Disney After Hours Event

LuvtheGoof

Grill Master
Premium Member
Did you seriously just say that? ROFL.

Did your mommy and daddy come up with the idea for the "event"?

If not, you need to step outside more - that kind of defensiveness over the simple discussion of a business issue should not get you all mad, bro.
Mad? Not mad at all. Just pointing out to the young kids like yourself that not every single test that a company does is a roaring success, and that no one here knows what they were looking for.
 

networkpro

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
Yes
It's a failure because it did not live up to their expectations. It doesn't take more then two brain cells to know this was their attempt to see if people would basically for extra magic hours. No they may not get rid of them now but if they can charge for them then you better believe they would. They could not even sell a fraction of their goal and had to give tickets away. Sorry that is a failure and yes I hope they learned it the hard way.

Market testing, all businesses do it because the theoretical doesn't always pan out when faced with real live customers and operations. It ran as scheduled and no dates were canceled. They obviously had a budget and revenue goals but you will never see them.
 

AEfx

Well-Known Member
Mad? Not mad at all. Just pointing out to the young kids...

I was hanging by a thread, but you lost me with your need to say the "young kids" thing, LOL.

In any case, by all available measures it was a failure - sorry that it has so deeply affected you.

You are welcome to your unexplained hysterical outbursts on this topic, just as I am now welcome to ignore them.
 

DisneyDebRob

Well-Known Member
But thats the problem. NO one here on these boards knows for sure EXACTLY what TWDC thought might be a failure or a success. Maybe there wasn't a true success/failure formula formed until after they see the real results. We can speculate all day long, and that is ALL anyone here is doing.
These are open forums for speculating, that's what everyone is doing, you are correct. That's what the boards are for... Wondering.. Thinking.. Opinions... Speculating.
I don't remember seeing firm numbers from anyone so that's where we come in. I hope everyone here keeps speculating, makes reading fun!
I agree with that, but what I don't agree with is the apparent gloating by people here that something they tried didn't work as well as some may have expected it to. Waaaah. Walt tried many things that didn't work, and almost went bankrupt more than once because of it. But let the current regime try something, and a certain crowd here yells to the rafters that they hope it fails just to put egg on Iger's face. Yeah, that's real mature.


When was the last time you went to WDW? I have been there 17 times just in the last 5 years (and I started going in 1978), the last time just a few months ago, and what the naysayers claim here about the condition of the parks is just plain wrong. They want it to be bad to justify their attitude.
ive been going since 1973, with many good years mixed it with bad. To say things aren't different from the beginning is just plain wrong. A lot of good has happened over those years but the cleanliness of the bathrooms and parks in general, good quality overall,(there are some real good places to eat) to the constant cuts over the last 10 years, it's not all rosy.
I still go and enjoy the places I really like but there's a difference.
 

Lirael

Well-Known Member
I hardly think the Event not being cancelled prior to the dates annouced for it means anything.

Any reasonable company would make provisions before releasing any event, especially new one, so even if it was a failure, disney wasn't going to start hemorraging money and die if it didn't cancel it immediately.

Moreover, cancelling it sooner would be the worst publicity, since it would indicate something went so wrong they couldnt even hold up to the promised amount of dates scheduled for it. Just look at the people in this very thread poiting out nothing could be wrong since it wasn't cancelled.

So was it a failure for wdw? We'll have to wait and see. Because I'm sure no matter how much pixie dust is currently in your eyes, everyone has to admit didney didn't release this from their goodness of their heart, but because they wanted a new oportunity to make money. This wasn't supposed to be a one time thing, but a test so they could implement it in the future. So the ultimate proof this failed will be if they don't offer it again, or do with a reduced price.

And going back to that money goal: people are assuming they failed by comparing: a) expected attedance Vs actual attendance & b) price they planned for each person attending to pay VS how much of the already low attendance actually paid (considering a lot of the people that went had free or half price tickets). Just by looking at these we can already see disney must have made much than they hoped. I'm sure no one can disagree with that. So the question now will be if the disparity between what they wanted to gain in terms of $ and what they effectively did get is small enough they feel its still worth redoing, or if it was a small enough gain that they won't think to try again.
 

Nubs70

Well-Known Member
Since you are not the tester, you don't know what the test parameters are, re budget, payroll, operating costs, how much management allowed for the test etc. You don't have enough info. There are too many variables.

For example, when doing a direct mail campaign, sometimes receiving a 2% response is considered a success, sometimes more is needed., again, depends on many variables.
E$H operates as it's own business unit. The event had a <10% capture rate and was declining with every event. Doesn't take MBA to figure it is not a success. Coincidentally, the opposite of success is failure. Failure is ok if one learns from the failure and applies lessons from said failure so as not to repeat the failure. Failure to learn from failure,(Failure^2), is known as a mistake.
 

Wendy Pleakley

Well-Known Member
Fear NOT! We will just see these extra costs in the Hotel reservations. ;)

We already pay for the privilege of EMH in Disney hotel rates (unless anyone things the value resorts are actually worth as much as $178 per night, without any extra perks).

I'm fairly indifferent on the After Hours concept as a separate event, but the moment EMH becomes an up charge on top of the resort rates, we may finally get to that moment where paying a premium to stay on property just isn't worth it.
 

flynnibus

Premium Member
Hmm, so you were in the planning meetings where they were detailing exactly how a "success" would be measured? Was it at 500 tickets sold? 1000? 2000? And how is it learning "the hard way"? Businesses try new things all of the time that don't work, and they learn and move on. We'll have to wait and see what they try next. Some things work, some don't, but to gloat over the fact that this wasn't a "success" as determined by you means nothing.

Are you kidding me? It was an event designed to sell tickets ! We know it failed miserably so much so that they had to give it away to get people to try it .

We don't need to be in the meetings to know that 200 tickets is not enough to financially support operating the majority of the theme park.

To even ignore that simple fact is insane desire to defend the company.

It was a test. It was a test that failed.
 

flynnibus

Premium Member
ok let's make some people happy...

It was a test of a concept that did not prove viable

The idea is a failure, the test is a success

(Because by this standard... Any test that completes is a successful test)

Now that we have the semantics out of the way... Disney has successfully proved their test price point SUCKED

Now let's throw a party
 

PhotoDave219

Well-Known Member
ok let's make some people happy...

It was a test of a concept that did not prove viable

The idea is a failure, the test is a success

(Because by this standard... Any test that completes is a successful test)

Now that we have the semantics out of the way... Disney has successfully proved their test price point SUCKED

Now let's throw a party

Which begs the question, what is the price point where this will work?
 

matt9112

Well-Known Member
Like most Americans, I'm sure he isn't used to seeing security visibly armed with assault rifles on a daily basis, especially at a theme park. It would have made me shudder, as well. We don't even see that at airports here.

Not that we may not understand the need, but it's just not something we are accustomed to seeing in public, in most cases. While we have the reputation for liking our guns, only a very small portion of places do you find folks brandishing assault weapons

I like my rifles but they dont assualt anyone haha. After the marathon bombings in boston they had national guard troops on corners with humvees un downtown boston and armed swat all around too. That was wierd.
 

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