News Tron coaster coming to the Magic Kingdom

[ToTBellHop]

It would have to be at least a LITTLE bit ironic if TRON, a movie about an Arcade Game, was what finally killed the Tomorrowland Arcade.

It’s an arcade? Who knew?

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

It’s an arcade? Who knew?

Well . . . at least on the Blueprints. It's plenty far from it now.

I think the building is fine, it's how it's being used that's the problem.

I can see the argument that it takes up too much space on the main drag to TRON. I don't know that they *will* get rid of it, but I think losing the shop in favor of widening the path to TRON (and therefore hiding the building that much less from Tomorrowland) wouldn't be too much of a loss.

 

[J4546]

having a flynns arcade next to the building would be super rad, esp if it was 80s themed full of arcade machines from that era

 

[marni1971]

having a flynns arcade next to the building would be super rad, esp if it was 80s themed full of arcade machines from that era

Yes it would, but the current structure isn’t suitable.

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

I think the building is fine, it's how it's being used that's the problem.

having a flynns arcade next to the building would be super rad, esp if it was 80s themed full of arcade machines from that era

At that point it might have to be done under the umbrella of the Tomorrowland Historical Society . . . an 80's Arcade isn't exactly the definition of "Tomorrow".

That said, bits like this really show how under-baked the Concept of the TRON Coaster really was. It's very nearly just a Coaster with TRON-styled decor around it. The entire conceit from the film of what the Game Grid is and how you end up there in the first place is basically ignored. How is it we just walk up to the Game Grid out in open space? And what the heck is that weird outdoor loop relative to the game?


Meanwhile, they COULD have designed a ride that was hidden behind a Flynn's Arcade facade, with Arcade Games lining the queue (maybe they're playable?), and a stellar preshow room where guests get "uploaded" into the game and see the store-room of the Arcade around them transform into a holding cell in The Grid. And THEN you go and get on the coaster.

Wrap the whole thing up with a dazzling effect where the lightcycles "break through" back into the real world and let them unload there, making sense of how you got out of the Game. Let guests wander out through a gift shop adjoining Flynn's Arcade, featuring vintage-style t-shirts and souvenirs.

Doesn't suit Tomorrowland much more (though, does it really suit it that much worse?) - that kind of take would work better at Hollywood Studios, I think. But it would have given you an actual, complete, perhaps decently comprehensive and comprehensible TRON experience. Instead of a 59 second coaster with minimal set up and perhaps even less payoff.

 

[EricsBiscuit]

1. They don't want to pay for the cost of construction for the quarters they're barely breaking even.

2. MK is already overcrowded and will be more so for the 50th.

3. The opening of TRON can be used to beef up attendance in the post-holiday lull.

You don’t think they thought of 2 and 3 when they green lit Tron? MK has had 20 million + guests for many years now. The park has always been crowded. Adding new attractions will ensure it stays that way. The cost in the short term would not kill them. Every new e ticket brings in tons of new guest or else they wouldn’t build them in the first place.

 

[lazyboy97o]

You don’t think they thought of 2 and 3 when they green lit Tron? MK has had 20 million + guests for many years now. The park has always been crowded. Adding new attractions will ensure it stays that way. The cost in the short term would not kill them. Every new e ticket brings in tons of new guest or else they wouldn’t build them in the first place.

The park already has insufficient capacity. Inducing demand more demand just creates more crowding that negatively impacts satisfaction.

 

[EricsBiscuit]

The park already has insufficient capacity. Inducing demand more demand just creates more crowding that negatively impacts satisfaction.

They will have this “too many people” problem whether they open it tomorrow or 3 years from now or any point in between.

 

[doctornick]

IMHO there's nothing wrong with opening Tron in MK in terms of crowds - it won't dramatically impact crowds either way, even if it induces demand that will be small compared to overall MK attendance. The bigger issue is not adding capacity elsewhere - the planned Main St Theater (hope they dust that off sometime and build it), putting something new in Stitch, building something new in Frontierland or Adventureland (I still think it was the perfect time to build a high capacity ride of Western River Expedition for the 50th for both park superfans but also to balance out the offerings in that are with somethingmore family friendly).

Tron just doesn't address any of the parks issues in making it better for guests.

