many as 1000 people. (5 hours, back to back, 30 seconds a group, figure 200 people/hr). There are 12000 people. People didnt temper their expectations accordingly.... and Disney didnt exactly set those expectations realistically either.

So, if your plan in attending this premium up charge event was to actually do most of the events scheduled for this premium up charge event you should have tempered your expectation knowing Disney won't deliver. If your plan was to not to do most of the scheduled events at this premium up charge event, but to soak up the atmosphere and maybe give those new F! benches a good work out, then this is an amazing premium up charge event.

Tourist don't know that there will be 12,000 tickets sold, how many of each character will be utilized, etc. Bottom line: Disney over sold and under staffed the event. I believe that is TDO new business model.

 

[Sped2424]

I think 4 party nights next year could fix a lot of the crowding issues. But for what it is surprisingly there was a lot of effort put into it.

 

[CaptainShortty]

So was the Maleficent there the live action version for the whole night?

I'm thinking Disney is trying to fix that horrible new look of the classic Maleficent.

Yes, it was live action Maleficient and she was awesome!

 

[Mike S]

Yes, it was live action Maleficient and she was awesome!

I think they should just replace the cartoon one with the live action one for M&G's. The costume is much better and not so weird looking.

 

[Magenta Panther]

It's already made back it's production budget and then some, and that doesn't even take into account home entertainment sales, as the data doesn't appear to be in yet.

Oh, please. A movie has to make twice its budget just to break even. That flick isn't even close to doing that. It cost 51 million to make (which may or may not include its advertising budget - probably doesn't) and it's made a "grand" total of 78 million worldwide. That's a far cry from the 102 million it will need just to break even.

As for video sales, well, I think it's safe to say there's no way it can rake in enough to actually end up making a profit. On the Amazon sales chart, after a little over a week, it's currently at #284 in sales rankings overall. So yeah, no good news there.

Dude, let it go. Move on with your life already, stop cluttering up this nice website's bandwidth with your obsession, and stop stalking me. It's getting kinda creepy.

 

[Disneyhead'71]

Re: Villain's Unleashed

No one that I have talked to thought is was a bad event. Just SOME aspects were poorly handled. I do think that Disney thought they had resolved most of the issues from last year simply by making it a limited sales event. What I find most interesting is that the folks that invented crowd control and theme park customer service have been fumbling so hard this year on the M&G concept (which they also invented). But everyone I talked to said the shows were great, especially the Oogie Boogie show. I hope that the negative response from some (and deservidly so in some regards) don't kill the concept. Just learn and adapt. 3 showrooms for the more popular Villains. Better Merch set up. Multiple nights.

 

[Magenta Panther]

Because Constantine is the #1 criminal and the best part of Muppets Most Wanted! I (almost) dropped the $70 just to see him because, as you said many considered the film a flop and this might be the last chance we'll see Constantine performing live.

Good answer!

Re: Villain's Unleashed

No one that I have talked to thought is was a bad event. Just SOME aspects were poorly handled. I do think that Disney thought they had resolved most of the issues from last year simply by making it a limited sales event. What I find most interesting is that the folks that invented crowd control and theme park customer service have been fumbling so hard this year on the M&G concept (which they also invented). But everyone I talked to said the shows were great, especially the Oogie Boogie show. I hope that the negative response from some (and deservidly so in some regards) don't kill the concept. Just learn and adapt. 3 showrooms for the more popular Villains. Better Merch set up. Multiple nights.

My hope is this: that TDO, after seeing the chaos that reportedly occurred in some instances during this event, despite its attempts to improve on its performance from the prior event, and after having to (reportedly) issue refunds and offer free tickets to the Halloween party to a lot of disgruntled guests...I'm hoping that TDO will finally be inspired to start seriously thinking about a Villains attraction for WDW - specifically for DHS. Some of us here have proposed such an attraction for MK, but given its necessarily darker nature, a Villains attraction might be better at the more "grown-up" park (just a thought). There is PLENTY of ill-used space at DHS, and that park is starving for something new. Supposedly a Frozen attraction is being considered there, but surely it's best suited for MK. Give the Villains a home in DHS, where the wonderful Tower of Terror still inspires awe and the Great Movie Ride features classic movie villainy as part of its show. If I thought a petition would do any good, I'd start one up and submit its results to TDO. I bet I'd get thousands of signatures.

