Hmm, I think they'd be better off with shows on the hour, with a runtime in the 30-35 min range to ease the turnaround time.
Pad-out the current runtime with lesser Villains heckling the audience or acting out skits while glancing often at a big clock counting down to the main "gathering" of villains in keeping the concept in-theme. Have the Mirror tell jokes submitted by the audience via their own magic mirrors aka phones using the Play Disney Parks mobile app. Or just show a refresher 10 min video montage.
From an operations standpoint the added runtime and downtime would allow them to up-charge with concessions. (to test the waters for use in the MK land) and better prep for the next showing.
DLE has shown they can do a show of that length, and arguably the concept fits a longer show better than a shorter one. The problem is that unless you double cast, you'd be very limited in the amount of times you could do that show per day. The same reason why Nemo got drastically cut, more or less massacring what made the show good in the process. Can Disney afford to double or even triple cast? Absolutely, given publicly available information the amount of money that they have to give an Equity member CM is far less than they would earn from people coming to the park to see the show, let alone merchandise and recording sales. A few thousand bucks a week for leads, pocket change for an entertainment department that has a proper budget. A longer show unlike a shorter show also keeps people in for longer, decreasing crowd sizes and queues throughout the over a longer amount of time. Well as many people sit down to see it as a 20-minute show? No, but I can guarantee you that keeping half of the people that you could have with a 20 minute show off for 40 minutes instead of twice the amount for 20 minutes each, almost certainly works out better mathematically. It's also not because they have a shortage of talent, it's because they can put more shows in for less money. A bad way of going about designing things, especially in a park that historically wasn't the best in terms of the amount of entertainment they had, but was certainly better than AK or Epcot throughout the '90s and even early 2000s. Although it was still underbuilt in that regard, but that's another story...
Point is they could afford it, they could do it, they just don't want to. They're probably actually spending more money by double or triple casting for what is not nearly as big of an impact on the crowd size as one might think.
but will BATB still be around then? lol If ever a show needed retiring......I would rather watch Dick Tracy in Diamond Double Cross...lol
You joke, but without it we wouldn't have any of the shows on Broadway, the cruise line, or most shows within the park except for the standard "kids of the kingdom"-style shows with barely any plot and just randomly recognizable tunes thrown in. Most people think it was a flop when in reality, it was actually better than the movie it was based on. Not a high bar to clear, but definitely a lot better than most people even bother to give it credit for.
