Eddie Sotto's take on the current state of the parks (Part II)

[Eddie Sotto]

Mad T Party

DCA soft opened it's "Mad T Party" pseudo rave last night. It will be interesting to see what type of crowd it attracts over the summer. ElecTronica was really fun. There is a certain "double speak" about this theme as it does not take a genius to get what the event is about "("Drink Me"). It seems they are riding as close as they intentionally can to rave/drug culture without claiming it outright. They are very smart to keep the music mix broad.

Reviews are really good according to the article. They spent big on this and will likely sell lots of booze once you find it. "Curiouser and Curiouser!"

http://micechat.com/forums/disneyland-resort/168117-mad-t-party-soft-opens-photos-discussion.html

Thoughts?

 

[ChrisFL]

DCA soft opened it's "Mad T Party" pseudo rave last night. It will be interesting to see what type of crowd it attracts over the summer. ElecTronica was really fun. There is a certain "double speak" about this theme as it does not take a genius to get what the event is about "("Drink Me"). It seems they are riding as close as they intentionally can to rave/drug culture without claiming it outright. They are very smart to keep the music mix broad.

Reviews are really good according to the article. They spent big on this and will likely sell lots of booze once you find it. "Curiouser and Curiouser!"

http://micechat.com/forums/disneyland-resort/168117-mad-t-party-soft-opens-photos-discussion.html

Thoughts?

Its interesting...and something I think can only work in SoCal since the audience there is probably much more receptive to it.

Heck, DCA had more trouble with a drunken guy outside of ToT than I ever heard at their rave parties (then again, maybe just because it was caught on video).

I liked the ElecTRONica setup, but I was not sure how the Mad T Party would work. I also heard on micechat that "T party" is a drug reference, but then again "Tea Party" isn't probably the best reference due to politics right now either, so where do you draw the line?

 

[HMF]

I liked the ElecTRONica setup, but I was not sure how the Mad T Party would work. I also heard on micechat that "T party" is a drug reference, but then again "Tea Party" isn't probably the best reference due to politics right now either, so where do you draw the line?

Yes , supposedly "T" is a street name for Crystal Meth.

 

[MarkTwain]

Yes , supposedly "T" is a street name for Crystal Meth.

But considering that in some circles everything from "Snow White" to "Muggle" is a drug reference, it's pretty hard to avoid naming things after drugs these days.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

DLP Story of the Day, 20 Years out.

We were running rather late on the production of the park and things like the conversational sounds for the "party line" telephones in the Main Street Market House were to be recorded in Paris at a local Recording Studio because I was one of the voices, could approve the work and we were stationed there. Craig Fleming, and actor and writer for WDI joined me. He plays the Irish Cop on the phones.

We also did some of the upstair windows voices there too, and as a result, the staff heard outtakes of my goofing off, imitating a variety of celebs and Disney Character voices. In the meantime, I had dropped my new Nikon SLR Camera on a marble floor and broke it days before the opening. Devastating. All luxury items over there are like a third more expensive than the highest retail over here and I could not just have it overnighted back then in time for the opening. I needed money for a new camera and lens and NOW.

As a coincidence, the owner of the studio approached me and asked if I could do the voice over of a high energy American Disc Jockey and lay down a bunch of random (i.e "Rock and Roll!" "Number One HIT!") soundbytes for him to sell to local French stations. I knew how much the camera and a new lens would cost and gave him a price that was the exact cost of replacing that model in Francs. He went for it and we spent several hours recording many voices and an extensive script. Who knows if I ended up being heard all over Europe as a soundbyte, so what? I got my Camera replaced just before the park opened!

 

[flynnibus]

Great story Eddie. Love it

 

[Eddie Sotto]

DLP Story of the Day, Richard Benjamin

Recently the music loop that plays in the background in all the Main Streets has been replaced with a newly orchestrated loop. Very nice job indeed! In the past, we chose music from existing sources (called "needle drop") and payed the license fee for their use. DLP, WDW and DL Main Streets had a combination of found and newly produced compositions (added by Tony later of show tunes and movie music). I believe now they have eliminated all of the "needle drop" selections from the soundtrack.

What you may find interesting, while on my own search for what music to use, I ran across the work of Richard Benjamin. He had passionately discovered and continues to search for authentic (usually lost) compositions of ragtime music, and performs those scores with his Paragon Ragtime Orchestra.

http://paragonragtime.com/about/collection-of-historic-orchestrations/

We needed full sounding Orchestra versions of Ragtime, as so much of recorded Rags are on a lone piano and that does not cut it for outdoor Background music. The CD was called "On the Boardwalk", and it was a new performance of orchestrations of the original Arthur Pryor Orchestra Songsheets, found under a bandstand in Atlantic City, New Jersey!

http://paragonragtime.com/store/on-the-boardwalk/

I was thrilled, as now the guest can hear exactly what people a century earlier heard! How cool was that? So the idea was find the right tracks that had that optimism and tempo that fit the walking speed of the Main Street guest. I took the music to DL on a walkman and watched the guests walking speed and tried to match the music. Reverse scoring to the action. Did that with just about all the tracks from any source.