But heck, nuts to petitions. TDO has been given a measure it actually values: Dollars. Twice now, (or maybe more; I'm not sure when TDO actually began its Villains events), the Villains have proven to be a huge hit. Come on, TDO, what more motivation do you need?

 

[doctornick]

I think 4 party nights next year could fix a lot of the crowding issues. But for what it is surprisingly there was a lot of effort put into it.

Yeah, from the sounds of it, limiting the number of people admitted to a smaller number (I dunno, maybe 5000-6000) would have dramatically improved the even by allowing those in attendance to go to multiple higher profile M&Gs and allowed for time for guests to actually experience most/all of the atmosphere.

I can understand not wanting to take down and put up the scenery multiple times (and flying in special unique costumes), so maybe doing this two weekends a year (one fall and one spring?) would work so it can be 2 or 3 nights in a row each time.

 

[MKCP 1985]

Maybe. I talked with 15 random people leaving the party last night, 12 had good experiences. The key problem seems to be the meet & greets.

Anyone who went into this with just wanting to enjoy all the shows, walk around, have fun, meet a few random characters, they seemed to have a great time.

Anyone who went into this looking to meet every rare character known to humanity.... well, their night sucked . Over five hours, a character M&G might be able to see as many as 1000 people. (5 hours, back to back, 30 seconds a group, figure 200 people/hr). There are 12000 people. People didnt temper their expectations accordingly.... and Disney didnt exactly set those expectations realistically either.

Thinking about the character meets, now that I am home, would it have worked to have grouped villains so that for 1 line you get 4-5 villains like Disney does or has done with the primary characters at Epcot or the fairies?

Personally, I would have given up 60-90 minutes, maybe, to get a photo with say for example Maleficent, the witch, the Evil Queen and the Cinderella Lady Tremaine and Stepsisters...

Or maybe Prince John, the Sheriff of Nottingham, Big Bad Wolf and the Pinocchio villains.

As it was, standing that long for just one character didn't seem like a value when there was a limited amount of time.

My family falls into the first group and we did have a good time but would have liked to have come home with a few villain photos to share and that didn't work out...but we enjoyed walking onto Tower of Terror at 12:30 this morning.

 

[Animaniac93-98]

Thinking about it now, I'm surprised there were no Villain character meals during the event. Would have been an easy way to make extra $$ from guests and allow easier access to some characters.

 

[PhotoDave219]

Thinking about the character meets, now that I am home, would it have worked to have grouped villains so that for 1 line you get 4-5 villains like Disney does or has done with the primary characters at Epcot or the fairies?

Personally, I would have given up 60-90 minutes, maybe, to get a photo with say for example Maleficent, the witch, the Evil Queen and the Cinderella Lady Tremaine and Stepsisters...

Or maybe Prince John, the Sheriff of Nottingham, Big Bad Wolf and the Pinocchio villains.

As it was, standing that long for just one character didn't seem like a value when there was a limited amount of time.

My family falls into the first group and we did have a good time but would have liked to have come home with a few villain photos to share and that didn't work out...but we enjoyed walking onto Tower of Terror at 12:30 this morning.

So a group of three? Makes perfect sense.

 

[RSoxNo1]

Thinking about the character meets, now that I am home, would it have worked to have grouped villains so that for 1 line you get 4-5 villains like Disney does or has done with the primary characters at Epcot or the fairies?

Personally, I would have given up 60-90 minutes, maybe, to get a photo with say for example Maleficent, the witch, the Evil Queen and the Cinderella Lady Tremaine and Stepsisters...

Or maybe Prince John, the Sheriff of Nottingham, Big Bad Wolf and the Pinocchio villains.

As it was, standing that long for just one character didn't seem like a value when there was a limited amount of time.

My family falls into the first group and we did have a good time but would have liked to have come home with a few villain photos to share and that didn't work out...but we enjoyed walking onto Tower of Terror at 12:30 this morning.

Yeah, that would have made a lot more sense.