Disney Parks laying off 28,000 cast members

[New Mouse]

Disney isn’t going bankrupt, for one.

Second, why would they lay off a ton of people, many of whom are critical to running the parks, unless they had no choice?

Why would they gut entire department (photopass) of a product that they have already sold to thousands of people?

 

[WorldOfPooh]

How would you specifically run things differently?

I also seriously beg to differ that he “destroyed” the Star Wars franchise. I am a lifelong SW fan and love Star Wars land.

I'm talking about the last 3 movies.
When George Lucas hates it and Mark Hamill hates what they did to his character something is wrong.

I don't mind Star Wars Land although I hope they redress it to the original trilogy which can be easily done.

 

[mercuryvenus]

I'm talking about the last 3 movies.
When George Lucas hates it and Mark Hamill hates what they did to his character something is wrong.

I don't mind Star Wars Land although I hope they redress it to the original trilogy which can be easily done.

Ok well, I adore the last 3 movies. Agree to differ.

Star Wars land is a big reason why a new generation loves Star Wars. So you have to choose between having the original trilogy stand alone and having Star Wars become obscure, or letting Disney do what it does well, which is to promote franchises to new generations.

 

[Tiggerette]

Disney isn’t going bankrupt, for one.

Second, why would they lay off a ton of people, many of whom are critical to running the parks, unless they had no choice?

Not disagreeing with you- I think another answer to the layoffs are a possible pivot to offering different experiences that work well in a physically distanced environment.
Side note: I noticed that Star Wars Celebration (organized by ReedPop, but it Disney/LFL IP) and D23 expos were both moved to late summer 2022. These are indoor only experiences due to the convention center use, so there is some organizational ceding that mid-2021 is not going to have a "magical disappearance" or mitigation of the virus to the extent transmission/physical distancing won't be a significant factor.

I think another answer to "why" is an actual metric for executives to show to local, state and federal officials the economic and personal (to the employees) impacts. I realize this is perhaps cruel way to look at the layoffs. But, to your point, this action is now on the record that the company cannot persist as-is in the current environment.

 

[rteetz]

I honestly don't think that it would be a bad thing. They need to go back to Walt's values of treating the guest as king, providing a value and not nickel and diming every single thing. Eger basically squeezed every single cent they could from the Disney loyalists and now with the reduced offerings, it's just not a value to have to pay for hotel parking, reduced Annual Pass value, etc, etc, etc.

They need to shift the paradigm and vision at this point if they want to woo back a loyal fan base and customer base. (plus he destroyed Twin Peaks by his own admission in his book and now the Star Wars franchise)

And Apple would do better? Yeah ok....

 

[rteetz]

Why would they gut entire department (photopass) of a product that they have already sold to thousands of people?

Because the majority of the use for it right now is ride photos. You still have some staff on Main Street but you don’t need that full staff right now. Without meet and greets especially. We have no idea when that will come back either.

 

[Brianstl]

How would you specifically run things differently?

I also seriously beg to differ that he “destroyed” the Star Wars franchise. I am a lifelong SW fan and love Star Wars land.

Also, remember that you used to have to pay by the ride at Disneyland/WDW — talk about nickel and diming! Who invented that system? Walt.

Walt didn’t invent that system, that is the way it was at all theme/amusement parks at that time and throughout theme/amusement park history to that point. Disney was actually at the forefront of eliminating the pay per ride system.

 

[mercuryvenus]

Walt didn’t invent that system, that is the way it was at all theme/amusement parks at that time and throughout theme/amusement park history to that point. Disney was actually at the forefront of eliminating the pay per ride system.

Walt still adopted it; he could’ve done it some other way. My point is that I think this notion that Disney nickel and dimes more now than it did before is a bit overblown.

 

[mercuryvenus]

Not disagreeing with you- I think another answer to the layoffs are a possible pivot to offering different experiences that work well in a physically distanced environment.
Side note: I noticed that Star Wars Celebration (organized by ReedPop, but it Disney/LFL IP) and D23 expos were both moved to late summer 2022. These are indoor only experiences due to the convention center use, so there is some organizational ceding that mid-2021 is not going to have a "magical disappearance" or mitigation of the virus to the extent transmission/physical distancing won't be a significant factor.

I think another answer to "why" is an actual metric for executives to show to local, state and federal officials the economic and personal (to the employees) impacts. I realize this is perhaps cruel way to look at the layoffs. But, to your point, this action is now on the record that the company cannot persist as-is in the current environment.

Yes, I think there’s a lot of messaging happening right now to California — Newsom in particular. Disney is clearly pissed and wants to pressure CA to let them open Disneyland.

 

[JediKnightXan]

What I think this makes very clear, is that Disney does not think people will be back in significant numbers for a long time. People will not be visiting the parks because they can't due to COVID, or just the economic situation of the world. Additionally IF the California radius rules are true, Disneyland, will likely be shut down to any non Californian's until there is a vaccine, and still likely a while after that (so depending on your news source, sometime between November and never). Airlines have already cut back services, and it is likely more cuts are coming (United put 32,000 employees of furlough today), which is going to make it even harder for people to get to the parks.

Even if a vaccine comes out tomorrow, layoffs/reduced hours/paycuts are happening all over right now, and vacation budgets will likely suffer, and with Disney being a very expensive vacation, it will likely be hurt more than less expensive vacation options.

Losing all of the experience of the CMs is going to hurt the company and the experience. Its going to be a long long time to get that level of experience back. However what this is doing is letting Disney save capitol/money, so when things get better and return to "normal", the company will be in a much better position to respond, and ramp up where and when it makes sense to do so rather than trying to bring the whole machine back up at once.