Two more CD's we drew from.

http://paragonragtime.com/store/the-whistler-and-his-dog/
http://paragonragtime.com/store/that-demon-rag/

So, to be clear, I'm not lamenting the music changing at all, but want to pay a brief tribute to and call attention to Rick Benjamin, who contributed to the historic richness of the project with his fine work that ended up being heard in all the parks. Thank you for a great run! I still enjoy his music very much at home and in the car, and hope some of you might get into Ragtime and it's many variations beyond what you hear on Main Street. He performs live with silent films and I've seen their performances. Really fantastic.

In the "lesser than authentic but still really great" department, Jack Wagner, the official voice off DL, put together earlier playlists and sources from which we borrowed. One is available on MP3. Professor Albert White's Gaslight Orchestra. We were inspired by Jack's choices and I went after other albums from White. We used a lot of this in DLP and then it remigrated back to the other parks. In Vinyl, it is a rare series of records.

http://www.amazon.com/Alexanders-Ra...=sr_1_2?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1338235593&sr=1-2

 

[Cosmic Commando]

I hope this hasn't been covered, but here it goes: I remember (at least I think I do) a story you told here about being in Frontierland and they had refurbed the buildings, but they just looked too new to really belong in Frontierland. That and discussions about changing colors and decor and music on MSUSA in DLP got me thinking.

There seems to be so much detail brought to projects from each imagineer's individual experience and expertise; it would be very hard for every imagineer to reproduce, say, John Hench's eye for color. There's a great section in his book where he runs through the major colors and gives examples of how he made everything look so perfect: a little blue in with the black for the cruise ships, a yellowish white for the Grand Flo, John Hench Purple created because of how the red and blue parts of the paint fade differently in the Florida sun.

I'm sure WDI has files that tell you how to reproduce the colors that are there and who made the light fixtures and concept art for reference, but are there archives that tell you WHY things are the way they are? What the imagineers were thinking when they built the original or did the last refurb?

 

[Eddie Sotto]

I'm sure WDI has files that tell you how to reproduce the colors that are there and who made the light fixtures and concept art for reference, but are there archives that tell you WHY things are the way they are? What the imagineers were thinking when they built the original or did the last refurb?

Not that I know of. There are written histories or stories of a space or land to guide the design. We did that and most designers try to respect that original intent to a degree. Each Imagineer brings their style and point of view to the work. Sometimes there are things that get redone you cringe over because they just ignore what's around them and other times they improve the whole area. You hope that everyone comes from the same design traditions in how to approach the story and placemaking, but everyone has their own taste. I notice that some redoes are a reaction to wanting to make things more visually "exciting" only to add more detail for it's own sake. That can be dangerous as all things are in context and you can just make it all more overdone and confusing to the guest. Restraint is an art if of itself. It's a fine line.

 

[krash9924]

Price Hikes

Eddie,

Was wondering what your thoughts on Disney park ticket hikes? Is there a breaking point?

My thoughts are that as long as money seems to be going back into the park it doesn't bother me. Hell, I spent two dollars a ride per person at a recent church carnival, and that wasn't even close to a Disney theme park experience!

 

[trs518]

Eddie (and others) , I was wondering if anyone else is listening to the Unoffical Guide Disney Dish podcast series with Len Testa and Same Genoway(sp?)? I find it very interesting to listen to them as they walk their way through Disney World and talk about design in a macro sense.

I found their Frontierland and Liberty Square specifically interesting, how going from Liberty Square through Frontierland takes you across America(staring in the east) and across time(Liberty Square is Constitutional era and it ends with Big Thunder in the 1890s.)

I'm going to re-listen to them before I go to the parks again to see if I can spot what they're talking about and agree with it.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

Eddie (and others) , I was wondering if anyone else is listening to the Unoffical Guide Disney Dish podcast series with Len Testa and Same Genoway(sp?)? I find it very interesting to listen to them as they walk their way through Disney World and talk about design in a macro sense.

I found their Frontierland and Liberty Square specifically interesting, how going from Liberty Square through Frontierland takes you across America(staring in the east) and across time(Liberty Square is Constitutional era and it ends with Big Thunder in the 1890s.)

I'm going to re-listen to them before I go to the parks again to see if I can spot what they're talking about and agree with it.

I have not, and admit that it sounds interesting. I don't get out there much so I've not had any need, but Sam has good perspectives.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

Eddie,

Was wondering what your thoughts on Disney park ticket hikes? Is there a breaking point?

