That's why insiders don't make judgments on a ride's popularity solely by its wait time. You need to know its capacity in order to make a true, "apples to apples" comparison with other rides and shows.
The issue of capacity lies at the heart of my Orange County Register column this week, Why Disney created 'Frozen – Live at the Hyperion'. With 2,000 people packing every performance and Fastpasses for the shows disappearing early in the day, Disney's new Frozen show in California Adventure looks like a hit. As it should be. It's a fun show, filled with visual delights.
But from an operational perspective, big theater shows that only play a few times a day aren't the crowd-soaking workhorses that theme park need to keep lines from backing up all over the park. As popular as the new Frozen show appears to be, it will accommodate only the equivalent of about 667 visitors per hour of park operation — not much better than some carnival spinner rides. Ultimately, that 2,000-guest show capacity is done in by the fact that the production won't play more than five times a day.
For truly high hourly capacities, cycle time is everything. The more units you move in an hour (whether they be roller coaster trains, boats, or shows), the more people you put through. Ultimately, the number of people per unit isn't as important as the number of units you move. That's a lesson I learned driving Tom Sawyer Island rafts at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom, as I explained in my blog post, Drowning under short-term thinking. (Which, BTW, is one of the many stories about working at Walt Disney World that are included in my book, Stories from a Theme Park Insider. /plug )
So, to answer the question implicitly asked in the headline of my Register column... why did Disney create 'Frozen – Live at the Hyperion', if it wasn't to draw in massive numbers of visitors every hour?
Franchise protection.
Disney needed a Frozen-themed attraction that drew more people per hour than the Anna and Elsa meet-and-greet and that also would draw more people to the resort than the sing-along show it pulled together quickly in the old Muppets theater. Switching from Aladdin to Frozen allowed Disney to better justify staging that big, expensive musical show, as it would support a franchise that's still selling tons of merchandise and building anticipation for a sequel. And Disney still could do it for less than the price of building a new, higher-capacity Frozen-themed attraction from scratch.
Either way you get to the end result, every decision in theme park business pretty much comes down to the math.
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We'll see and check back next fall to see whether I got it right.
The long term popularity of this show is a big unknown right now, and when crowds begin to taper off I hope they are more due to everyone having seen it and less due to many people giving up after being unable to see it on several consecutive visits. I also hope Disney has a backup plan in case the show fails, as it would be a shame to leave that theater empty. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if it's pre-planned as a 5 year show, with some type of Marvel show moving in once the area around the theater becomes Marvel Land and the Frozen ride opens in Fantasyland, but we'll have to wait and see on that one.
And, while I'm sure that the Aladdin show was just as good as everyone says it is, I'm sure all this criticism of this new Frozen show is really just because everyone is wearing their nostalgia goggles too tightly. If the Frozen show was really bad, than people would have a good reason to be as upset as they are. But I've honestly heard nothing but good stuff from the people who have actually, physically seen it. With that in mind, shouldn't we be applauding Disney instead of chastizing them? This feels like something we've been asking from them for a while; a new attraction that's not just some small time-killer but something spectacular, with groundbreaking special effects. Are we really just so fed up with Iger at this point that we're even gonna criticize him for turning out a good product? I think we just need to take off our nostalgia goggles for a little bit and judge this show as it's own thing, and not just as an attempt to replace Aladdin with something more fresh.
