Originally Posted By Darkbeer Here are some attendance numbers for the first month from the MousePlanet archives. Opening Day Attendance for DCA (Thursday, February 8th, 2001)... DCA: 8:00 am - 12:00 pm Estimated Attendance - 38,000 Actual Attendance - 14,000 But here is the amazing thing, Disneyland got more folks that day, even with shorter hours! Disneyland: 10:00 am - 8:00 pm Estimated Attendance - 17,000 Actual Attendance - 17,000 And the rest of the opening weekend got worse.... Friday, February 9th DCA: 8:00 am - 12:00 pm Estimated Attendance - 38,000 Actual Attendance - 11,000 Disneyland: 10:00 am - 10:00 pm Estimated Attendance - 27,000 Actual Attendance - 18,000 Saturday, February 10th DCA: 8:00 am - 12:00 pm Estimated Attendance - 38,000 Actual Attendance - 10,000 Disneyland : 9:00 am - 12:00 pm Estimated Attendance - 38,000 Actual Attendance - 27,000 And of course, two weeks later was a three-day holiday weekend (President's Day) Friday, Feb. 16th: Disneyland operating hours 9 am - 10 pm estimate - 33K actual - 36K DCA operating hours 8 am - 12 midnight estimate - 35K actual - 17K Saturday, Feb. 17th: Disneyland operating hours 8 am - 12 midnight estimate - 43K actual - 43K DCA operating hours 8 am - 12 midnight estimate - 35K actual - 19K Sunday, Feb 18th: Disneyland operating hours 8 am - 12 midnight estimate - 45K actual - 43K DCA operating hours 8 am - 12 midnight estimate - 35K actual - 17K And here is one more day... Friday, February 23 DCA 8 am - 12 am Planned: 31,000 Revised: 15,000 Actual Park Attendance : 11,000 Disneyland 10 am - 10 pm Planned: 29,000 Revised: 29,000 (no revision ahead of time) Actual Park Attendance: 33,000
Originally Posted By Sport Goofy Which still doesn't answer the question about why DL attendance dropped 11% in 2001. Maybe because some folks don't like the answer -- the U.S. economy was in recession in the Spring of 2001 and then the 9/11 attacks happened. Of course, those events never impacted DCA if you believe some narrow-minded people.
Originally Posted By WorldDisney << the place was having problems 7 months PRIOR to September 11th and B. the tourist downturn situation never hurt DL the same way it hurt DCA. >> <<And yet DL attendance, as cited above, was off 11% in 2001 from the previous year. Yet the external factors didn't apply there, right?>> So what you're saying is because DL was off 11% the year before, somehow they should've realized DCA would've been WILDLY off when the park opened by as much as 40%?? It just seems like one excuse after another. The park was E-M-P-T-Y for much of 2001. I know, I was in it lol. And I'm sure DL has been off before, but NOTHING justify's an empty park like DCA was. It's like saying the movie business was down 8% from last year, so of course that explains why no one saw Gigli . I KNOW what you are saying, but all these years on and DCA STILL can't get more than a few HUNDRED full priced admission tickets sold every month when DL still has no problem selling THOUSANDS....6 years later. But the Homeland guy has a 'gut feeling' something bad might happen this summer, so yeah, that's it. (But yeah, this argument is feeling like 2002 again lol. So, I'm out. Bedtime. Goodnight kids )
Originally Posted By Darkbeer <a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2004/08/22/imagineerings_declin.html" target="_blank">http://www.boingboing.net/2004 /08/22/imagineerings_declin.html</a> >>Paul Pressler had convinced everyone on the Parks & Resorts team that Disney's California Adventure would be an unparalleled success. In the days leading up to the opening of California Adventure, the Director of Attractions at Disneyland, Paul Yeargin, openly discussed his concerns that Disney's California Adventure would fill to capacity every day. He thought the resort's biggest problem would be disappointed guests, who, after traveling a great distance to see California Adventure would have to settle for Disneyland instead. Yeargin and other Disneyland executives made decisions based on this premise. Including a now infamous decision by Disneyland Resort President, Cynthia Harriss, to restrict Annual Passholders from using their passes at Disney's California Adventure for the first few months after opening. This decision only served to anger the already disgruntled 400,000 passholders who provide a significant amount of revenue for the resort. Harriss and Yeargin, like many of the Disneyland executives, had followed Pressler over from the Disney Stores and had no previous theme park experience. Then in February 2001, the world saw what had been festering behind closed doors at WDI for the past several years. Disney's California Adventure opening in the old Disneyland parking lot. It was a mix of off-the-shelf carnival rides and film-based attractions. When Walt's close friend and long-time Imagineer, John Hench, saw the park for the first time he said, "I liked it better as a parking lot." WDI would try to fix California Adventure any way they could. They threw attractions at it left and right...Who Wants to be A Millionaire, a bug's land, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, even the Main Street Electrical Parade would come out of moth balls. None of it worked, of course. <<