My thoughts are that as long as money seems to be going back into the park it doesn't bother me. Hell, I spent two dollars a ride per person at a recent church carnival, and that wasn't even close to a Disney theme park experience!

They have created a monster with AP's (1 million) by making them too cheap (15 bucks a month) and so it changes the usage pattern of the parks. the recent article on parking shows the impact of this policy. The demand outstrips the supply at DL, so as much as I do not like high ticket pricing, it hopefully will begin to solve the problem. Less people with more money is a better overall experience for all of us, than too many people that spend very little. Then they make nothing to maintain the parks. Having said that, i do feel like the experience itself once inside is overpriced and you notice it. I'd rather pay some big admission and not think about the money so much and have fun, but when the food is movie theater high, and they are synergizing to you constantly, then I'm not so pleased. I do think for the hours you can and do sp end there, if they can keep the crowds down, it is worth the admission by comparison to a 3D movie on a value per per hour basis.

 

[StageFrenzy]

They have created a monster with AP's (1 million) by making them too cheap (15 bucks a month) and so it changes the usage pattern of the parks. the recent article on parking shows the impact of this policy. The demand outstrips the supply at DL, so as much as I do not like high ticket pricing, it hopefully will begin to solve the problem. Less people with more money is a better overall experience for all of us, than too many people that spend very little. Then they make nothing to maintain the parks. Having said that, i do feel like the experience itself once inside is overpriced and you notice it. I'd rather pay some big admission and not think about the money so much and have fun, but when the food is movie theater high, and they are synergizing to you constantly, then I'm not so pleased. I do think for the hours you can and do sp end there, if they can keep the crowds down, it is worth the admission by comparison to a 3D movie on a value per per hour basis.

You know another problem created with raising monthly pricing is you have to go x a month to get your monies worth then. If i go once a month now at 15
and they raise it to twenty now i am going 2 times a month to get my monies worth.

 

[Kuhio]

I found their Frontierland and Liberty Square specifically interesting, how going from Liberty Square through Frontierland takes you across America(staring in the east) and across time(Liberty Square is Constitutional era and it ends with Big Thunder in the 1890s.)

I really love this little detail. It's also described in the Imagineering Field Guide to the Magic Kingdom (along with one of my other favorite details about this area of the park -- the little version of the Mississippi River that separates the two lands).

The effect did kind of get derailed when Splash Mountain got plopped down in Frontierland -- certainly disrupting the geographic continuity, if not the temporal one.

 

[trs518]

I really love this little detail. It's also described in the Imagineering Field Guide to the Magic Kingdom (along with one of my other favorite details about this area of the park -- the little version of the Mississippi River that separates the two lands).

The effect did kind of get derailed when Splash Mountain got plopped down in Frontierland -- certainly disrupting the geographic continuity, if not the temporal one.

I haven't had a chance to read that book yet, so most of the information is new to me. I'm inrigued to hear what he has to say about Fantasyland and Tomorrowland.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

You know another problem created with raising monthly pricing is you have to go x a month to get your monies worth then. If i go once a month now at 15
and they raise it to twenty now i am going 2 times a month to get my monies worth.

Good point, you end up being motivated to go even more until you've made up the pricing.

 

[Eddie Sotto]

20 years later. I'm back!

Well. Believe it or not, this post is being written from Paris. As part of my upcoming book, I'm retracing some of the old "thought waves" of 20 years ago here in the city. A lot of inspiration came from the design and immersive sights here in the "City of Lights" and as a part of it all, thought that a chapter on "Paris, the other theme park" might be of interest. I travelled around with the other designers here and there are some good stories to tell. You can be the judge of that when it's all done. Doing a lot of walking, thinking and late night writing. Heading to DLP to do a little talk with some pre opening videos on Monday. Will be interesting to walk the park two decades after it opened!

 

[jt04]

Well. Believe it or not, this post is being written from Paris. As part of my upcoming book, I'm retracing some of the old "thought waves" of 20 years ago here in the city. A lot of inspiration came from the design and immersive sights here in the "City of Lights" and as a part of it all, thought that a chapter on "Paris, the other theme park" might be of interest. I travelled around with the other designers here and there are some good stories to tell. You can be the judge of that when it's all done. Doing a lot of walking, thinking and late night writing. Heading to DLP to do a little talk with some pre opening videos on Monday. Will be interesting to walk the park two decades after it opened!

Sounds great. Surely this is not your first trip back since it opened. If not, how many times have you been?

Enjoy!

 

[Eddie Sotto]

Sounds great. Surely this is not your first trip back since it opened. If not, how many times have you been?

Enjoy!

Only once for a day about 15 years ago when the Tokyo Disneyland folks were considering DLP's Space Mountain. A quick in and out of the park. This time it's going to be more meaningful as our kids have never been.