Rivers of Light opening delayed

[newdeal]

Hearing all these things being delayed, and cut, and with how Shanghai is going makes me want to sell my Disney Stock. I don't understand how Disney is struggling... The management should be ashamed.

Disney isn't struggling, its making record profits

 

[rteetz]

Hearing all these things being delayed, and cut, and with how Shanghai is going makes me want to sell my Disney Stock. I don't understand how Disney is struggling... The management should be ashamed.

Disney isn't struggling they just like to act like they are for some reason.

 

[goofy4prez]

Hearing all these things being delayed, and cut, and with how Shanghai is going makes me want to sell my Disney Stock. I don't understand how Disney is struggling... The management should be ashamed.

I owned an insurance agency for years, I sure wish I would have struggled like Disney is right now... While I'm not an apologist for Disney and certainly love Disney; I don't always agree with them, and I still stand behind what I said earlier about Disney delays whether legit or because of fiscal periods, but with Disney raking in unbelievable and staggering profits management has nothing to be ashamed of. As a share holder I'm rather pleased right now with how it's doing.

 

[LaidBackDad]

I just can't help wondering how much this ROL delay had to do with Staggs curious resignation? The timing seems to be too much of a coincidence. By any objective standard, this delay is a colossal fail for Disney and a huge embarrassment. While this delay alone probably wouldn't have derailed his career, plenty of other considerations as mentioned in the "Staggs resignation thread" contributed to it. I just wonder if ROL wasn't the straw that broke the camels back. Getting egg thrown in their face (again) because of a monumental screw up at the largest vacation destination in the world couldn't have sat well with Iger or the board.

 

[rteetz]

I just can't help wondering how much this ROL delay had to do with Staggs curious resignation? The timing seems to be too much of a coincidence. By any objective standard, this delay is a colossal fail for Disney and a huge embarrassment. While this delay alone probably wouldn't have derailed his career, plenty of other considerations as mentioned in the "Staggs resignation thread" contributed to it. I just wonder if ROL wasn't the straw that broke the camels back. Getting egg thrown in their face (again) because of a monumental screw up at the largest vacation destination in the world couldn't have sat well with Iger or the board.

Staggs resigning has nothing to do with RoL delays. This is pure technical problems. Staggs is/was COO of a major entertainment company. RoL was probably very minor in much bigger things that staggs was working on.

 

[LaidBackDad]

Staggs resigning has nothing to do with RoL delays. This is pure technical problems. Staggs is/was COO of a major entertainment company. RoL was probably very minor in much bigger things that staggs was working on.

I wouldn't underestimate the enormity of embarrassment, lost revenue, and other problems this delay has caused. That would be like underestimating how much technical resources would actually be required to open RoL on time. As others have eluded to, cut backs in other areas, slow construction, and other decisions attributed to him are responsibilities falls directly on the shoulders of the COO. That's the beauty of being an upper level executive you can try to pass blame onto subordinates but eventually, the buck stops somewhere. There is no denying the delay is an epic fail. Heads will roll if they haven't already and Staggs may have been one of them.

 

[Eoghann]

I wouldn't underestimate the enormity of embarrassment, lost revenue, and other problems this delay has caused. That would be like underestimating how much technical resources would actually be required to open RoL on time. As others have eluded to, cut backs in other areas, slow construction, and other decisions attributed to him are responsibilities falls directly on the shoulders of the COO. That's the beauty of being an upper level executive you can try to pass blame onto subordinates but eventually, the buck stops somewhere. There is no denying the delay is an epic fail. Heads will roll if they haven't already and Staggs may have been one of them.

This won't cause noticeable lost revenue and it's not closely connected with Staggs anyway.

 

[rteetz]

I wouldn't underestimate the enormity of embarrassment, lost revenue, and other problems this delay has caused. That would be like underestimating how much technical resources would actually be required to open RoL on time. As others have eluded to, cut backs in other areas, slow construction, and other decisions attributed to him are responsibilities falls directly on the shoulders of the COO. That's the beauty of being an upper level executive you can try to pass blame onto subordinates but eventually, the buck stops somewhere. There is no denying the delay is an epic fail. Heads will roll if they haven't already and Staggs may have been one of them.

I understand but if anything caused Staggs to leave its Shanghai. RoL very likely had nothing to do with it. From what I've seen they need to place the Shanghai blame somewhere and Staggs was going to be one of those guys so he left before that could happen. I just don't see how RoL would be the thing that got rid of Staggs. That doesn't make any sense.

 

[Eoghann]

I understand but if anything caused Staggs to leave its Shanghai. RoL very likely had nothing to do with it. From what I've seen they need to place the Shanghai blame somewhere and Staggs was going to be one of those guys so he left before that could happen. I just don't see how RoL would be the thing that got rid of Staggs. That doesn't make any sense.

While its a big deal to those of us on boards like this, RoL is little more than a blip to Disney. Embarrassing sure, but with no real long term consequences unless they were actually unable to solve the technical problems.

