Except of course they were not profitable either.
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So is the Hyperion Wharf project dead?
- Thread starter djkidkaz
- Start date
Except of course they were not profitable either.
jt04
Well-Known Member
I keep thinking there may be a way to make it so they are. Possibly not.
Lee
Adventurer
Yes, we do disagree on that one. Some, but certainly not all, were doing fine. Some breaking even. A couple were losers.
Anyhow...doesn't matter.
It wasn't managed at all beyond just closing everything up and hanging a virtual "For Lease" sign out front. Followed by the sound of crickets. Incompetence in it's most heinous form.
And it would be so easy to do. All they have to do is swallow their pride, listen to their customers, and give the guests what they want (as opposed to telling the guests what they want).
Imagine the outpouring of good will, and money, that would follow the reopening of the AC and maybe one or two dance clubs. (I really should open a consulting firm, I think. This is too easy.:lol
One of them was doing ok.
And this addiction to profit...I'm starting to really have a problem with it and it's negative impact on the guest experience.
Disney obviously wanted these venues to work. They spent years trying to do so. The internet theory that DTD management were just trying to fail all the businesses there seems crazy. They wanted it to work, tried various things, and it just didn't happen - for an extended period of time. Time to do something else.
Alektronic
Well-Known Member
But according to who? If it is Disney accounting, they have may never made a profit according to their projections.
For example, say they project 8-Trax to have sales of $10,000 for a night, but they only sold $9,000, so even that is a tidy profit, Disney accounting says they lost $1,000 for the night because they didn't meet projections.
So because they can't budget or project correctly, then it is operating at a loss? So using Disney accounting, you actually need to see the real figures.
TarzanRocked99-
Well-Known Member
I cant speak for most of the clubs, but I work closely with DEG (Disney Event Group) and the private event bookings of the AC prior to normal operation hours alone turned a profit for that venue.
There is no question that events are very profitable for Disney, but they are not a daily occurrence at all locations and cannot be used to prop up poor performance of normal operations.
TarzanRocked99-
Well-Known Member
it would be so easy to do. All they have to do is swallow their pride, listen to their customers, and give the guests what they want (as opposed to telling the guests what they want).
Imagine the outpouring of good will, and money, that would follow the reopening of the AC and maybe one or two dance clubs. (I really should open a consulting firm, I think. This is too easy.:lol
.
exactly re-opening the AC and then turning BET into a mixed venue for dancing, say a different genre on different nights should be a no brainer. The facilities are still there and ready to use, they would be just a small corner of the island and not the whole thing and would fill a void thats been missing since 2008.
NowInc
Well-Known Member
The PI sections of DTD do get pretty dead after around 10 until close (which is usually 2AM). During the day however the foot traffic is far greater.
I'm trying to find it, but I saw an interesting blurb about plans to build a "Jekyll & Hyde Club" in DTD (a sister club to the one in NY). If that went through it would make me very very happy
I'm trying to find it, but I saw an interesting blurb about plans to build a "Jekyll & Hyde Club" in DTD (a sister club to the one in NY). If that went through it would make me very very happy
TarzanRocked99-
Well-Known Member
True, which is why I didnt mention the other venues, because they were not booked up for events nearly as often, I would say Motion would have come in second, but it wouldnt even come close in frequency.
I disagree. The Pleasure Island venues worked just fine as initially conceived and implemented. What wasn't working was the West Side, at least not to the extent that Disney management and the third parties wanted. So regardless of the reason for the West Side's failure (the two most popular beliefs being there was nothing there of interest and/or PI was blocking the foot traffic), management decided to sacrifice PI turnstiles (and the admission fees) to save the failing West Side. This of course resulted in the influx of teenagers being dropped off at the "mall" (the exact group of people the patrons of PI would not want to be around) and even less attendance.
Now, opinions my vary, but it's my belief that at some point immediately after the turnstile removal (maybe even before), someone of influence in management came to the conclusion that Pleasure Island was worth more rented out than with Disney owning and managing the venues and they intentionally went about sabotaging it - removing the outdoor live music, the fireworks, etc. Two years later, they had achieved their goal of killing the area in a slow death. It was only then that they realized nobody was interested in paying Disney prices to lease in an area Disney just intentionally killed and flanked by an area that had been failing since inception.
And it would be so easy to do. All they have to do is swallow their pride, listen to their customers, and give the guests what they want (as opposed to telling the guests what they want).
Imagine the outpouring of good will, and money, that would follow the reopening of the AC and maybe one or two dance clubs. (I really should open a consulting firm, I think. This is too easy.:lol
One of them was doing ok.
And this addiction to profit...I'm starting to really have a problem with it and it's negative impact on the guest experience.
Problem is, the small group of AC fans (relative to the total number of guests) didn't go very often, didn't spend much when they were there, and didn't make it a success. Open it again and the same will happen all over.
Lee
Adventurer
True...but not all locations deserved to be kept open. There was some fat that needed to be trimmed, so to speak.
