How is that "-poor" business?
Good business is growth oriented. This move is not growth oriented.
Have you ever been to DAK and seen what occurs after the parade goes in the gate? Park becomes a ghost town unless it's peakest of peak seasons. If MK is overcrowding and hitting capacity, why would you continue to concentrate all of your efforts on drawing people to it? DAK and DHS will be surpassed by one or both Uni parks in attendance; if not in 2013, then in 2014. They are spiraling downward with less and less to attract guests. (ZOMG, but in 2018 there MIGHT be Cars Land! And in 2017 there MIGHT be Avatar!)
In 2001, Disney premiered THREE brand new parades at one time, plus a rebuild of an existing parade. Four new shows, all at once.
WHERE ON EARTH DID THEY FIND THE MONEY TO DO SOMETHING SO LUDICROUSLY EXPENSIVE
Fast forward to 2013 and after exponential increases in ticket prices (and large crowd increases), WDW has to close three to pay for one new parade.
MATH
Pulling major offerings from DAK and DHS will not help those parks bring in more dollars to justify their existence. There are four theme parks at WDW; acting like there aren't is poor business.
Secondly, it shows a total disdain for the guest and the Disney theme park experience. Only at WDW are there parks that don't offer parades. Every other Disney park in the world offers them (TDS' is on water, but it still performs and functions as a parade and serves as many guests). Parades, while not everyone's cup of tea, provide a number of benefits. They draw thousands of guests at one time (capacity!) allowing others to experience attractions. They provide a professionally designed and performed entertainment experience that (up until 2012) was unique to Disney in the US. It gives families the opportunity to see dozens of characters at one time with little effort, and provides valuable subliminal marketing time (ever wonder why the music is so catchy?).
At DAK, it performs quite a function, considering the park has a whopping 7 rides (including the train) and 4 shows (including Bug). The only reason people stay as long at DAK as they do is to see the parade. Attendance at DAK will fall further, regardless of first click, and guest spending will plummet. If I was Landry's, I'd be ed.
Even crappy parades attract hordes of people (how else do you explain the throngs for CTF or an MSEP that's all but dead?) day in and day out. Eliminating them from parks who are barely holding on in the first place is not a good business decision.
It MIGHT be okay, IF in 2014 major expansions were opening at these parks. But they aren't. If such expansions ever get built, God only knows how long it would take Disney to build them.
So 13 years after WDW miraculously pulled off the unbelievably expensive task of premiering four parades at once, they can now only afford to do one new parade IF they get rid of all the others. What SHOULD be happening, since there are no new attractions in the offing once SDMT finishes, is a 2001-style onslaught of new shows.
Instead, wristbands.
