2019 Theme Index

[the.dreamfinder]

LOL the only thing that's ignorant is believing that attendance is the only metric of success, but OK you are certainly able to believe what you want.

They cut a TSR and multiple shops.

 

[DDLand]

This was a 14 acre expansion of the park that was hyped since 2015 and took years of development and hundreds of millions to realize.

Again, willful ignorance.

I have to concur.

Bob Iger on Star Wars Land in early 2019:
“And I would say by the way, on the marketing expense side, don't expect much. I'm thinking that maybe I should just tweet, "it's opening," and that would be enough. I think we're going to end up with incredibly popular and in-demand product with these two new lands. They are large, they are beautiful and they're extremely innovative, and they obviously leverage the popularity of the Star Wars brand. And I think that we're going to have absolutely no problem gaining attention for them or to them, and it's not going to take much marketing to do that. That's a signal that I just sent to our parks and resorts people to keep that budget really low...”

Again in late 2018:
“And so we think that they're going to have a major impact and Disneyland, clearly, it's the biggest thing that we've ever done at Disneyland since it opened in 1955. And we think it's going to drive huge increase in demand, and we think we're going to have some interesting challenges on our hands to manage that demand, but that's a good problem to have.”

The opening was botched. Whether that reflects the product, the marketing, the pricing, or Star Wars itself is ambiguous. I also think that Disney Parks may have met a natural saturation point. Tens of millions of people have come through the gates. Maybe a slowdown was inevitable.

But to argue that this was what Disney wanted is not compelling. Disney increased Disneyland’s capacity by 20% (and even more with Rise of Resistance later). The quarter Disneyland opened its largest expansion (by footprint) Disneyland’s attendance went DOWN. If Disney wanted to decrease attendance, they could have raised prices and saved the 10s of millions yearly in depreciation and operating costs. The Disney that built attractions to help with overcrowding doesn’t exist anymore. Each expansion has to have clear ROI. If they don’t they will not be approved. Guest experience is not the overriding goal.

Take Hollywood Studios for example. Disney spent lots of money, but didn’t tackle the main problem of overcrowding. Disney’s Hollywood Studios still needs 1000s of hourly capacity to make a decent experience. Instead of building rides, Disney emphasized building expensive upcharge experiences, marketable E Tickets, and massive static monumental rock sculptures. Now 2ish billion later, the park remains exceptionally overcrowded.

Galaxy’s Edge still has tons of potential and made the Disneyland guest experience better. But did Iger spend 1 billion for flat attendance? Not a chance.

 

[Getachew]

Interesting that Galaxy's edge didn't do much to increase DL's attendance. I know it opened in late May, but still.

But then again, Rise didn't open up there until 2020.

 

[Getachew]

Look how little SWGE moved the needle for DHS and DL...

This is abysmal...

In fairness, both opened without Rise, and GE opened in late August at WDW.

 

[Getachew]

We all saw countless reports all summer that Disneyland was a ghost town

a Ghost town that's still the second busiest theme park in the entire world.

 

[Getachew]

It appears the WDW numbers are underestimated.

What do you mean? Is WDW attendance that much higher than DL?

 

[drizgirl]

In fairness, both opened without Rise, and GE opened in late August at WDW.

Yes, that's one of Disney's mistakes in this.

 

[Getachew]

Yes, that's one of Disney's mistakes in this.

Yep. I noticed when Rise opened suddenly GE at both parks looked busier than ever.