Test Track refurb???

articos

articos

Well-Known Member
The Empress Lilly said:
One can read it as 'during EPCOT's design in the late 70s and early 80s'. The guy obviously knows his EPCOT and would know the opening date.

But EPCOT Center could both handle far larger crowds, and did so in actual fact. EPCOT nowadays has lower attandance than before Test Track opened in 1999. It is difficult to measure the influence of specific rides, but WoM's EPCOT drew more visitors than TT's Epcot.

When WoM closed in 1996, EPCOT drew close to twelve million. Nowadays, twenty years of theme park growth everywhere later, it draws ten and a half million. Just as well though, considering the reduced capacity of the replacement rides in FW. A low ride capacity which is not a concern for WDW, longer lines means people stop doing rides earlier to go stuff themselves full and drink themselves silly in the drunkards zoo of WS.
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One would be reading correctly. Although I do like the responses with regards to attendance when there was no Epcot. :) I was talking strictly in terms of the design phase, and the numbers the park was designed to handle on an average daily basis, but more specifically the numbers expected to be put through the pavilions. Epcot last year did a bit less than 11m ppl, and has done around that number for a number of years. The high point was in the 12m range, as you said above. But although Epcot was designed to handle large numbers, and the pavilions were built to handle them, the expectation was the rides would not have to handle numbers in the way TT gets hit now. Makes more sense if I say it that way.

When the park was designed, the property was doing approx 12-14m ppl annually. It was expected the numbers would go to 20-25m average, and that's what Epcot was designed to, because that was the realm of expectation from experience so far. That number is not specific to just Epcot, though, that's filtered between MK and Epcot, and the expectation was MK would continue to do higher numbers. Although the company did not break out the numbers for the first years, it's estimated Epcot did in the 9-10m range the first 12 months (which was more than expected), then it dropped a bit the next several years due to economic and other issues at the time. Epcot was designed with about 10-12m in mind/20k-30k per day in the park average, but that was with a large amount of open space, for guests to walk around and enjoy the space, as well as enjoying the restaurants, shops, etc. The attractions were not expected to need to eat as many guests when the park was conceived, because the intent of the park now - that is to say, the way the park is enjoyed - is not the same as it was when designed. Even with that, with Omnimovers, it was expected there would never be an issue, although the shortened queue lines should give a hint as to the expectation at the time that the attractions were not thought to need to hold so many, even though they could hold more than many of the current attractions. These days, it's attractions first, and in this day, thrill rides first, all else second. TT and Soarin' also have to take care of more of the heavy lifting, as experiences like Energy and Seas don't pull and keep as many guests as they did previously. All of that said, there are 2 different numbers to talk about here: The park numbers, and the attraction numbers. When it comes to park numbers, I should correct the previous statement to 'Epcot was designed to handle the same number of guests, but it was not designed with the expectation to be handling those guests in the way it does now.' (Hence my apples and oranges comparison) The original comment was "More people ride TT than WoM", and I was pointing out there's a difference in how attractions and parks were planned for and built then vs. now. TT gets hit harder than WoM did, whether or not it's doing more guests through the attraction.

There's one other point I'll make: When designed, it was expected that if crowds got to a certain point, there were things that could be done: cast members would helpfully point people towards other options in the expectation that the crowding was temporary and would resolve, entertainment would be brought out to draw people away. There would be other attractions in the area that would be equally as compelling, so no harm done. Now, not so much. This was an era when it was not taboo to close the gates - if it was a bad guest experience, it was simply not allowed. Now, it's simply build more queue and put up shade canopies. 40 years makes a huge difference. And in practice, what opens doesn't match how things were planned, as in the preshow rooms in TT.
 
articos

articos

Well-Known Member
ChrisFL said:
In this case, does having the preshow viewing rooms help or hurt the throughput I wonder?
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For Test Track v1, when planned, it would pulse perfectly to give the load platform enough time to pulse through. Unfortunately, it didn't work when put into practice with the ride system, and it hurt. As Tech said above, a lot. When done right, and matched with a properly planned and operated ride system, preshows are helpful. When done wrong, they really mess things up.
 
articos

articos

Well-Known Member
StageFrenzy said:
Really? As far Overall capacity its gotta be similar I'd even give the edge to Epcot in the early years.(Modern Epcot definitely holds the edge over '81 Epcot) With Omnimovers out the wahzoo Horizons, WOM, The living seas in 86. TT has less capacity than WOM, MS has got to be less than Horizons, Figment was longer. The only addition since then was Soarin'
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Overall capacity is roughly the same, on a parkwide basis. On a ride basis, it's shrunk a bit, due to the loss of Horizons and Health, the lessening of capacity on TT and the shortening of JII. Soarin' has helped a bit. See my other post for what I meant.
 
MarkTwain

MarkTwain

Well-Known Member
Don't know if this is news or not, but the "T" was up on the scaffolding today.

DSC08385.jpg


DSC08386.jpg


It's alright. I think it could have been bigger so as to cover up more of the scaffolding, and it seems to be made of some sort of tarp-like cloth that ripples in the wind. It may even be a temporary place-holder. But it gets the point across.
 
marni1971

marni1971

Park History nut
Premium Member
Thinking about the canopy all week (like you do) as another missed opportunity for the parks asthetics, I thought about a compromise. Using ChrisLFs excellent composite here is a half height canopy. Still designed like a cheap temporary shelter, but not hiding the facade as much and giving the building more scale. If only.

ttb copy.jpg
 
StageFrenzy

StageFrenzy

Well-Known Member
articos said:
Overall capacity is roughly the same, on a parkwide basis. On a ride basis, it's shrunk a bit, due to the loss of Horizons and Health, the lessening of capacity on TT and the shortening of JII. Soarin' has helped a bit. See my other post for what I meant.
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Horizons and WOM were both around 15min that's a 30 min ride time for two attractions. Naturally the overall park capacity is equal, it's the same size it was in 86.
 
articos

articos

Well-Known Member
StageFrenzy said:
Horizons and WOM were both around 15min that's a 30 min ride time for two attractions. Naturally the overall park capacity is equal, it's the same size it was in 86.
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Total capacity has actually changed over the years, due to legalities like ADA and expansions of restaurant spaces, but it's pretty minor.With the loss of public space like Horizons, and the addition of other space such as Space (hah!), restaurant or retail additions/subtractions, total capacity does actually change, but the official numbers have really never been updated, as far as I know. Although Horizons and WoM were 15 mins, you have to factor in every little change to the square footage (and the usage) to get accurate total numbers. Total capacity numbers are based on square footage. Separately, attraction capacities are per hour throughput, based on optimal cycle times, but that's a different thing, too.
 
DocMcHulk

DocMcHulk

Well-Known Member
marni1971 said:
Thinking about the canopy all week (like you do) as another missed opportunity for the parks asthetics, I thought about a compromise. Using ChrisLFs excellent composite here is a half height canopy. Still designed like a cheap temporary shelter, but not hiding the facade as much and giving the building more scale. If only.

View attachment 28245
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Now that I love!
 

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