News Josh D’Amaro Named Next CEO of The Walt Disney Company

[Tom P.]

That interferes with the new business model.

Which is?

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Which is?

Not having enough seat capacity to force lightning lane sales…

…don’t think that’s a top secret statement at this point…

 

[AidenRodriguez731]

Not having enough seat capacity to force lightning lane sales…

…don’t think that’s a top secret statement at this point…

Huh you would think then they would want to restrict capacity in AK then to continue selling it at a premium. Instead of expanding it of course. Or to not add any capacity or non LL attractions into HS. Or MK. Or Epcot. They are very bad at following a plan!

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Huh you would think then they would want to restrict capacity in AK then to continue selling it at a premium. Instead of expanding it of course. Or to not add any capacity or non LL attractions into HS. Or MK. Or Epcot. They are very bad at following a plan!

Keep counting…because nothing is being expanded at animal kingdom to any significant extent

Or actually anywhere…

Wanna try again?

 

[AidenRodriguez731]

Keep counting…because nothing is being expanded at animal kingdom to any significant extent

Yeah I suppose a 1:30 minute wild mouse coaster (900 capacity) and a Disney dark ride similar to figment (1980) would not be significant. Doubling ride capacity is barely a footnote. Or going from the approximately (900 capacity) of Triceratops Spin to the (1350 approximate based on Prince Charmings) of a Carousel. Or improving Rafikis to be more of attraction to spread out the parks numbers between multiple lands at once. (Towards Africa - Bluey/Safari, Asia - Everest & Kali (during the hot part of the day), and Pandoras two rides.)

Really what Disney is doing is trying to reduce capacity because they are just absorbing money from it!

 

[AidenRodriguez731]

Keep counting…because nothing is being expanded at animal kingdom to any significant extent

Or actually anywhere…

Wanna try again?

Are you seriously going to say that you don't think that the 2 Cars rides + atleast 2 Villians rides won't get more than the combined MAXIMUM capacity of the Riverboat (900 per hour at absolute max which it never got sustainably) + the Island itself which was never "full capacity"??

That's not capacity expansion?

Or DHS where the mostly empty Launch Bay is being turned into an indoor playground, animation class, and walkthrough exhibit, and character meet and greets. None of which are typically on LL. Or the new coaster replacing nothing??

What is your argument here?

 

[James Alucobond]

Not having enough seat capacity to force lightning lane sales…

…don’t think that’s a top secret statement at this point…

Lightning Lane has the most perceived value and the highest price at the park with the highest total capacity (MK). Rides will only ever take so many guests a day, so if you increase the total visitation to a park by having more to do, you actually increase the desirability of the LL product. With enough capacity, you can also probably ultimately support more than one Single Pass headliner per park, which feels like it's where the big bucks are.

 

[AidenRodriguez731]

Lightning Lane has the most perceived value and the highest price at the park with the highest total capacity (MK). Rides will only ever take so many guests a day, so if you increase the total visitation to a park by having more to do, you actually increase the desirability of the LL product. With enough capacity, you can also probably ultimately support more than one Single Pass headliner per park, which feels like it's where the big bucks are.

Not to mention, DAK still doesn’t have the tied system which I’m guessing willl eventually be the plan for it with Encanto and River Journey maybe being tier 1s from now on. (Encanto will probablh open as a Single Pass though) IJ might be tier 1 as well for now

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Are you seriously going to say that you don't think that the 2 Cars rides + atleast 2 Villians rides won't get more than the combined MAXIMUM capacity of the Riverboat (900 per hour at absolute max which it never got sustainably) + the Island itself which was never "full capacity"??

When and if all that is completed?…in Whatever decade That is?…it probably would be a net gain.

That's not capacity expansion?

Relative to the attendance level? Maybe. Right now…a cars ride seems to be going up. As it stands

Or DHS where the mostly empty Launch Bay is being turned into an indoor playground, animation class, and walkthrough exhibit, and character meet and greets. None of which are typically on LL. Or the new coaster replacing nothing??

The new coaster is not “replacing nothing”…and the animation building operated for about 30 years prior to anything Star Wars.

What is your argument here?

Seat capacity…hourly churn. You count the total you have and divide it by average annual/daily attendance.

It’s like fancy abacus type stuff

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Not to mention, DAK still doesn’t have the tied system which I’m guessing willl eventually be the plan for it with Encanto and River Journey maybe being tier 1s from now on. (Encanto will probablh open as a Single Pass though) IJ might be tier 1 as well for now

I’m not sure why you think tiering matters?

They will end up with 3 rides where there used to be 3 rides

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

Lightning Lane has the most perceived value and the highest price at the park with the highest total capacity (MK). Rides will only ever take so many guests a day, so if you increase the total visitation to a park by having more to do, you actually increase the desirability of the LL product. With enough capacity, you can also probably ultimately support more than one Single Pass headliner per park, which feels like it's where the big bucks are.

