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News David Duffy named Vice President, Live Entertainment at Walt Disney World Resort
- Thread starter DCBaker
- Start date
brb1006
Well-Known Member
Walt Disney World seriously deserves some new blood for live Entertainment. DLP's recent entertainment offerings shows that Disney is still able to pull of some energetic and fun shows every once in a while.
brb1006
Well-Known Member
I remember liking the nighttime entertainment Animal Kingdom gained in 2016. For a short period, The Tree of Life used to have a special projection show running nightly while the Discovery Island Carnivale performed at night instead of being daytime only.
Despite the evening offerings being short-lived, it really gave the park more life and a unique atmosphere. If only something could be done to The Discovery River Theatre that isn't cursed.
Just wish the park gained more indoor rides to make the park feel complete.
brb1006
Well-Known Member
I believe he was also involved with "Mickey's Dazzling Christmas Parade" which runs during the day and night.
brb1006
Well-Known Member
I would have to disagree, Dreams & Shine Brighter actually gained tons of positive reception with DLP visitors. Considering Paris' 30th Anniversary was held during COVID, it was better than what ever the heck WDW was doing for it's 50th Anniversary. Even @marni1971 enjoyed Paris' offerings. At least Paris' offerings felt genuine and not a complete joke.
I knew Ron quite well (and highly recommend you read his book if you haven't - it covers the history of Disney's entertainment for the first 50 years or so), so much of my opinion on this subject is from what he told me, although it's also in part from my own research for papers I wrote in both undergrad and grad school on the subject. Entertainment then was slashed to the bone, and eventually broken up. Ops too took financial and operational control over much of it, and DLE (Disney Live Entertainment) was eventually used to handle only the creative elements in actuality - it no longer controlled as much as it once did (particularly characters), and had far less influence on the parks and outside them than it did during Ron's time. I know for a fact Eisner wanted it broken up because he said it was a fiefdom. It served Eisner well - from all his synergy project to the millennium, but once Ron retired, so he and a couple of his colleagues told me, entertainment was said to be too powerful, with money being even that in the eyes of some should have gone to rides, and was swiftly neutered.
There's a reason why he had so many bands playing in the parks (and why his window at MK has him as the bandleader - the only one, that I know of, which references an actual job the window's namesake actually held at the park). He knew the impact that music, usually live (although almost all stage shows proper were pre-recorded past about 1980 or so, like your Hunchback, Tarzan, and so forth, not including Epcot concerts and other musically-focused performances like the various bands and orchestras plus the occasional live singers in other performances), had on the guest experience. He and I would talk about that sort of thing frequently, and he was dismayed at how much the standard of entertainment had fallen since his retirement. The jazz band at the GF cuts hurt him deeply - as he protected them from both Dick Nunis and Frank Wells, who wanted them cut for different reasons - much like the All American College Orchestra and other music cuts during and after he left (that cut being not too long after Judson Green, a Disney colleague of Ron's and an award-winning jazz musician in his own right, passed seemed to make it hurt even more) . He was really a musician through and through.
I could use a lot of unparliamentary language to describe the cuts Disney has made to entertainment in those 20 years. But I will simply say that entertainment has been failed by everyone who's tocuhed it since, outside of Tokyo and rare exceptions elsewhere. Musicians cost a good deal of cash - the orchestra for the Pixar show at DHS a few years ago were getting $200-250 a night each. That's not cheap. Better to pre-record and use as few actors as possible (for they, especially if they speak or sing live, also cost quite a bit according to Equity's own agreements with Disney management). Thus we get what we have now - legacy shows that have little business of being around for as long as they have, propped up because it's too expensive to make new ones - and it's not like the once in a lifetime guests Bob targets will notice anyway.
I have been trying to write a bit of a book on the subject for a while, and it's tough, both because of my personal connection to the matter (Disney's live entertainment is what drove me to study theme park management in the first place, never mind seek a career in this industry), and because the lack of info on the subject as a whole...
brb1006
Well-Known Member
Was the Share a Dream Come True Parade a product from the Ron Logan or Anne Hamburger?
Was 100% developed under Ron's tenure - it opened just after he retired. Don't know how much of a hand he had in it though.
EricsBiscuit
Well-Known Member
If he somehow convinced them to get a new Christmas parade at DLP, maybe he can do the same at WDW lol
I’m sorry, but this is a family friendly Theme Park environment.
That kind of entertainment is for the later evenings in downtown Orlando….
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FTFY.
True but wasn't Dazzling Christmas Parade Teased for DLP before COVID?? Maybe before he got to DLP?
brb1006
Well-Known Member
Yes
bmr1591
Well-Known Member
Oof, replacing Fantasmic. You’re not wrong, it does need to happen at one point, but it’s very beloved. I wished they’d build a similar amphitheater in Magic Kingdom and move the show there for 30 minutes are fireworks. It would thematically fit much better as well.
Starship824
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
If they ever build the "beyond big thunder" than they could put Fantasmic back there and use the liberty bell as the boat but that will never happen. There's basically no financial intensive to do so at all.
JustInTime
Well-Known Member
It’s nice seeing positivity in a thread for a change.
brb1006
Well-Known Member
UKDisney Dave
Well-Known Member
Not sure Paris wants a night time
Parade. It’s blooming freezing after sunset for 11 months of the year!
Disone
Well-Known Member
Disagree.
While I like the suggestion of fantastic being built in Magic kingdom's beyond big thunder expansion, I don't think it's the case that it does need to happen at one point.
Especially with its current refresh I think it will continue to be beloved for sometime to come.
TrainsOfDisney
Well-Known Member
At Disneyland today I’ve watched the pirate band, jazz band, pearly band, Disneyland band, Main Street ragtime piano, and saloon piano. I think straw hatters were here today as well. Live entertainment is alive and well here at Disneyland. (Although there have been some cuts here as well….)