Originally Posted By Darkbeer <a href="http://mb.laughingplace.com/default.asp?WCI=MsgBoard&WCE=T-82602-P-1&Refresh=1216181736&C=1" target="_blank">http://mb.laughingplace.com/de fault.asp?WCI=MsgBoard&WCE=T-82602-P-1&Refresh=1216181736&C=1</a> Originally Posted by Westsider >>Hey! I went to a "Cast Member Forum" hosted by Paul Yeargin in late 2000 where we talked about DCA and the "future of the Resort"! It was held in the big, fancy conference room on the 4th floor of TDA. There was about 40 of us in the room, mostly CM's who had worked there at least a few years. They showed us video and pictures of DCA on the wall-sized video screen, and then Paul Yeargin opened it up to an informal information session and a Q&A. We talked all about DCA, and Yeargin repeatedly told us that as Attractions Hosts/Hostesses working in Disneyland that our role would be just as vital in 2001 as the Hosts/Hostesses working in DCA. Why, you ask? Because DCA was going to be so popular that it would fill up to capacity, estimated by Yeargin at the time to be about 30,000 people per day, and they would have to close the turnstiles of DCA regularly. Yeargin elaborated that the TDA executive team estimated the turnstile closures would happen for the first 7 to 10 days after DCA opened in February, 2001. And then by mid February the closures would only be happening on weekends for the first 6 or 8 weeks. But by the Easter Vacation period of April, 2001 the turnstile closures would happen again 7 days a week during that traditionally busy time. Then we'd see weekend closures again in May, but by late June we would be back to daily turnstile closures for DCA as its first summer would certainly be extremely busy. Paul Yeargin assured us that our management was preparing for this Guest Service nightmare, and that all of us working in Disneyland would have easy access to "Service Recovery Tools" like coupons for churros or backdoor passes for rides. We would have these at our disposal, and our managers would have access to more expensive options, because there would be so many people inside Disneyland who were upset that DCA had closed their turnstiles before they could get in and they had to "settle for Disneyland". Paul Yeargin wanted to assure us that those of us CM's "who chose to stay behind" at Disneyland wouldn't be forgotten and that our role during DCA's extremely busy first year of operation would be very important since there would be many disapointed guests at Disneyland who couldn't get in to DCA. It was a big pep rally with the message "Don't worry, we won't forget about the struggles you'll be facing in Disneyland in 2001". And at the time, we all totally bought it. Our Cast Member sign-in priveleges were blocked out for DCA for 2001. The Christmas Comp Tickets we got from Michael Eisner in 2000 weren't valid for DCA. Current Annual Passholders had been blocked out from DCA, and it was impossible to even buy a DCA Annual Pass at any price in 2000. DCA was going to be super popular and extremely busy for at least the first few years. Paul Yeargin even shared that there was a plan to add a new spinner ride inside the east end of California Screamin' for 2004, but until then the 2001 roster of attractions, rides, shows, restaurants and entertainment would see the park through its first three years of operation. The funniest thing I remember about that Cast Member Forum was one other CM, a 50 year old lady who had worked at Disneyland since the mid 1970's, and she flatly told Paul Yeargin "That park doesn't look very good. I don't think you guys will need to worry about crowds!". Yeargin laughed at her, and tried to get the rest of us to rally with him and shut her up. Paul Yeargin had a very snotty side to him, and as soon as this highly tenured CM took him off script with her catty remark, he let his snottiness show very quickly. I remember that part the most because it was interesting to see Yeargin's demeanor and tone change so quickly from Cynthia Harriss Rah-Rah-Rah to something more like a snotty Gap Girl after a customer told her she looked fat in the jeans she was wearing. But this story brought back that long ago "Cast Member Forum" that I had pushed to the back of my mind for many years. Thanks Darkbeer for the blast from the past and the trip down memory lane! And it's funny how things actually worked out, isn't it?<<
Originally Posted By Darkbeer And here is the Save Disney article that Westsider was commenting on... >>In 1999, Paul Pressler became the President of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, and shortly afterwards would be named Chairman. He was given a more powerful role than any other Parks & Resorts chief in history. He wasn't only supervising Park Operations, he was put in charge of Imagineering as well. Paul Pressler was already well known to WDI by 1999. As President of Disneyland, he had been intimately involved with the design and development of Disney's California Adventure. Pressler helped shape the concept and determined the budget for the park. It was reported that the overall expansion of the Disneyland Resort was well over one billion dollars. Most of that money did not go into California Adventure; in fact, the park received less then half of the investment. Most of the money went into the new parking structure, Downtown Disney, and especially the Grand Californian Hotel. The park designers would have to work with crumbs. But Paul Pressler wasn't just the guy holding the purse strings anymore, as Chairman of Parks & Resorts he had creative approval as well. For the first time in Disney history, a moneyman was dictating "creative" changes to the artists