There's no evidence that this would happen, you're just assuming it would
There is amble evidence.. you just ignore it. It's why the process exists in the first place.. TO DIFFUSE LOAD and make things more organized. It's why Disney opens the park before actual rope drop and has done for years.
If they were to not allow anyone to enter the parking lot (by blocking off the exits into the lot, not holding people at the booths) until closer to scheduled park open, the strain on the security checkpoint and the entrance gates would actually be significantly reduced due to not being allowed to build up for three hours.
And this is where you are fundamentally wrong and why you can't get your head around this. If 10,000 people are motivated to get to the park first... that's the number. It doesn't matter if the park opens 30mins early, or 0 mins early. That many people have decided it's worth showing up and want to be first or nearly first. You have 10,000 people you need to get onto property, manage the crowd, through security, and ultimately through your ticketing gate.
So what is better... having 10,000 people show up in a 20min window, or having 10,000 people show up over a longer period of time? If you read nothing else... read this one line over and over until it makes sense to you.
Opening the park earlier is not responsible for how many people have determined to be first or nearly first. That demand is there because of the attraction and limited capacity. Everything is about how you absorb, manage, and process that crowd.
Telling people you are going to be a time nazi on when the gate opens does not change the demand for the attraction or the necessity to be there 'as early as you can'.
All it does it COMPRESS THE TIME WINDOW you have to absorb and process those people.
Why on earth do you think concerts and events open the stadium hours before showtime? Because the crowd goes through bottlenecks and they don't want everyone SHOWING UP AT THE SAME TIME. Doing so creates unnecessary backups, crowd control problems, and new safety/security issues. The attendees all know they have to be there by a common time .. so the venue's actions by when they open the gates and parking are done to help encourage people to show up over a wider period of time so its not everyone trying to be in the same spot at the same time. No one wants to be late to the show start.. so they are encouraged to show up early to help spread the demand and reduce the impact of the bottlenecks.
This is exactly what happens at park opening as well. People know they are trying to be there by a common time... 'just before opening' (or just before showtime..). The same exact problems persist.. they don't want everyone showing up at the same time, nor everyone overflowing their crowd controls which are not setup to handle this kind of boxed up crowd. (just like concerts have bottlenecks at ticketing, parking, etc). So the venue wants to diffuse that load on the gates by opening early... and parks like MK open up main street before opening so the crowd control and security issues at the front of the park are reduced. Now.. the gate has more time to process that pent up demand of a crowd before opening.
If you can't grasp this.. then please just drop it. Because everyone else understands and I can't explain it any more crudely.
