Star Wars Land announced for Disney's Hollywood Studios

[britain]

The park is empty. It’s late June. The weather is beautiful.

This is concerning to those who count pennies.

I'm of the opinion those who count pennies were concerned about this at the beginning of the year when it was clear that RotR wasn't going to be ready.

There may be frustration at TDA, but I think it was prophesied frustration, not a surprise.

 

[TP2000]

MF:SR sucking wouldn't cause Peter Pan's Flight to have short waits.

Very valid point. It's obvious that Disneyland Resort attendance is down compared to the average for this time of year. I think it's a combination of factors, but I think one of those factors is that the Falcon ride isn't the groundbreaking OH MY GOSH YOU'VE GOT TO GET TO DISNEYLAND TO RIDE THAT NEW RIDE! type of experience that Indy was in '95 or Radiator Springs Racers was in '12.

Millennium Falcon: Target Run is a solid, good E Ticket in Disney's flagship park with the most rides that already has a dozen other great E Tickets, but it's nothing to jump in the car immediately for.

If GE was overrun with guests then other guests would hear about it on the news and stay away longer to let it die-down. Long lines and upset guests isn't a good thing. This isn't a traveling circus that has to fill the seats for a long weekend. Disney can advertise their comfortable and controlled process that worked (as planned, even if under expectations), decreased wait times in the rest of the park, and so, potential guests will make plans to go on the weekend. Which is the average DLR guest (plus AP aren't there yet).

There is definitely a major demographic difference between DLR and WDW, but I think it's easy to oversimplify for many East Coasters.

WDW is an aberration, it's set up unlike any other Disney property in the world with tens of thousands of Disney owned hotel rooms on the outskirts of a small, humble city (Orlando) that basically only exists to operate theme parks and hotels. Disneyland Resort, on the other hand, is like every other Disney property around the world, being a two-park "Resort" with a couple thousand Disney owned hotel rooms situated in the middle of a giant world capital with tens of millions of people within easy driving or day-train distance. (LA, Tokyo, Paris, Hong Kong, Shanghai)

That said, the Disneyland Resort has the most hotel rooms associated with that type of Resort District. The Anaheim Resort District has over 20,000 non-Disney hotel rooms within walking or shuttle bus distance to Disneyland's front gate. Those 20,000 hotel rooms are not there for people going to the Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, they are there because Disneyland is there. Disneyland is a massive tourist draw in a state that attracted 60 Million tourists last year.

It's easy to say "Disneyland is only for locals and Disney World is only for tourists", but the reality is far from that. I think there are several other factors at work here why Star Wars Land isn't pulling in crowds other than "Disneyland is only for locals".

 

[ToTBellHop]

I'm of the opinion those who count pennies were concerned about this at the beginning of the year when it was clear that RotR wasn't going to be ready.

There may be frustration at TDA, but I think it was prophesied frustration, not a surprise.

It was not expected that the ENTIRE PARK would be dead. People are supposed to go to DL in June.

 

[TP2000]

Disney managers are DEEPLY concerned at low crowds for SWGE. There are numerous fingers being pointed with the consensus that they worked TOO hard to scare people away.

They should be concerned. The dysfunctional and scary marketing campaign they cooked up for Disneyland has clearly worked too well. TDA and Burbank dug this hole for themselves the last 90 days with an overwrought operational and marketing strategy that was too effective in scaring people away.

It was a funny way for a business to try and drum up customers....

"You Can't Just Show Up To Disneyland With A Fat Wallet And Think We'll Let You In! Reservations Only! Must Stay At The Disneyland Hotel Or You're Trash! Now it's a Virtual Queue! Did you download the App?.... Okay, never mind, it's open! You guys, there's no lines. Seriously! Come to Disneyland. Please?"

I'm having flashbacks to my first trip to DLR - in 1984, the summer when the Olympics came to LA and there was mass panic in advance that the entire metro area would shut down due to smog, visitors, traffic, you name it. All the locals fled that summer, so it never materialized, and we had light traffic to get to the events. The day we went to Disneyland (parking where DCA is now ), the park was empty with no lines. It was great for us.

Exactly. That Olympic summer remains famous as the summer that SoCal completely emptied out. The analogy of Carmageddon from a few years ago is also a good one.

They scared everyone away. I can't wait to see how they try and reverse this without over-compensating and packing the place to the gills again. And now they've got 2,000 new hotel rooms that opened in the Anaheim Resort in the past year, plus another 8,000 new parking spaces that come online next week. That's a lot of extra people that could show up if they over-compensate for their initial blunder.

 

[jt04]

It was not expected that the ENTIRE PARK would be dead. People are supposed to go to DL in June.

They are wisely opening in phases. They didn't dare to open RotR before the new garage opens. The crowds will be arriving soon enough.

 

[ToTBellHop]

They are wisely opening in phases. They didn't care to open RotR before the new garage opens. The crowds will be arriving soon enough.