at Walt Disney Imagineering. Paul Pressler had convinced everyone on the Parks & Resorts team that Disney's California Adventure would be an unparalleled success. In the days leading up to the opening of California Adventure, the Director of Attractions at Disneyland, Paul Yeargin, openly discussed his concerns that Disney's California Adventure would fill to capacity every day. He thought the resort's biggest problem would be disappointed guests, who, after traveling a great distance to see California Adventure would have to settle for Disneyland instead. Yeargin and other Disneyland executives made decisions based on this premise. Including a now infamous decision by Disneyland Resort President, Cynthia Harriss, to restrict Annual Passholders from using their passes at Disney's California Adventure for the first few months after opening. This decision only served to anger the already disgruntled 400,000 passholders who provide a significant amount of revenue for the resort. Harriss and Yeargin, like many of the Disneyland executives, had followed Pressler over from the Disney Stores and had no previous theme park experience. Then in February 2001, the world saw what had been festering behind closed doors at WDI for the past several years. Disney's California Adventure opening in the old Disneyland parking lot. It was a mix of off-the-shelf carnival rides and film-based attractions. When Walt's close friend and long-time Imagineer, John Hench, saw the park for the first time he said, "I liked it better as a parking lot." WDI would try to fix California Adventure any way they could. They threw attractions at it left and right...Who Wants to be A Millionaire, a bug's land, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, even the Main Street Electrical Parade would come out of moth balls. None of it worked, of course. All these projects were subject to the same approval process as Disney's California Adventure. Park Operations (Paul Pressler) would need to approve the concept and budget for the new attraction. The Strategic Planning department would then determine if the project were economically feasible. Then if the project were approved, it would be supervised by Project Management to make sure the creatives didn't try to improve the attraction after it was in production. Of course, all these new systems of control came with a price tag, which drove up the cost of the projects. The Walt Disney Company was spending more money on bureaucracy and less on the attraction itself. In the end, the paying guest got shortchanged. At WDI, it was taboo to suggest that there was something wrong with California Adventure or the any of the new attractions. At first, WDI management said that the weather was to blame. When the weather cleared up, they blamed the economy. Then they used the new standby...people were scared to travel after September 11th. None of these excuses were valid because Disneyland continued to have much more respectable attendance figures (it's hard to image the weather or economic conditions could be so drastically different ninety feet to the south). It would seem that WDI could sink no further, but in March of 2002, Pressler (along with former strategic planner Jay Rasulo) opened the only Disney theme park less impressive then California Adventure...Walt Disney Studios Paris. The park failed so miserably, it forced Disneyland Paris into a debt re-structuring plan that currently threatens the future existence of the resort. The pendulum had swung to the other extreme. Walt Disney Studios Paris is the total opposite of Disneyland Paris. It is a theme park by the numbers-designed with a spreadsheet instead of paint and brush.<<
Originally Posted By Darkbeer I know some folks like to say that Disneyland wasn't a success when it opened in 1955, when DCA opening year is mentioned, but that is entirely UNTRUE..... The Grand Opening, Monday, July 18th, 1955, they had over 50,000 paying customers... After that, Walt and his staff decided to limit admission to about 20,000 persons a day to address some of the operational problems.... Heck, they were turning away guests those first few months, so if anything was keeping guests away, it was the crowds, NOT the lack of them! And after SEVEN weeks (September 8th, 1955), Disneyland had over 1 million guests!!!! What did DCA have after 7 weeks, maybe 250,000, if that many.... And of course, it was a LOT harder to have folks to travel to Anaheim in 1955, and the population was a lot lower in the SoCal area back in the mid-50's..... The period from July 18th thru September 8th was 45 days, which makes Disneyland average over 22,000 folks a day to make the 1 millionth guest on September 8th. <a href="http://www.usc.edu/isd/archives/la/disneyland/" target="_blank">http://www.usc.edu/isd/archive s/la/disneyland/</a> (FYI, this link has a lot of great photos) >>The park was turning a profit by its second year of operation...<< But DCA had AWFUL crowds, and while there was some rain in the Spring of 2001, and that was a favorite excuse early on, even with the Heat Wave in 1955, Disneyland "sold out" most days that first summer...... Opening day had 14,000 attend DCA (38,000 was the expected count, aka sellout) DCA's first summer had good weather, but even with a Two tickets for $33 (one Adult, one Child) special for the summer of 2001, it was really dead. There was a BIG difference between Disneyland's first year, and DCA's.....