 

[EPCOTCenterLover]

I really like the arcade building. It's unique to the Magic Kingdom and it makes me smile when I see it.

 

[marni1971]

I really like the arcade building. It's unique to the Magic Kingdom and it makes me smile when I see it.

Did you ever see Space Mountain (or ride the WEDWay) before it was added?

 

[CastAStone]

Did you ever see Space Mountain (or ride the WEDWay) before it was added?

I just watched your most recent Space Mountain tribute this weekend. It’s a shame the view is gone, but it would be forgivable to me if that building was being used for anything of value to the guest at all. Instead? Another gift shop.

 

[JoeCamel]

I just watched your most recent Space Mountain tribute this weekend. It’s a shame the view is gone, but it would be forgivable to me if that building was being used for anything of value to the guest at all. Instead? Another gift shop.

$$$ per sq ft is all that matters now

 

[Purduevian]

New low capacity e-tickets don’t alleviate crowding. New highly acclaimed high capacity experiences (like say a new theatre with a Broadway style show) would alleviate crowding by taking more guests off the midways then the extra guests coming to the park only because of that experience.

Tron would actually pull more people away from other attractions/walkways more consistently than a large theater.
The Hyperion at DCA holds ~2,000 people. The show usually ran 3 shows a day. As MK is busier than DCA lets give it 5 shows a day for a total daily capacity of 10,000 people. Also remember that they will cut off the line at 2,000 people waiting in line.
So a theater has

• Daily capacity of 10,000 people
• Holds 2,000 people max

Compare that to Tron which has an hourly capacity of ~1,600 people per hour. Can run 7 trains at 14 people per train for 98 people on the ride. However, Tron will hold a TON of people in it's line... ~1,600 for an hour wait.
If Tron has a 1 hour and 15 minute line AND MK operates for 12 hours:

• Daily capacity of 19,200 people
• Holds 2,000 people (more if line is longer than 75 minutes)

 

[Touchdown]

Tron would actually pull more people away from other attractions/walkways more consistently than a large theater.
The Hyperion at DCA holds ~2,000 people. The show usually ran 3 shows a day. As MK is busier than DCA lets give it 5 shows a day for a total daily capacity of 10,000 people. Also remember that they will cut off the line at 2,000 people waiting in line.
So a theater has

• Daily capacity of 10,000 people
• Holds 2,000 people max

Compare that to Tron which has an hourly capacity of ~1,600 people per hour. Can run 7 trains at 14 people per train for 98 people on the ride. However, Tron will hold a TON of people in it's line... ~1,600 for an hour wait.
If Tron has a 1 hour and 15 minute line AND MK operates for 12 hours:

• Daily capacity of 19,200 people
• Holds 2,000 people (more if line is longer than 75 minutes)

Except your not acounting for the fact Tron will attract more people to MK to ride the new ride which will wipe out that small advantage and then some.

 

[Purduevian]

Except your not acounting for the fact Tron will attract more people to MK to ride the new ride which will wipe out that small advantage and then some.

Tron will attract an extra 9000 a day over adding a theater?? Remember the average MK day in 2019 was ~57,500 people. Do you really thing Tron will give MK a 15% boost in attendance?

 

[SplashJacket]

Tron would actually pull more people away from other attractions/walkways more consistently than a large theater.
The Hyperion at DCA holds ~2,000 people. The show usually ran 3 shows a day. As MK is busier than DCA lets give it 5 shows a day for a total daily capacity of 10,000 people. Also remember that they will cut off the line at 2,000 people waiting in line.
So a theater has

• Daily capacity of 10,000 people
• Holds 2,000 people max

Compare that to Tron which has an hourly capacity of ~1,600 people per hour. Can run 7 trains at 14 people per train for 98 people on the ride. However, Tron will hold a TON of people in it's line... ~1,600 for an hour wait.
If Tron has a 1 hour and 15 minute line AND MK operates for 12 hours:

• Daily capacity of 19,200 people
• Holds 2,000 people (more if line is longer than 75 minutes)

The main issue with the line calculation is Fastpass artificially inflates weight times, so you can have 400 people in line for a 1600 people per hour capacity and still have an hour wait because of Fastpass if they're running a 75-25 split.