When the parks first shut down I remember reading some articles that the company wasn't in all that bad of shape. The debt they took on to buy Fox is hurting them, but they had/have several lines of credit they could draw upon if needed. So the company isn't in any real risk of bankruptcy, but if they took on more debt would make it harder to invest in the company and the experience down the line.

While government assistance likely helped, the fact that they kept folks on for six months while the parks were shut down is impressive, it also shows this was not a knee jerk reaction. Could things have been handled better, I am sure they could have. But the company, and the world, has been put in a real bad place right now, and this is just part of the "new normal" at least for a while.

I chose to trust that the pixie dust will be back someday, hopefully it is sooner than later. I hate that this happened and reminds me how lucky I am to still have a job with all this going on, even with pay reductions. I hope everyone impacted by this is able to find work quickly, and lands on their feet.

 

[Brianstl]

And Apple would do better? Yeah ok....

Apple does a great job of focusing on customer experience with the use of their products and doesn’t cut corners on artistic design. Somethings Disney used to excel at.

That said, I don’t think Apple will buy Disney. I used to think if they thought regulators would approve they would, but I now think that time has past.

 

[rteetz]

Apple does a great job of focusing on customer experience with the use of their products and doesn’t cut corners on artistic design. Somethings Disney used to excel at.

That said, I don’t think Apple will buy Disney. I used to think if they thought regulators would approve they would, but I now think that time has past.

Disney doesn’t cut on design in terms of spending. What they need to do is spend that money more wisely. Most of not all of Disney’s projects are designed well. It’s the substance that may fail. Dino land for example. Designed extremely well for what it is but lack the draw. They spent money and time making the asphalt aged a certain way.

 

[Brianstl]

Disney doesn’t cut on design in terms of spending. What they need to do is spend that money more wisely. Most of not all of Disney’s projects are designed well. It’s the substance that may fail. Dino land for example. Designed extremely well for what it is but lack the draw. They spent money and time making the asphalt aged a certain way.

They didn’t think it out very well either. That asphalt in what was already felt like the hottest theme park on earth wasn’t a great idea.

I think think the imagineers had become very good at doing more with less over the past almost two decades. While I think SWGE is nice, I think the cuts really prevented it from being something really amazing. A company like Apple would have rolled out something like SWGE and not have it totally blow away. It would have blown away people that didn’t even really care about Star Wars.

 

[rteetz]

They didn’t think it out very well either. That asphalt in what was already felt like the hottest theme park on earth wasn’t a great idea.

I think think the imagineers had become very good at doing more with less over the past almost two decades. While I think SWGE is nice, I think the cuts really prevented it from being something really amazing. A company like Apple would have rolled out something like SWGE and not have it totally blow away. It would have blown away people that didn’t even really care about Star Wars.

I don’t have faith in a company that is not in the entertainment business coming in and running Disney parks. Comcast seems to be an outlier but in many ways they just let Universal do what they could while also poaching some of that Disney talent. I think Comcast has learned the value of the theme parks over time. Disney often takes their theme parks for granted.

 

[J-BOY]

Apple does a great job of focusing on customer experience with the use of their products and doesn’t cut corners on artistic design. Somethings Disney used to excel at.

That said, I don’t think Apple will buy Disney. I used to think if they thought regulators would approve they would, but I now think that time has past.

You should talk to serious Apple fans about this. I think they’d disagree with you.

 

[1lilspark]

What exactly is the Imagineering thats being let go in large numbers? For parks? Animation? All of it?

Im not sure what it entails

the person i follow on socials that was let go was working on Galactic Starcruiser

stuff i'm reading on twitter.... so take it with a grain of salt.

Photopass in Disneyland is gone.
Photopass at WDW reduced about 90%
Mini-Van drives all eliminated.

I'm in the camp of this being a "planned restructuring" that the virus exacerbated, so they just went ahead and decided to take the whole PR hit in one blast. If you are cutting because business is slow you take a few people from here, a few from there.... you don't just ax whole departments. Seems to me that Chapek isn't interested in anyone not loading you onto a ride, cleaning your room, or serving your food. Extra experiences, embellishments, that little sprinkle of magic that sets Disney apart........... gone.

I read that Photopass was completely cut which if true I wonder if and how they will compensate those with APs that had that baked in to the cost... probably nothing

 

[only hope]

Walt didn’t invent that system, that is the way it was at all theme/amusement parks at that time and throughout theme/amusement park history to that point. Disney was actually at the forefront of eliminating the pay per ride system.

Walt still adopted it; he could’ve done it some other way. My point is that I think this notion that Disney nickel and dimes more now than it did before is a bit overblown.

The good thing about pay per ride was people who weren’t interested in rides/many of the rides could still come in and enjoy the park with their family without paying a ton of money. I’m not advocating for a return to that system, just saying there were advantages.

 

[WorldOfPooh]

Apple does a great job of focusing on customer experience with the use of their products and doesn’t cut corners on artistic design. Somethings Disney used to excel at.

That said, I don’t think Apple will buy Disney. I used to think if they thought regulators would approve they would, but I now think that time has past.

When Chik Fil a has a better customer experience than Disney, you know there's a problem.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

If they are laid off isn’t there a possibility they could be called back? Yes it may be a while but people would have the choice to leave their new job (if they find one) and return. Especially those who love Disney. The more dedicated CMs. I know some or most will never return or move away to find work in areas that aren’t related to travel industry. But I hope there’s a chance some of the CMs can return.

 

[rteetz]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1311995779385561088