Originally Posted By Darkbeer From the LA times, dated October 2nd, 2001. >>Reflecting continued troubles at Walt Disney Co.'s California Adventure, two premier businesses operating in the park -- Wolfgang Puck and Robert Mondavi -- have sharply reduced their investments. Disney spokesman Ray Gomez confirmed that Wolfgang Puck Food Co.'s upscale seafood restaurant, Avalon Cove, was closing yesterday because it did not meet the expectations of either Disney or Puck. Also as of yesterday, Robert Mondavi Corp. said it no longer was operating the park's Golden Vine Winery attraction and high-end restaurant, instead limiting its role to that of a sponsor. "We want to eliminate further financial exposure," said Nancy Light, a spokeswoman at Mondavi. The Oakville winery said it will record a charge of $12 million to $13 million related to its investment in the Anaheim theme park. Mondavi and Puck represented Disney's bid to attract affluent tourists to the Disneyland Resort. California Adventure opened in February next to Disneyland, but the new park has struggled with sluggish attendance from the start. And the Sept. 11 terrorist attack has made matters worse, thinning attendance even more at the $1.4 billion park and retail district known as Downtown Disney. Gomez said he was unaware of any other tenants in California Adventure seeking to withdraw or revise their contractual agreements with Disney. Other outside businesses operating attractions and selling food in the park include the sourdough bread factory Andre-Boudin Bakeries. The bakery said yesterday it was doing fine in the park. California Adventure was expected to attract about 7 million visitors annually, or 19,000 a day. But in the week before the terrorist attack, the park had been drawing an average of about 4,500 per day, according to a Disney official who asked not to be identified. <<
Originally Posted By Kennesaw Tom DL is not going to have any choice here. We currently have over one billion dollars of construction going on in Atlanta alone. Not to mention our "spagetti junction 2" Georgia's largest Road and Bridge construction project going on at the moment which includes 14 bridges in this one tiny interchange where two highways meet in Gwinnett County. A billion isn't much by California's standards. I was watching the news today in Anaheim and there is a mall expansion going on that is going at the cost of 1.5 billion dollars. You have to spend money to remain competitive. And DCA can use a lot of help. Me thinks Disney needs to step up to the plate a little more in terms of DCA. Otherwise everyone just might be at that mega mall.
Originally Posted By Kennesaw Tom A billion dollars in Anaheim is like spending 250 million in Atlanta. Its a drop in the bucket. That doesn't mean I don't think the Disney Company should do it. I think if the Disney Company is serious about DCA they need to be spending a lot more.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 <To try and claim that DCA is not a failure is ridiculous.> But you're still not defining "failure" properly. Particularly if you're trying to say it IS (present tense) one and still keep cutting and pasting things from 2001. If one defines words however one pleases, it's easy to make things fit whatever definition one chooses. For instance, I could define DCA a "success" by saying "what it was really intended to do was cause more people to extend their stays and fill all those super-lucrative hotel rooms, where the real money is. That is exactly what happened." And voila, DCA is a "success." But, of course, that would be an incomplete definition of success as bad as this attempted definition of "failure." "Mixed bag" is the less viscerally satisfying (for those who see things in black and white) but more accurate term for DCA's performance so far.
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt To say that the opinions of Save Disney were biased would be an understatement. It was formed by two expats who were at odds with Disney management at the time. I love how Darkbeer quotes from dubious sources like that particular website yet has never has produced one piece of corporate data to back up his assertions. This only serves to underscore that fact that this ongoing argument (that the place is a failure) is pointless.
