So….what follows is a weird post even by my standards. I’m roughly about 1/3 of the way through the thread and it got part of my synapses firing. Anyhoo, I’m going to make two analogies to the theme park business in Orlando by comparing and contrasting the history of other creative things from a fan’s perspective. For the purposes of this discussion we will assume that DisneyWorld, Metallica, and Seinfeld all have the same fraction of “hard core” (20%) to “casual fans” (80%), even though this ratio is meaningless and has no bearing on the discussion. It just happens that 8 and 2 are easy for me to type. First, let’s start with the heavy metal analogy to discuss the overall direction and arc of the parks with Metallica being a stand in for Walt Disney World and Megadeth for Universal. So…some brief history. The 20% of hard core metal fans are always comparing Megadeth to Metallica since a Dave Mustaine the founder of Megadeth was a member of Metallica when the careers of everyone involved were young. This is the weakest part of the analogy since in this time line Universal has a resort in Orlando in 1972, but bear with me. Early in the careers of each band, the metal fans loved both. Each group released 4 albums or so that all the hard core fans would call classic. Metallica had a little more respect because unlike the other bands that comprise the big 4 of thrash metal ( also includes Anthrax and Slayer) they were able to play this type of music and have hooks and a sound that could occasionally get them some radio play and mainstream popularity (One, Master of Puppets, etc.) was quite impressive. The other thrash metal bands had almost no mainstream crossover appeal. Then, in the early/mid 90’s something happened. Metallica decided to ditch the 20% and expand the size of the 80% (during this time Lars Ulrich has this quote for all the original fans who accused Metallica of selling out – “Yeah, we well out stadiums, etc. etc.”). Anyhoo, almost quietly, Megadeth released an album (Countdown to Extinction, see the Disney tie ins are endless) that had many of the same features of the early Metallica albums inasmuch as it didn’t “betray” metalheads, and had a sound that almost any fan of rock could enjoy. In a sense it was Megadeth’s WWoHP. After that, Metallica enjoyed immense popularity, but it was slowly declining. They’ve only put out 9 studio albums (E-tickets) for the entirety of their history. What they did put out in the 90’s and 00’s is mostly analgous to NGE – stuff the serious fans had no interest in. Plus, they made two mistakes as a result of ditching the hard core fans. One – the 20% really helped their popularity. Other music fans if they asked my opinion, knew that I was into that type of music and I would say something like, “You can’t wrong with Master of Puppets.” Now, I might say, “Don’t buy anything put out after the black album unless you like leaden songs and video movies about how hard life is as a rich rock star.” Meanwhile, Megadeth has put out 14 studio albums, still retains their fan following, and has slowly increased in popularity as the years have gone by. They’ll never be as popular as Metallica, but Mr. Mustaine is rich, famous, and has done nothing to jeopardize his standing in the community of serious fans. In fact, he’s slowly increased his market share of casual fans whilst maintaining a unique, high quality, hard to emulate, original sound. Since this is on a more compressed timeline than theme parks, let’s talk about the future. In 2008 (I think) Metallica released an album (Death Magnetic) that was clearly designed as a bone to their hard core fans that they essentially lost. It would be like WDW building Horizons II, sprucing up Imagination, building a new Mr. Toads, WRE, having TV shows made at the studios again and adding Beastly Kingdom and looking at us and going “So….what do you guys think?” It had this effect. Based on my unscientific conversations with friends about half of the metal heads forgave them and bought the record. The others are still ed about 2 wasted decades and want nothing to do with it. They aren’t buying videos, going to concerts, or anything anymore. These are people who in the 80’s and early 90’s may have seen them 4 or 5 times on a tour (the casual fans never do this). They’re still doing this for Megadeth, Iron Maiden, etc.
Let’s switch gears and talk about the second mistake of ditching the hard core fans. I’m a casual fan of Seinfeld. I liked the show, but I certainly don’t know ten quotes from every episode nor can I rattle of a list of secondary characters that goes more than 7 or 8 deep. Nonetheless, if the show lost the layered aspects of characterization and references that made it special and a unique cultural touchstone I would have certainly noticed. If during season 4 they had decided that they needed to simplify the show so that they could expand their viewing audience even more (let’s have more of Kramer falling over things and ditch that story line where George has to use the bathroom in the brownstone and makes up the company owns), I would’ve have certainly noticed. It may have taken me more episodes or seasons than the serious fan to notice, but eventually I would’ve viewed the show less often. The assumption that what makes something special to the casual and hard core fan is completely different is fundamentally wrong. I viewed the video premier of “One” as a freshman in college and there was a huge group of us in the dorm room lounge watching, cheering, and literally high-fiving when it was over. Most of the people in the room weren’t familiar with thrash metal, but I believe part of the popularity of the song was that it had that musical influence or that “je ne sais quoi” to the casual fan. Without it, they’re just another rock band. If Disney continues down the path they are following at WDW it will lose that something special to the entirety of its fan base. They’ll be just another theme park. I don’t get the sense that they realize that. They may still out attendance everyone else, but they’ll be on a slow decline and get increasingly more desperate to get that market share back.