So price is higher at magic kingdom because “perceived value”?…it’s not because it has an estimated 80% higher attendance than the other 3 parks each year and always has because it’s all “magically” and stuff?

They can “support” whatever individual charges they feel like. By the way…there’s no science behind that. To your point…it is more than likely there will be two pay separate ones in 3 of the 4 parks in the not too distant future…maybe 3 in magic kingdom if they get ballsy?

Wouldn’t put it past them to slap one on test track either…you know - due to “guest feedback”

There’s not a hard process to follow here…
Fastpass 1.0 was an actual “service”…it allowed people to forgoe waiting and in doing so generate more food and merch sales revenue. Mutually beneficial.

Gas Lightning Lane is not. It’s 100% free profit. Not “revenue” which requires overhead and work. It’s “profit”. It uses long paid for IT and tech hardware to recharge gate fees…in volume. Every minute of every day.

Any contention that you can math it out is really a way of self soothing. Which a lot for the like brigade never holds back in doing for their 1,112 day countdown to their next trip. Have at it

 

[MK-fan]

The NEW Disney Dark Age begins.............. I hope the Parks can still float the boat.

We’ve been in that dark age for 10 years now so if anything it’s just continuing

 

[MK-fan]

I do hope Disney gets back to taking risks and making an original ride every once in while.

In Imagineering’s first 30 years, it roughly had about 60 Different rides which didn’t include clones and only 11 of them were based on characters or movies.

 

[dlfan1313]

Not having enough seat capacity to force lightning lane sales…

…don’t think that’s a top secret statement at this point…

Additionally, I'd say that any rare capacity expansion that happens is done with the belief that it will attract more guests and at least keep those wait times stable, if not increase them to sell more of those rube express passes. (not trying to be mean. I buy them too when I go to DL.) Nothing is done with the goal of enhancing the guest experience. Absolutely every decision made is done with the goal of squeezing more money from you. A new sheriff ain't gonna come on in make to be fixin it.

 

[Chi84]

Additionally, I'd say that any rare capacity expansion that happens is done with the belief that it will attract more guests and at least keep those wait times stable, if not increase them to sell more of those rube express passes. (not trying to be mean. I buy them too when I go to DL.) Nothing is done with the goal of enhancing the guest experience. Absolutely every decision made is done with the goal of squeezing more money from you. A new sheriff ain't gonna come on in make to be fixin it.

Sounds like he’s already having a significant positive impact based on what Len is saying about Villains Land.

 

[HauntedPirate]

Additionally, I'd say that any rare capacity expansion that happens is done with the belief that it will attract more guests and at least keep those wait times stable, if not increase them to sell more of those rube express passes. (not trying to be mean. I buy them too when I go to DL.) Nothing is done with the goal of enhancing the guest experience. Absolutely every decision made is done with the goal of squeezing more money from you. A new sheriff ain't gonna come on in make to be fixin it.

Create problem (aka FOMO). Emphasize and focus guest attention on FOMO. Monetize solution.

 

[HMF]

We’ve been in that dark age for 10 years now so if anything it’s just continuing

To be honest I think the "Dark Age" has been going since about 2000 and maybe even the late 90s for DL. There were some nice things in the mid- late 2000s and early 2010s but the overall disastrous philosophy the parks have been running on has been largely the same for this century/millennium so far.

 

[Sirwalterraleigh]

To be honest I think the "Dark Age" has been going since post 9/11. There were some nice things in the mid- late 2000s and early 2010s but the overall disastrous philosophy the parks have been running on has been largely the same for this century/millennium so far.

Funny timeframe you got there

 

[HMF]

Funny timeframe you got there

I changed it a bit.

 

[lazyboy97o]

wasn't that Jay Rasulo, or am I misremembering? sounds very Rasulo-ish to me.

somebody like @lazyboy97o ought to set the record straight

Iger was fully on board with Rasulo. Like him, he didn’t really like the parks business and didn’t se with as a core asset, which is why he explored selling or spinning them off. The entire NextGen initiative was rooted in the idea that the parks were mature and tapped out, that Wall St was right and big investments in attractions weren’t worthwhile. Instead the money would be better spent on technology and personalization. That these could somehow deal with capacity.

The thing people point to to deny the view regarding Walt Disney World and the parks generally is the investment that occurred at the other resorts. What these ignore is the context of other parties being involved and able to influence Disney’s decision making. Disney’s California Adventure got a big investment because the City of Anaheim was starting to threaten the integrity of the Resort District. Hong Kong Disneyland got a big investment because it threatened Shanghai Disneyland. And Shanghai Disneyland was supposed to be the lure for the Central Government to give Disney preferential treatment, it was supposed to be a means to a bigger end but Iger got distracted by the legacy of just building the thing that Eisner “couldn’t” build.