Let’s hope...otherwise they’ll be having these signs in Batuu:

Disney is flawless for you, huh?

 

[jt04]

Let’s hope...otherwise they’ll be having these signs in Batuu:

View attachment 384055

Disney is flawless for you, huh?

if you don't believe anything else I have ever said you can believe me about this. Both coasts.

 

[TP2000]

They are wisely opening in phases. They didn't dare to open RotR before the new garage opens. The crowds will be arriving soon enough.

The new garage and its 6,500 additional parking spaces opens officially on Monday (it actually soft opened two days ago). They brought an additional 1,500 new surface lot spaces online last month.

The Resistance ride won't open for months yet. They won't even admit when it will open, because it's not ready to open.

 

[ToTBellHop]

if you don't believe anything else I have ever said you can believe me about this. Both coasts.

Nah Imma keep not believing anything you say. I’m too old to change.

 

[sedati]

Well, we can cite that Last Jedi made $700 million less than Force Awakens at the box office if you'd like... that's a loss of more than nearly all movies gross. Choose your analytic and it's still basically impossible to spin what's going on with the Star Wars franchise. And it's the opposite of Marvel.

Last Jedi made $280 more than it's predecessor (Rogue One). More than most films ever gross. Guess it won back a lot of business/fans.

 

[justintheharris]

They also blocked out nearly every AP for the whole summer.

I was unaware they blocked out more APs than usual in the summer. The real conclusion they should reach in California is that their market is dependent upon California locals. Not international guests.

 

[mikejs78]

The park is empty. It’s late June. The weather is beautiful.

This is concerning to those who count pennies.

It was not expected that the ENTIRE PARK would be dead. People are supposed to go to DL in June.

It should have been expected.

* They raised prices significantly on APs. Possibly more than the market can really bear.
* They instituted blackout dates for non-signature APs, which they haven't done in the past for June.
* They basically said "biggest thing ever. Massive crowds".
* They pumped up the new land but made it reservation only. So there was lots of good press, but it didn't last because people couldn't see it for themselves.
*Are people even aware that the reservation system is over?

I think that the combo of all those things plus the fact that DLR is very different than WDW contributed to a perfect storm. The smart thing for them now is to start advertising it like crazy, and lift the Deluxe AP blackouts.

I also don't think you'll see a repeat of this in WDW.

 

[WDW Pro]

Last Jedi made $280 more than it's predecessor (Rogue One). More than most films ever gross. Guess it won back a lot of business/fans.

Let me make this as easy as I know how. Put the Disney Star War movies' box office revenues in a line graph in the order they were released. What direction is the line going? Put the MCU movies' box office revenues in a line graph in the order they were released. What direction is the line going? One is going up, one is going way down.

 

[tirian]

Last Jedi made $280 more than it's predecessor (Rogue One). More than most films ever gross. Guess it won back a lot of business/fans.

BO numbers don’t reflect people’s satisfaction. The prequels were all BO hits too, and look at the reputations of Episodes I and II.

JJ Abrams has repeatedly promised to course-correct the franchise with Skywalker, and now that Mark Hamill no longer has to shill for publicity, he’s quite outspoken about his dissatisfaction with Last Jedi.

 

[WDW Pro]

BO numbers don’t reflect people’s satisfaction. The prequels were all BO hits too, and look at the reputations of Episodes I and II.

JJ Abrams has repeatedly promised to course-correct the franchise with Skywalker, and now that Mark Hamill no longer has to shill for publicity, he’s quite outspoken about his dissatisfaction with Last Jedi.

Why would you argue about satisfaction and then point to JJ Abrams doing a "course correction"? Clearly you don't course correct unless there was a problem with satisfaction.

 

[tirian]

Why would you argue about satisfaction and then point to JJ Abrams doing a "course correction"? Clearly you don't course correct unless there was a problem with satisfaction.

You clearly misread my post.

Last Jedi made a lot of money, but that doesn’t mean people were happy with it.

 

[mikejs78]

You clearly misread my post.

Last Jedi made a lot of money, but that doesn’t mean people were happy with it.

You may not have liked it (which is, of course, fine), but surveys done (and I mean real, scientifically conducted surveys, not internet polls) have shown that the vast majority of the movie going public loved the movie.

 

[Indy_UK]

So because the lines are not 10 hours long and they've worked out a good virtual system, it's a failure?

People need to get a grip

 

[Bob Harlem]

So because the lines are not 10 hours long and they've worked out a good virtual system, it's a failure?

People need to get a grip

Both parks have significantly less attendance than they did this time last year, I think that's the main point, especially since Disneyland staffed up and set hours much more than the same time last year.

 

[mikejs78]

So because the lines are not 10 hours long and they've worked out a good virtual system, it's a failure?

People need to get a grip

Yeah I think the virtual system works well - it's just that both DL and DCA are far less crowded than normal for this time of year. And I stated why I think that's the case above.