Finally, I'd like to confess something. This isn't so much as me trying to convince anyone of anything and more along the lines of me just getting something off my chest. I would kinda prefer to see a Frozen show over an Aladdin show. And I know I'm about to put my credibility as a Disney fan into question but....I think Frozen is a better movie than Aladdin (queue fanboy rage). Don't get me wrong, Aladdin is an amazing movie. I still enjoy it just as much now as I did as a kid! But Frozen just completely blew me away when I saw it in theaters. I even went as far as to buy it on Blu-Ray! The only thing I feel Aladdin does better than Frozen is it's comedy, but that's because Aladdin had the advantage of Robin Williams. But everything else I think Frozen did better. Exhibit A: the animation. I do miss the traditional hand-drawn animation and still hope it'll make a spectacular comeback, but as much as I don't like to admit it I do think CG animation looks a lot better. The attention-to-detail in Frozen is amazing! Next time you watch it, pay attention to some of the details on the human characters in terms of how they move and react to certain things.Exhibit B: the songs. Aladdin's soundtrack is certainly hard to beat; especially considering it has some true Disney classics like Friend Like Me and A Whole New World. But Frozen managed to pull it off pretty well. There is maybe one or two songs I don't particularly care for, but for the most part they all hit bullseye. When I got home from the theater, I almost immediately went onto YouTube and played Let It Go over and over. Exhibit C: the story. Now, Aladdin managed to pack in a lot of action, romance, drama and comedy. Something very hard to do in a kid's movie that's not even two hours long. And it told a pretty good message as well! But when you get down to it, it was really just another story about a poor boy and a rich girl falling in love despite being from completely different backgrounds, which is something we've seen plenty of times. Nothing wrong with that, it's just not very original. Frozen, on the other hand, told a completely new story that went in lots of different directions that I don't think any Disney film prior to this has went before. Although admittedly it's not perfect by any means (the King and Queen of Arendelle are probably some of the worst parents I've ever seen). But it's got great action, drama and comedy, and it's nice to see a traditional Disney Princess film where the main relationship isn't a romance between a boy and a girl (although they still have that) but rather it's the love of two sisters (although it seems that some fanfiction writers and fan artists have interpreted that "sisterly love" in a completely different way). And the message is a lot stronger. The story gets very deep and intriguing with many hidden themes, for example Elsa's powers and her psychological need to be isolated from the rest of the world could be a metaphor for anyone who's ever hidden from society because they feel different. Such as, say, someone with Autism or a homosexual (which would probably explain all the fanfiction and fanart).
Yes, it is pretty annoying how Disney feels the need to slap Frozen on everything they possibly can. But I feel we get so caught up in being annoyed by it that we often forget what a masterpiece it truly is.
Disneyland is a special case as it is a fandom park with over 1 million annual passholders. DL needs to cater to the fans, while WDW with its primarily tourist clientele doesn't. If DL is not paying to the rabid SoCal Disney fandom base then they're just doing bad business.
But every little girl loves Frozen, in many ways this film will ring true with generation after generation of little girls who love Disney, the same way most boys fall in love with Star Wars. As a father of a 5 year old girl myself, I love how my daughter identifies with this film, and sings the songs lyric for lyric every day. To create a show at Disneyland that celebrates this fantastic film for all it's fans, young and old (myself included) is just a natural progression and as many have said, just good business.
The Tarzan musical show at Disney's Animal Kingdom was spectacular, as was the Hunchback of Notre Dame musical at MGM Studios many years ago, and they played to packed stadiums most showings. But time moves on, and Disney has to change with the times according to what's popular now, and what properties are timeless enough to devote millions of dollars in production and development costs.
Unless Frozen 2 is an absolute BOMB at the box office (and who in their right minds would figure that?) then I think Frozen themed attractions at DL/DCA and WDW are well worth Disney throwing their eggs into that basket for many years to come.
Many questioned Disney buying Lucasfilm and Marvel in the beginning and we all know how that's turning out year after year.
There may have been times during the Michael Eisner years where you could question Disney business decisions in film and at the parks, but with people like John Lasseter heading up Disney Animation, Kathleen Kennedy at Lucasfilm and Bob Iger heading the whole show, the best bet you have is to buy Disney stock now, because the next few years are going to be dandy for all concerned.
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You said that every decision in theme park business comes down to the math, but you also said that the reason Disney decided on a Frozen show was to protect the franchise. Disneyland Resort was already getting Frozen overload with the show in the Princess Fantasy Faire and the sing along in DCA. Maybe you can tell me if the sing along was still drawing big crowds, my feeling was that it wasn't after a while. To me this Frozen musical isn't THAT big an improvement over the other shows, (except Elsa is really singing this time, vs. the two guys in Fantasy Faire).
If they really wanted to keep people excited, they should have built the Frozen ride in the Motor Boat Cruise area. But make it an E ticket, not a D ticket like the Little Mermaid ride. But I guess they can only do one big thing at a time, maybe after Star Wars Land.