2019 Theme Park attendance figures

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And Disney had 1000 reasons why but what clearly happened was they scared regular families away?

I'm curous about this, what did they do to scare families away?

Sounds like a Scooby Doo plot, "and we would have gotten away with if it if wasn't for those d kids"
 
I'm curous about this, what did they do to scare families away?

Sounds like a Scooby Doo plot, "and we would have gotten away with if it if wasn't for those d kids"
They announced the opening of SWGE.

Start here and read the next 10 pages of this thread:
Y’ALL. Star Wars: Galaxy Edge is opening on August 29! What’s everyone’s thoughts? I’m wanting to reschedule because I am not prepared for the massive chaos that going on 9/1-9/8 will bring!
 
They announced the opening of SWGE.

Start here and read the next 10 pages of this thread:
Like I said so strange. Most other parks after adding new lands or attractions draw big crowds from them. I never hear people talk about avoiding a park cause of a new attraction or land. Its why I say Disney fans are a different breed.
 

Like I said so strange. Most other parks after adding new lands or attractions draw big crowds from them. I never hear people talk about avoiding a park cause of a new attraction or land. Its why I say Disney fans are a different breed.
I can't attest to WDW's opening of Star Wars. But for DL, I know many of the decisions behind AP increase, AP park block outs, price increases throughout the park were done because of SWGE. From my experience, I don't think Disney has prepared for a new land to open in the way they did for SWGE. They prepped for major crowds, so people were expecting major crowds, and stayed away.
 
I can't attest to WDW's opening of Star Wars. But for DL, I know many of the decisions behind AP increase, AP park block outs, price increases throughout the park were done because of SWGE. From my experience, I don't think Disney has prepared for a new land to open in the way they did for SWGE. They prepped for major crowds, so people were expecting major crowds, and stayed away.
Yup. No one goes in September because it’s convenient (School has just started) or because the weather is nice (it’s miserable and there’s a decent chance of hurricanes). They go because the crowds are low and perhaps for Food and Wine. Take away the expectation of low crowds and all of the sudden everyone rescheduled for February. Which is what everyone in the thread said they were going to do. And then February was, according to Touringplans, the busiest month in the history of Walt Disney World.
 
I can't attest to WDW's opening of Star Wars. But for DL, I know many of the decisions behind AP increase, AP park block outs, price increases throughout the park were done because of SWGE. From my experience, I don't think Disney has prepared for a new land to open in the way they did for SWGE. They prepped for major crowds, so people were expecting major crowds, and stayed away.
That seems so strange to me. People stay away cause of major crowds at Disney. Yet you look at most other parks people still go for new attractions knowing crowds will be big. Look at Universal, no one had an issue waiting 10 hrs for Hagrids and it didn't keep people away.
 
On WDW slow days it is busier than most of Universal busy days. On WDW busy days it is just down right crazy, so if you are on these threads you know the crowds. If you are someone like myself (who has been to WDW over 50 times) you try to plan your vacations to go when there are certain events you want to attend (like food and wine) but at a time when the crowds may not be so busy.
 
Note: This post is not me trashing SWGE, but thinking about how it could have been better.

Disney is going to backdoor the popularity of Galaxy Edge. It was obviously a bad choice of a location. No one cares about Black Spire Outpost and no one identifies with it. So the immersion factor is probably lower than what it could have been with some other choices. I've written this before and if the 60 people that listen to my podcast are here, they've heard this before too!

Disney may think it needs to rescue Star Wars or at least steer it back to where it could have been, i.e. MCU territory.

You're going to see a flurry of Star Wars content on Disney+ with live action and animated shows. It's going to build up the back story of a new storyline. It's going to lead up to creating a new series of movies and off it goes. Obviously this is speculation, but with all of this activity you're going to see Black Spire Outpost be a thing on shows and cartoons. They are going to try to make it a popular and re-occuring place so that people will want to GO to the land.

If they're successful, you'll probably see a lot of the sequel stuff rethemed.

Anyway, in 3-6 years you'll probably see DHS upticks higher, naturally I think in any case, but then you may see expansion rumors to the land around 2026-2028 if they can make Star Wars super popular again.
 
Note: This post is not me trashing SWGE, but thinking about how it could have been better.

Disney is going to backdoor the popularity of Galaxy Edge. It was obviously a bad choice of a location. No one cares about Black Spire Outpost and no one identifies with it. So the immersion factor is probably lower than what it could have been with some other choices. I've written this before and if the 60 people that listen to my podcast are here, they've heard this before too!

Disney may think it needs to rescue Star Wars or at least steer it back to where it could have been, i.e. MCU territory.

You're going to see a flurry of Star Wars content on Disney+ with live action and animated shows. It's going to build up the back story of a new storyline. It's going to lead up to creating a new series of movies and off it goes. Obviously this is speculation, but with all of this activity you're going to see Black Spire Outpost be a thing on shows and cartoons. They are going to try to make it a popular and re-occuring place so that people will want to GO to the land.