 

[CastAStone]

The main issue with the line calculation is Fastpass artificially inflates weight times, so you can have 400 people in line for a 1600 people per hour capacity and still have an hour wait because of Fastpass if they're running a 75-25 split.

What’s FastPass?

 

[Purduevian]

The main issue with the line calculation is Fastpass artificially inflates weight times, so you can have 400 people in line for a 1600 people per hour capacity and still have an hour wait because of Fastpass if they're running a 75-25 split.

Ok, I'll look at this with fastpass first, then I will use a different method. Daily capacity does not change for Tron (19,200), but the amount of people soaked up does.
1) Tron with FP

• People on ride (98 people)
• People in a 120 minute standby line (with 25% capacity allocation) 800 people
• People in a 15 minute Fastpass line (with 75% capacity allocation) 300 people

Total people soaked up is now down to ~1200 people. However there is still a advantage to Tron... it will soak up the 1200ish people for about 12 hours a day.

Now bear with me, this math will be a little weird, I'm going to look into how much Guest time is spent per day per attraction (AKA not doing other things).
Also, I looked it up and Frozen NEVER has run more than 3 shows a day, so I'm going to switch to 3 shows a day (Daily capacity down to 6,000 people).

• 90minutes per standby guest per show
  • 90*1000*3= 270,000 guest minutes
• 65 minutes per fastpass guest per show
  • 65*1000*3=195000
• Total = 465,000 guest minutes spent at the theater per day

Tron:

• 90 minutes per standby guest *number of standby guests per hour *Hours of operation
  • 90*400*12= 432,000 guest minutes
• 15 minutes per fastpass guest*number of fp guests per hour*hours of operation
  • 15*1200*12 =216,000 guests minutes
• Total= 648,000 guest minutes spent at the ride per day

A lot of this math gives advantage to the theater:

• About an hour long show, Frozen at DCA is 55 mins, Aladdin was 45
• Theater standby guests arrive an average of 30 minutes preshow
• Only a 90 minute line for Tron on most days (this will be more popular than 7D I think)
• 75% FP allocation

Final point, the soaking of crowds scales with business for tron, it does not for a theater. On a busier day the Tron line will get longer and more people will be soaked up. Considering Frozen only ran 3 shows on NYE in 2019 and 2020 I don't think DCA was able to hold a fourth show a day even at the busiest of days.

 

[larryz]

Ok, I'll look at this with fastpass first, then I will use a different method. Daily capacity does not change for Tron (19,200), but the amount of people soaked up does.
1) Tron with FP

• People on ride (98 people)
• People in a 120 minute standby line (with 25% capacity allocation) 800 people
• People in a 15 minute Fastpass line (with 75% capacity allocation) 300 people

Total people soaked up is now down to ~1200 people. However there is still a advantage to Tron... it will soak up the 1200ish people for about 12 hours a day.

Now bear with me, this math will be a little weird, I'm going to look into how much Guest time is spent per day per attraction (AKA not doing other things).
Also, I looked it up and Frozen NEVER has run more than 3 shows a day, so I'm going to switch to 3 shows a day (Daily capacity down to 6,000 people).

• 90minutes per standby guest per show
  • 90*1000*3= 270,000 guest minutes
• 65 minutes per fastpass guest per show
  • 65*1000*3=195000
• Total = 465,000 guest minutes spent at the theater per day

Tron:

• 90 minutes per standby guest *number of standby guests per hour *Hours of operation
  • 90*400*12= 432,000 guest minutes
• 15 minutes per fastpass guest*number of fp guests per hour*hours of operation
  • 15*1200*12 =216,000 guests minutes
• Total= 648,000 guest minutes spent at the ride per day

A lot of this math gives advantage to the theater:

• About an hour long show, Frozen at DCA is 55 mins, Aladdin was 45
• Theater standby guests arrive an average of 30 minutes preshow
• Only a 90 minute line for Tron on most days (this will be more popular than 7D I think)
• 75% FP allocation

Final point, the soaking of crowds scales with business for tron, it does not for a theater. On a busier day the Tron line will get longer and more people will be soaked up. Considering Frozen only ran 3 shows on NYE in 2019 and 2020 I don't think DCA was able to hold a fourth show a day even at the busiest of days.

Sorry, I only do math when I'm brewing beer, and I don't brew beer without first drinking a beer so I can't do the math.