Originally Posted By WorldDisney Well Hans I certainly wouldn't call it 'pointless' just like no one has exactly proven DCA is a sucess either right? Although I always laugh when Darbeer decides to inudate us with 100 articles lol, the point he seems to be making is MANY sources are pointing out DCA flaws, although granted it was at the beginning of the park. But, I see little of anything coming from the other side and in fact, I never seen anything to contradict what he puts here, so its not exactly like this stuff is coming from a vacum. I understand though, it feels tireless and pointless after awhile, but its just his way to show that his point of the 'F' word isn't COMPLETELY out of bounds either. Again, 6 years later and I have yet to read a single post, newspaper clipping or website that talks about DTD or GCH 'struggling' in any way. Six years on and the 'DCA issue' still hasn't gone away. BUt that's okay for me, its fun .
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt "Well Hans I certainly wouldn't call it 'pointless' just like no one has exactly proven DCA is a sucess either right?" Who is saying that it is a success? To argue either way requires that you back up your assertions with factual data, not with quotes from op-ed pieces from savedisney.com or over zealous TDA folks from 2001. Without data you are just guessing. "But, I see little of anything coming from the other side and in fact, I never seen anything to contradict what he puts here, so its not exactly like this stuff is coming from a vacum." Well of course you have never seen data to contradict what Darkbeer posts. Other than the useless 7 million-attendance figure from 2001, there is not any data available for us to see. The stuff he posts is mostly junk used out of context, or other people's opinions - not facts. "I understand though, it feels tireless and pointless after awhile, but its just his way to show that his point of the 'F' word isn't COMPLETELY out of bounds either." Earlier I posted a question to Darkbeer about what he knows about the measures Disney used to determine the park's failure or success. Instead of providing the corporate data to support his argument, we got a lot of cutting and pasting from old articles.
Originally Posted By WorldDisney Well, we're ALL just guessing lol. Darkbeer can't exactly walk into Disney headquarters and demand to see the 'data'. I of course get what you're saying, but ANYTIME Darkbeer uses an article, direct quote from the CEO himself and so on, people downplay or spin it positiviely or negatively anyway. I honestly don't think it matters if Iger came to his front door and dropped off a report every year saying DCA hasn't met a single benchmark since opening, someone will still find a way to turn the negatives into positives and find a way to use it as an excuse stay in Ira--wait a minute, what were talking about again?
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt If Iger did that I would be satisfied, otherwise it’s pointless to make wild claims without being able substantiate them with facts.
Originally Posted By WorldDisney ^^But I guess that's my point, they are not really THAT wild to me!! In fact, they have done everything that I NEVER thought they would do with a Disney park to get people through those gates. I don't know, maybe things have changed greatly with the park, I actually don't keep up with it unless its posted here somewhere, but it seems like DCA still struggles to get people in there with lots of discounts, but I could be wrong. I honestly don't know. It would be funny to see Iger come out and say, 'yeah, the parks a big fat failure, but so was 'Atlantis' live and learn punks!' But I doubt we will EVER hear that coming out of the mouth of any CEO lol just like I doubt Bush will ever use the 'F' word on the Iraq policy....doesn't stop a lot of people from saying it anyway . I'm hoping 'the surge' (or the DCA billion) will change DCA around and unlike that mess in Iraq, I think DCA will be just fine in a few years .
Originally Posted By Hans Reinhardt "But I guess that's my point, they are not really THAT wild to me!!" They told you that Euro Disney was a failure, didn't they? Eisner publicly stated that he was considering shutting the place down. What did Disney do when the Disney Stores failed to perform? The company closed some locations and sold what was left. This is what companies do when things fail. In the end, we can only speculate. What matters is how Disney views the park's performance. Without that small but important little tidbit asserting anything beyond an opinion is just silly.
Originally Posted By BlueOhanaTerror >>>"Failure is not delivering what the Disney execs expected when they built the park" Considering that you don't actually know any of this, declaring it to be something on the basis of a nearly total lack of knowledge really is a pointless exercise.<<< Maybe Darkbeer DOESN'T know any of this, and maybe YOU don't, but I do. It simply requires a few conversations with internal accountants who deal with the parks and their business daily. And in quiet conversation, when you're not on the lot, you get a very clear picture that DCA, while never in danger of bankruptcy, was an abject disappointment and failure, and underachiever, relative to internal projections and promises from those who put it together. Until recently, it has largely been regarded, internally, as a redheaded stepchild and an embarrassment. Again, all it requires is a few conversations with the accountants who deal with the numbers. Or you could date one, and get even more information.