 

[anthony2k7]

Does anyone know exactly what the technical issues are?

 

[rteetz]

Does anyone know exactly what the technical issues are?

I think some of it is said to be the GPS technology with the floats.

 

[LaidBackDad]

I understand but if anything caused Staggs to leave its Shanghai. RoL very likely had nothing to do with it. From what I've seen they need to place the Shanghai blame somewhere and Staggs was going to be one of those guys so he left before that could happen. I just don't see how RoL would be the thing that got rid of Staggs. That doesn't make any sense.

We're basically in agreement. Shanghai likely played a role. More likely however, it was a combination of things that led to his resignation. Some things will know, somethings we probably never will. My point is that timing is everything, and the timing of the resignation with the RoL delay says a lot.

This won't cause noticeable lost revenue and it's not closely connected with Staggs anyway.

RoL delay is a huge loss of revenue. Don't forget that extended park hours is connected to the opening of RoL. Every day and every hour the project is delayed signifies lost revenue that can never be recovered. Not to mention the cost overages needed to correct the "technical difficulties" and additional other factors put on hold due to the delay. It seems pretty naive to me to believe that a gargantuan operational snafu like this wouldn't have any blow back on a COO who is already in hot water over other issues.

While its a big deal to those of us on boards like this, RoL is little more than a blip to Disney. Embarrassing sure, but with no real long term consequences unless they were actually unable to solve the technical problems.

Unfortunately, DISer's are the least of their worries. What they do worry about are Wall Street Research firms who follow companies. When a major company fails to deliver a well publicized (and delayed) major new product because of monsterous operational issues, it raise red flags. When a company makes significant operational cut backs for no apparent reason, it raises red flags. When a company has troubling set backs while trying to expand its operations in a foreign country, it raises red flags. I'm not being chicken little here, I know everyone says Disney is fine. No one of these would raise too much alarm; but, you put a bunch of operational issues together and you suddenly might have a reason for a COO to resign.

 

[rteetz]

RoL delay is a huge loss of revenue. Don't forget that extended park hours is connected to the opening of RoL. Every day and every hour the project is delayed signifies lost revenue that can never be recovered. Not to mention the cost overages needed to correct the "technical difficulties" and additional other factors put on hold due to the delay. It seems pretty naive to me to believe that a gargantuan operational snafu like this wouldn't have any blow back on a COO who is already in hot water over other issues.

I think the timing was purely coincidence but that's just me. As for the quoted above I am not so sure it's a hue loss of revenue. You have to take into account the large operational costs of keeping that park open later. AK is their most expensive park operationally. Keeping it open at night is only going to increase those costs.

 

[Eoghann]

We're basically in agreement. Shanghai likely played a role. More likely however, it was a combination of things that led to his resignation. Some things will know, somethings we probably never will. My point is that timing is everything, and the timing of the resignation with the RoL delay says a lot.

RoL delay is a huge loss of revenue. Don't forget that extended park hours is connected to the opening of RoL. Every day and every hour the project is delayed signifies lost revenue that can never be recovered. Not to mention the cost overages needed to correct the "technical difficulties" and additional other factors put on hold due to the delay. It seems pretty naive to me to believe that a gargantuan operational snafu like this wouldn't have any blow back on a COO who is already in hot water over other issues.

Unfortunately, DISer's are the least of their worries. What they do worry about are Wall Street Research firms who follow companies. When a major company fails to deliver a well publicized (and delayed) major new product because of monsterous operational issues, it raise red flags. When a company makes significant operational cut backs for no apparent reason, it raises red flags. When a company has troubling set backs while trying to expand its operations in a foreign country, it raises red flags. I'm not being chicken little here, I know everyone says Disney is fine. No one of these would raise too much alarm; but, you put a bunch of operational issues together and you suddenly might have a reason for a COO to resign.

I think you're wildly off base on this one. It's not a "gargantuan" snafu. It's an embarrassing delay but little more than that. It's not at all clear that extending the night hours without Avatar in play was going to change the revenue much at all, just the times that people were in the park because there's just not that much to do. On the scale of WDW revenue the loss is minimal. Never mind Disney as a whole. Remember they've already spent a billion dollars on Avatar land, that's a far greater cost than this.

Wall Street research firms aren't going to raise red flags over a delayed night time show. RoL hasn't been well publicized at all. It's not featuring in tv advertising or anything like that.

And as far as the operational cut backs, half of them will praise that because it increases RoS.

 

[piccolopat]

Agreed. The priority should be honoring their original release date. If they wanted it to happen, they have enough money to hire more people and make it happen.

Throwing money or more people at a problem is often the wrong solution. New people would probably take way too long to get up to speed on something like this since it has never been done before.

 

[piccolopat]

I think they were surprised. Which may be a sign of some poor project management, but we don't really know enough to judge that.

Stuff like this is supposed to get caught earlier in the process.

