WDW Theme Park Attendance Figures - on a daily basis?

[seema]

It would be interesting to know the daily attendance figures, for the WDW theme parks, on a daily basis. Unfortunately, WDW does not release these figures (why not?); the web sites just have generic information about high, moderate, and low attendance periods in the year, for the theme parks.

With specific (on a day-to-day) attendance information, one can plan one's attendance, in such a way, to minimize one's wait, at busy attractions (in addition to using Fast Pass, once one arrives there).

 

[WDSearcher]

Originally posted by seema
With specific (on a day-to-day) attendance information, one can plan one's attendance, in such a way, to minimize one's wait, at busy attractions (in addition to using Fast Pass, once one arrives there).

Not really. First of all, you're assuming that if a given day had X number of people in attendance in 2002 that the same day in 2003 will have the same attendance. Not likely. A huge convention could show up in 2003 that wasn't there the year before. There's no way to plan for stuff like that, regardless of how accurate your attendance numbers are. You could show up on the day historically shown to be the lowest attendance day of the year and find yourself shoulder-to-shoulder with 30 busloads of cheerleaders, all waiting to ride Space Mountain.

Secondly, unless there's a HUGE difference day-to-day, it honestly won't make any difference to the average guest. If, for example, one day has 24,000 people and the next day has 26,000 people, you won't really notice a difference. Mostly because, even though you have the attendance numbers, you don't know when those people are actually IN the park, or which park they're in at any given moment. They could have come into MK first thing in the AM -- which means they're counted as MK guests -- done their Princess Breakfast and then headed to a water park for the rest of the day. So, even though they're counted as part of the attendance figure, they're not impacting your day at all.

The only time attendance truly comes into play is if you're trying to decide between a day that's a holiday and a day that's not. (The holiday will always be more crowded, and it will be noticeable.) The rest of the year, the day-to-day doesn't buy you anything, and will just cause you to over-plan.

 

[BrianD]

In general, we already know what days are more crowded than others. For example, we know that MK is usually PACKED on Saturdays, and that Extra Magic Hour parks tend to run more crowded, and, as the other poster mentioned, holidays will always be more crowded because more people have that time to go visit theme parks, etc.

 

[raidermatt]

I think all the original poster was saying is that if we had the daily attendance figures, we could forecast out daily attendance if we really wanted to, just like Disney does.

Yes, you have to allow for what day of the week it is, and where holidays fall, etc, etc, etc. But it could still be useful information if one wanted to go through the trouble of using it, and especially if one already had an idea about the daily ebb and flow within the parks.

It would be nice for those who wanted to use the info.

Yes, you can still plan your trip effectively without it...

 

[BigTigger]

Disney has a very impressive Executive Information System (EIS) system that is used to track crowds in the parks, on rides, at restaurants, etc. It allows them to be responsive to demand in a more elastic way (opening the second side on Primeval Whirl, the Blue side on Space Mountain, etc.). I'm sure the reason they don't release the information is that it gives them a competitive advantage. When Universal opened Islands of Adventure, one of the computer trade press magazines trumpeted there new EIS system. Disney had never admitted to having one publicly, but soon allowed a reporter from Info Week to write about Disney's IT innovations. Included in the artlicle was a lot about planning for the new California Adventure park, the logistics center in Florida and there systems, and some marketing system information on how they profile annual passholders. It was very interesting reading, but alas I can't find the issue in hard copy or on the website to reference here.

 

[Calcio]

Remember that publicly traded corporations are required by the SEC to report financial information by business segment. For the Walt Disney Company that means they must report information for their theme parks segment, among others.

Disney competitors go through this information with a fine comb, looking for anything that increases their knowledge of Disney operations. Disney, of course, does the same thing for their competitors like Universal and Sea World (segments of Vivendi and Anheuser-Busch).

So, the goal is to report sufficient information to satisfy laws, regulations, and the SEC. While at the same time publishing absolutely nothing to help competitors.

If you look at this information in 10-K filings, you'll see revenue, operating expenses, operating profit, and assets, but no attendance figures. The fear is competitors could use such information in their marketing efforts against you.

Does Disney carefully track their attendance information by month, day, hour, and weather? Absolutely. This information is highly proprietary, and none of our business!

 

[erikthewise]

While daily attendance figures are not available, average daily attendance can be computed from annual figures from e.g. http://www.saferparks.org/attendance.htm

I don't know where they get their data but let's assume it's reasonably accurate. Dividing the numbers for the 4 WDW parks by 365, we get

<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD>Park</TD>
<TD>Yearly</TD>
<TD>Daily</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD>MK</TD>
<TD>14.8M</TD>
<TD>40K</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD>Epcot</TD>
<TD>9.0M</TD>
<TD>24K</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD>MGM</TD>
<TD>8.4M</TD>
<TD>23K</TD>
</TR>
<TR>
<TD>AK</TD>
<TD>7.8M</TD>
<TD>21K</TD>
</TR>
</TABLE>

I've seen posts by CMs claiming that on very busy days MK attendance can be 100K or more, but that WDW never releases such figures. Of course the actual number of people in the park at any given time is somewhat lower.