Disney, true to form, threw out the baby with the bathwater.
Lee
Adventurer
No. I disagree strongly.
The Club, with a proper cover charge in a vibrant, well-run PI, would do just fine.
And when you take into account the events that TarzanRocked99 mentioned...it's a no-brainer.
The problem is with the business model they seem determined to ride straight off a cliff. It's all about the profit. They don't see it as enough that a venue may break even or turn a modest profit and please guests. Every venue has to hit a certain number or it is considered a failure based purely on that. That is what has killed merchandise at the resort, and is slowly but surely doing the same with dining.
Once upon a time, it used to be about theme, guest satisfaction and real magic. Not profit, numbers and Disney Magic®.
TarzanRocked99-
Well-Known Member
For what its worth DEG has been dying to get back into both AC and BET for the past couple of years only to be overridden. The Pleasure Island venues were the main source of revenue from the Hotel Plaza Blvd hotels that wanted to do an offiste event at Disney due to proximity and the lack of valid in-park options.
By limiting the number of options available it would only increase the frequency that the re-opened ones would be booked and as I said before, AC was turning a profit alone from private events.
By limiting the number of options available it would only increase the frequency that the re-opened ones would be booked and as I said before, AC was turning a profit alone from private events.
Problem is, as soon as you start a cover charge, all those CPs and locals who used to go will stop. Then you are left with tourists, who in many cases never "got it", and didn't go in big numbers anyway.
I do agree that profit shouldn't control everything, but DTD is one of those places where every location has to be as profitable as possible. It would be great if that wasn't always the case, but that is how it is.
The resort merchandise is somewhat similar to AC. Guests just weren't buying it - and it is a real shame. I bought my share, but did everyone else? Nope! No business in their right mind is going to continue to design, produce and sell items that are not selling - regardless of the ideal need to please those few guests that may potentially buy it.
It is all well and good us sitting here on the forums complaining about these things, but the reality has to be looked at - the vast majority of guests are not doing and buying the things that we do here on the forums.
Buried20KLeague
Well-Known Member
I have no idea how you can know that without knowing how (if at all) the PI admission fees were broken out between clubs.
My suggestion is that they DIDN'T break those fees out to the clubs at all, which would put a serious dent in the so-called "profitability" of each club.
I'd imagine PI admission went into some bucket that was disconnected from the clubs entirely. Maybe it was used for area upkeep. Or for utilities for the area. Or to repave the parking lot. Who knows. Those are all things that have to be done, no doubt... But HOW you do it is very important. You can very easily effect the long-term success of a location with fuzzy math... Even if it's unintentionally.
Unless your source has access to the books and fairly intimate details of how they chose to operate them, I don't see how you can say with certainty what the AC did or didn't do.
Lee
Adventurer
That really says a lot, and confirms much of what I'd been told previously. Thanks.
Never mind resort merchandise. Look at MK.wdwmagic said:
Used to have an antique store in Liberty Square. Used to have cool safari/African merchandise in Adventureland. Used to have western merch in Frontierland. Magic shop. Swords and the like in the castle. The list goes on.
But not today. Every location has to hit a certain number, and in order to do that they have severely dumbed down the merchandise selection or thrown in stuff that doesn't belong. Hannah Montana in the Space Mountain shop? Nightmare Before Christmas in the Pirates shop? Really?
The result? Perhaps a bit higher profits. But at the expense of theme, storytelling and guest satisfaction. Efficiency being put before show.
I just don't like it.
That really says a lot, and confirms much of what I'd been told previously. Thanks.
Never mind resort merchandise. Look at MK.
Used to have an antique store in Liberty Square. Used to have cool safari/African merchandise in Adventureland. Used to have western merch in Frontierland. Magic shop. Swords and the like in the castle. The list goes on.
But not today. Every location has to hit a certain number, and in order to do that they have severely dumbed down the merchandise selection or thrown in stuff that doesn't belong. Hannah Montana in the Space Mountain shop? Nightmare Before Christmas in the Pirates shop? Really?
The result? Perhaps a bit higher profits. But at the expense of theme, storytelling and guest satisfaction. Efficiency being put before show.
I just don't like it.
Yes, but you forget that WDW lost money for 25 years from 1971 to the mid-90s.
/tongue
//cheek
Buried20KLeague
Well-Known Member
The AC was never marketed and advertised properly, like it should have been. I've been going to WDW for many many years now, multiple times a year, and I didn't even know it existed until like two years before it closed.
That tells me there was a problem.
They just let the AC sit there, only to be happened upon by those who walked by, and even less went in, and even LESS knew what was going on at that point.
It's a numbers game. If they pushed it even a little bit... Put something on resort TV about it SPECIFICALLY (not just something about PI), told what it was... Mentioned the Balderdash cup, the "zany effects" throughout the night, etc... The place would have been packed.
You say it was poorly attended. I say that problem would have been easily fixed.