Agreed but I've also worked on projects that were on schedule and some of the last fixes actually caused some major problems when we did our regression testing. These were code changes that couldn't be easily unraveled sine they came in with other fixes.

 

[LaidBackDad]

I think the timing was purely coincidence but that's just me. As for the quoted above I am not so sure it's a hue loss of revenue. You have to take into account the large operational costs of keeping that park open later. AK is their most expensive park operationally. Keeping it open at night is only going to increase those costs.

If night time hours are too expensive, and won't make huge money, then why bother with RoL or keeping the park open later anyways? The answer to that rhetorical question is that they have obviously calculated that it is worth the investment. As is constantly pointed out on these boards, Disney doesn't do anything for the fun of it or because DISer's want it. Time is money and every day that goes by is money lost because of "technical glitches" (yes, that means operational problems). Oh... and a lot of people in this world will tell you there is no such thing as a coincidence.

I think you're wildly off base on this one. It's not a "gargantuan" snafu. It's an embarrassing delay but little more than that. It's not at all clear that extending the night hours without Avatar in play was going to change the revenue much at all, just the times that people were in the park because there's just not that much to do. On the scale of WDW revenue the loss is minimal. Never mind Disney as a whole. Remember they've already spent a billion dollars on Avatar land, that's a far greater cost than this.

Wall Street research firms aren't going to raise red flags over a delayed night time show. RoL hasn't been well publicized at all. It's not featuring in tv advertising or anything like that.

And as far as the operational cut backs, half of them will praise that because it increases RoS.

That's a nice way to try to put a positive spin on things but doesn't wash the stink off of the big picture. When you try to break things down to individual or isolated incidents it may not sound as bad. When you take everything together the bigger picture emerges and it's easy to see what a debacle the RoL delay was. A pig is still a pig even if you put lipstick on it.

 

[rteetz]

If night time hours are too expensive, and won't make huge money, then why bother with RoL or keeping the park open later anyways? The answer to that rhetorical question is that they have obviously calculated that it is worth the investment. As is constantly pointed out on these boards, Disney doesn't do anything for the fun of it or because DISer's want it. Time is money and every day that goes by is money lost because of "technical glitches" (yes, that means operational problems). Oh... and a lot of people in this world will tell you there is no such thing as a coincidence.



That's a nice way to try to put a positive spin on things but doesn't wash the stink off of the big picture. When you try to break things down to individual or isolated incidents it may not sound as bad. When you take everything together the bigger picture emerges and it's easy to see what a debacle the RoL delay was. A pig is still a pig even if you put lipstick on it.

Disney is a mega company with so many different divisions or departments. If anything with the parks division had to do with Staggs departure it was Shanghai not RoL. Yes of course Disney will make money by keeping AK open later but they aren't losing any by delaying the opening to get things worked out with RoL. Technical glitches happen. Do you remember what happened to Test Track when it was supposed to open? No COO resigned then. I really don't see how this delay is a big debacle like you say it is. Yes it's disappointing that it's not ready on time, yes people who were hoping to see it wont get to but oh well life goes on.

 

[beer dave]

If night time hours are too expensive, and won't make huge money, then why bother with RoL or keeping the park open later anyways? The answer to that rhetorical question is that they have obviously calculated that it is worth the investment. As is constantly pointed out on these boards, Disney doesn't do anything for the fun of it or because DISer's want it. Time is money and every day that goes by is money lost because of "technical glitches" (yes, that means operational problems). Oh... and a lot of people in this world will tell you there is no such thing as a coincidence.

So if they continued with the scheduled night time openings, but had no Rivers of light show, the delay in opening the show would cost large amounts of revenue, due to the increased operating costs of the park for the evening. However, the delay in ROL is going to postpone the expenditure of keeping the park open later, and thusly not cause huge revenue loss.

 

[LaidBackDad]

Disney is a mega company with so many different divisions or departments. If anything with the parks division had to do with Staggs departure it was Shanghai not RoL. Yes of course Disney will make money by keeping AK open later but they aren't losing any by delaying the opening to get things worked out with RoL. Technical glitches happen. Do you remember what happened to Test Track when it was supposed to open? No COO resigned then. I really don't see how this delay is a big debacle like you say it is. Yes it's disappointing that it's not ready on time, yes people who were hoping to see it wont get to but oh well life goes on.

Your point is taken, all large companies face bumps in the road. Top executives make mistakes yet still survive. That's not the point. When I use word like "gargantuan snafu" and "epic fail" I really am understating the gravity of situation. In the world of big business the only thing that is more important than money is ego. The biggest mistake was setting a date before the show was ready. That can NEVER happen. That embarrassment alone is enough to bruise egos bigger than Staggs. The premature roll out date was likely driven by the rush to start raking in money hand over fist rather than technical advice from experts. Think of it like baseball, you get three strikes before you are out. You can even foul off a few pitches and still stay alive. Problem is, RoL was a big swing and a miss at the wrong time. Strike three... Staggs is outta there!! Timing is everything