If they're successful, you'll probably see a lot of the sequel stuff rethemed.

Anyway, in 3-6 years you'll probably see DHS upticks higher, naturally I think in any case, but then you may see expansion rumors to the land around 2026-2028 if they can make Star Wars super popular again.

I don't get that argument - "No one cares abotu Blackspire Outpost." That's like saying "No one cares about Adventureland" or any other esoteric idea that themes a land. SWGE clearly fits into the Star Wars univers and shows plenty of similarity to other locations - enough that the average visitor recognizes it and isn't bothered by specifics. What were they going to do? Build Tatooine and cover the ground with sand? It get's everywhere, you know? ;) The only real issue with SWGE is that it opened with the one attraction, and it wasn't very good (and it is set on one of the most iconic sets in SW). Rise of the Resistance is apparently much better and I think we'd have seen an uptick from guests waiting for it to open this year had it not been for the shut-down.
 
Used to really like this report.

Now it just seems pointless with Parks closing for months,and limiting attendance ON Purpose.

I guess its just so 2019.
 
On WDW slow days it is busier than most of Universal busy days. On WDW busy days it is just down right crazy, so if you are on these threads you know the crowds. If you are someone like myself (who has been to WDW over 50 times) you try to plan your vacations to go when there are certain events you want to attend (like food and wine) but at a time when the crowds may not be so busy.
Again Disney fans are a different breed of theme park fan. I go to many parks across the US most summers and for the most part people flock to parks when a new coaster is built. For some strange reason Disney fans stay away when new attractions are built
 
Again Disney fans are a different breed of theme park fan. I go to many parks across the US most summers and for the most part people flock to parks when a new coaster is built. For some strange reason Disney fans stay away when new attractions are built
Just when a partially completed SWGE opens. Who wants to bring their children when the anticipated crowd is tens of thousands of 30-60 year old men? Better to delay the trip to 2020. But then it turned out that the middle aged men wanted to wait until the land was actually complete. Hence a lull in the fall followed by record breaking mobs of people the first 65 days of 2020.
 
Just when a partially completed SWGE opens. Who wants to bring their children when the anticipated crowd is tens of thousands of 30-60 year old men? Better to delay the trip to 2020. But then it turned out that the middle aged men wanted to wait until the land was actually complete. Hence a lull in the fall followed by record breaking mobs of people the first 65 days of 2020.

That's really all it was too - people wanted to wait until it was finished. RotR was supposed to be the better ride anyway. My experience at SWGE though wasn't with the 30 to 60 year olds, but the 20 year olds who were maybe a little "too into" it all.
 
Note: This post is not me trashing SWGE, but thinking about how it could have been better.

Disney is going to backdoor the popularity of Galaxy Edge. It was obviously a bad choice of a location. No one cares about Black Spire Outpost and no one identifies with it. So the immersion factor is probably lower than what it could have been with some other choices. I've written this before and if the 60 people that listen to my podcast are here, they've heard this before too!

Disney may think it needs to rescue Star Wars or at least steer it back to where it could have been, i.e. MCU territory.

You're going to see a flurry of Star Wars content on Disney+ with live action and animated shows. It's going to build up the back story of a new storyline. It's going to lead up to creating a new series of movies and off it goes. Obviously this is speculation, but with all of this activity you're going to see Black Spire Outpost be a thing on shows and cartoons. They are going to try to make it a popular and re-occuring place so that people will want to GO to the land.

If they're successful, you'll probably see a lot of the sequel stuff rethemed.

Anyway, in 3-6 years you'll probably see DHS upticks higher, naturally I think in any case, but then you may see expansion rumors to the land around 2026-2028 if they can make Star Wars super popular again.

I agree with you. They are going to push to make it a "must see" location in the universe.

Which is odd since they already had a few of these to choose from..
 
Which is odd since they already had a few of these to choose from..

To be honest with you, I don't think they have much to choose from. The sequels were terrible and really didn't have any sticking power. What stands out over the three movies? Mostly Kylo Ren and the Falcon. A lot of the other character were forgettable I think, at least over time they will be. This all doesn't matter because they were planning this prior to the movies going live so they wouldn't have known what to chose as a setting.

That leaves the Prequels and the OT.

The Prequels really had no settings that would be fun. You can't make Coruscant, it's way too big and there really isn't a main set piece that stands out. The rest are very transient. Same thing can be said about the OT. Most of the backdrops and places are non-repeating. The only things that are consistent and identifiable are:

Star Destroyers
Death Star
Falcon
Cantina at Mos Eisley

None of these settings can be made into a land. Harry Potter was excellent because there was a city with streets and shops and a castle/school that were in EVERY MOVIE.SWGE has the Falcon and a Cantina so that's done. The star destroyer/deathstar is Rise of the Resistance.

