Attendance comparison

[joshjoned]

Let's just look at it in context here. Star Wars additions will be nice and will boost DHS' attendance but we are talking about it taking over the flagship park of, well, the world basically when you factor in attendance.

2017 attendance the Magic Kingdom had 20,450,000 while DHS had 10,722,000 and both Epcot and Animal Kingdom are over 12,000,000.

How is this even possible that it will surpass the Magic Kingdom? Not even Disneyland or Tokyo Disneyland have surpassed it in this century in any given year.

1. You underestimate how popular Star Wars is, even today. The two lands will be the biggest and most popular "lands" ever built in Disney parks. It will boost DHS's attendance drastically, and reach capacity like no other WDW park has ever reached.

2. I agree that it won't ever surpass MK in attendance, but the gap with MK and it's three other WDW parks will become closer when it's all said and done, and SWGE will be a more popular land than any land in MK.

 

[Walt Disney1955]

1. You underestimate how popular Star Wars is, even today. The two lands will be the biggest and most popular "lands" ever built in Disney parks. It will boost DHS's attendance drastically, and reach capacity like no other WDW park has ever reached.

2. I agree that it won't ever surpass MK in attendance, but the gap with MK and it's three other WDW parks will become closer when it's all said and done, and SWGE will be a more popular land than any land in MK.

Yeah maybe. I just think it might draw a few more people to DHS but while they are there do they not go to Magic Kingdom too? I can see it surpassing Epcot or Animal Kingdom.

 

[disneyworlddad]

Actually quite the opposite. 75k at MK is going to feel much more crowded and with longer lines than 100k at Epcot simply because there is a lot more room to move around and a lot more "facilities," places to eat, and things to do/ see at Epcot. I can handle (and have handled) 90-100k at Epcot, but I don't want to be anywhere near MK with 75k.

You might very well be right. I haven't looked at attendance number for the days i'm there and how busy the parks felt. All I know is that i went last week and MK on Sunday and Tuesday did not feel busy at all. But Monday at Epcot felt jam packed. I have to assume that attendance in both parks were similar. But I just don't know where to get the information on actual attendance numbers for the day.

 

[winstongator]

A Disney document in the Buzz Price Archives at UCF indicates that somewhere between 46 and 60% of the people in a theme park are on an attraction, in its preshow, or in its line (see below) at any given time. It's an older document, but it's pretty close to the numbers Disney has told us more recently, and that we were able to verify by counting.

Excluding character greetings and parades, I think the most optimistic Studios' ride and theater show hourly capacity is something like 14,000 to 15,000 people. With GE, and MMRR, it'd be 20K-ish, assuming multiple shows per hour, and no ride breakdowns.

So assuming a 1-hour wait for everything (including Muppets, Indiana Jones, BATB, Disney Junior, FTFTIF, etc.), you'd get to 60K peak attendance in the park, based on Disney's calculations.

I think the average wait for all attractions across WDW right now is under 30. So assuming everyone is cool with a 1-hour wait for everything might be a stretch.

This is a quick calculation. I could be wrong.


View attachment 358207

How do you get that 20kish number?

Say it’s 15k now. MF smugglers run will be close to 5k on its own, another 5k for rotr, and say 3k for mmrr. That gets me closer to 30k.

I think this calculation could yield bad results in this case as the 3 rides being added will include the 2 longest waits and different line types. A good first order approximation.

I also think a lot of DHS attendance initially will be part-day visitors. Get there 2hrs before to get onto smugglers run do either the saber or droid making, lunch in there. Say it’s 3pm, you’ve been there for 10 hrs already, it’s august in FL, you’re heading back to your hotel. You get replaced with the night shift who will be at GE from 3pm-1am. Instantaneous capacity might be 60k, but if you’ve got people cycling through, that could yield a bigger daily (and cumulative) attendance number.

 

[lentesta]

How do you get that 20kish number?

Say it’s 15k now. MF smugglers run will be close to 5k on its own, another 5k for rotr, and say 3k for mmrr. That gets me closer to 30k.

I think this calculation could yield bad results in this case as the 3 rides being added will include the 2 longest waits and different line types. A good first order approximation.

I also think a lot of DHS attendance initially will be part-day visitors. Get there 2hrs before to get onto smugglers run do either the saber or droid making, lunch in there. Say it’s 3pm, you’ve been there for 10 hrs already, it’s august in FL, you’re heading back to your hotel. You get replaced with the night shift who will be at GE from 3pm-1am. Instantaneous capacity might be 60k, but if you’ve got people cycling through, that could yield a bigger daily (and cumulative) attendance number.

I've not heard anything that says ROTR and MFSR will handle 5,000 riders per hour each. If they got to 2K each I'd be impressed.

I had 14,400 for all the rides, plus the theater shows, excluding GE and MMRR.

 

[winstongator]

I've not heard anything that says ROTR and MFSR will handle 5,000 riders per hour each. If they got to 2K each I'd be impressed.

I had 14,400 for all the rides, plus the theater shows, excluding GE and MMRR.

I should have read your post more carefully! I meant 5000 each for number of guests in line. An hour wait works for most of the attractions, but I’d spitball at 3-4 each for the GE attractions early on. 2 more hours at the Ge attractions adds about 7k total (180022).

I’ve looked at this in the past from the point of view of how many more guests are in the MK on a 10 vs a 7, 5, 3 or 1.

Edit:
if you take the current DHS ride + show hourly capacity, multiply by 1.5 to account for the 60% at those, and another 1.5x to account for 12 park hours but each guest only being there 8 hrs (estimate), you get very close to its current daily average attendance.

If you did that for Pandora and assumed the 2017 attendance increase was all after it opened, there's another 25-33% you'd need to factor in. Just adding hourly capacities versus accounting for FP+ and 2 & 3 hr waits for NRJ & FoP yield less than 20% difference.

Assume 5400/hr capacity added for the new rides, x1.5, x1.5, x1.25 (fudge factor) = 15,000. A massive attendance increase. Initially it will be less w/o ROTR. Even 2/3 of that for the 4 months GE will be open would be an annual attendance increase for 2019 of 1.2 million, putting AK, Epcot & DHS very close in annual attendance.