Star Wars world building is all characters and props it has nothing to do with places. It's the force, jedi, sith, stormtroops, death stars, xwings, the falcon, lightsabers and their BrrBrr noise.

So what do you build around that? Really tough call. Might as well me a random place. If you built the whole thing to be Mos Eisley would that attract any more people than SWGE already does? Would you want to see an Ewok Village? Maybe they build a life sized star destroyer and let you walk on board?
 
To be honest with you, I don't think they have much to choose from. The sequels were terrible and really didn't have any sticking power. What stands out over the three movies? Mostly Kylo Ren and the Falcon. A lot of the other character were forgettable I think, at least over time they will be. This all doesn't matter because they were planning this prior to the movies going live so they wouldn't have known what to chose as a setting.

That leaves the Prequels and the OT.

The Prequels really had no settings that would be fun. You can't make Coruscant, it's way too big and there really isn't a main set piece that stands out. The rest are very transient. Same thing can be said about the OT. Most of the backdrops and places are non-repeating. The only things that are consistent and identifiable are:

Star Destroyers
Death Star
Falcon
Cantina at Mos Eisley

None of these settings can be made into a land. Harry Potter was excellent because there was a city with streets and shops and a castle/school that were in EVERY MOVIE.SWGE has the Falcon and a Cantina so that's done. The star destroyer/deathstar is Rise of the Resistance.

Star Wars world building is all characters and props it has nothing to do with places. It's the force, jedi, sith, stormtroops, death stars, xwings, the falcon, lightsabers and their BrrBrr noise.

So what do you build around that? Really tough call. Might as well me a random place. If you built the whole thing to be Mos Eisley would that attract any more people than SWGE already does? Would you want to see an Ewok Village? Maybe they build a life sized star destroyer and let you walk on board?

I agree with you about the SWGE setting - being on Batuu doesn't matter - it's easily recognizable as Star Wars. I haven't ridden it, but as far as I understand RotR takes you on a Star Destroyer, so you get those interiors. They maybe could've changed some of the other interior areas though, but I still feel they tried to evoke the universe and did so pretty well.

I can't agree with you on the ST or PT though - I definitely loved them!
 
Every time someone posts "OT" in this thread that is supposedly about theme park attendance I snicker at the on-point unintentional double meaning.
 
Does the delayed opening of RotR or the fear of crowds for Galaxy’s Edge really explain the flat attendance across all of Disney’s domestic parks last year? Seems to suggest a broader reason - it’s probably giving GE and RotR too much credit to say they alone held back the entire attendance figures for every Disney park in the US. I can buy that they contributed, but not the primary cause.

As I recall, one rationale for the staggered opening was to spread crowds out - let the people who wanted to come see the land first get it out of the way and then everyone else could wait for the second phase (or, cynically, get the diehard fans to show up twice). So does that say that no one really wanted to see the land that badly, or that Disney misjudged the strategy? I still go for the third option - that there’s more to the explanation than just GE.

It’s incredible, though, that DHS had 1 million fewer guests last year than EPCOT (Every Possible Construction Obstacle Thinkable). Yes - the festivals are extremely popular, but a park that’s had no new significant additions in years and was a sea of construction zones and green walls during GE’s opening months still handily outpaced DHS. I thought for sure 2019 was the year that EPCOT fell to last place (after AK leapfrogged you second with Pandora).
 
To be honest with you, I don't think they have much to choose from. The sequels were terrible and really didn't have any sticking power. What stands out over the three movies? Mostly Kylo Ren and the Falcon. A lot of the other character were forgettable I think, at least over time they will be. This all doesn't matter because they were planning this prior to the movies going live so they wouldn't have known what to chose as a setting.

That leaves the Prequels and the OT.

The Prequels really had no settings that would be fun. You can't make Coruscant, it's way too big and there really isn't a main set piece that stands out. The rest are very transient. Same thing can be said about the OT. Most of the backdrops and places are non-repeating. The only things that are consistent and identifiable are:

Star Destroyers
Death Star
Falcon
Cantina at Mos Eisley

None of these settings can be made into a land. Harry Potter was excellent because there was a city with streets and shops and a castle/school that were in EVERY MOVIE.SWGE has the Falcon and a Cantina so that's done. The star destroyer/deathstar is Rise of the Resistance.

Star Wars world building is all characters and props it has nothing to do with places. It's the force, jedi, sith, stormtroops, death stars, xwings, the falcon, lightsabers and their BrrBrr noise.

So what do you build around that? Really tough call. Might as well me a random place. If you built the whole thing to be Mos Eisley would that attract any more people than SWGE already does? Would you want to see an Ewok Village? Maybe they build a life sized star destroyer and let you walk on board?

I think Hoth or Tatooine or a mixture of sites would have done the trick.
 
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