Post #351507 by Cammo on Thu, Dec 27, 2007 10:54 AM

Part 3

Disneyland has always been overcrowded.

Opening day in 1955 was estimated at 15,000; the amount of invite-only tickets made. 28,154 showed up, famously climbing over the embankments and printing literally thousands of duplicate tickets to get in. This both scared and enticed Walt, who went to work with his planners to design new walk areas & line queues to allow Disneyland to hold 30,000 people.

Nowadays, low attendance days are anything under 30,000. Ask a Cast Member, any cast Member, they always know the daily totals. It gets around the grapevine really fast; “We’re up to 25, 35 projected.” The workers physically relax when they know less than 30,000 are coming into the park that day. They know it will be an easy day, a fun time for everybody.

Because the moderate-busy days are up to 50,000. A normal weekend, a regular Friday night in May, that’s the average attendance, 50,000 to 60,000. The staff gets keyed up on these days, they know they can’t devote much time to the niceties, and they all start working more like machines. You can see it in their eyes.

But it’s the busy-day attendance numbers that scare everybody. Employees dread working in the park on those days, especially the ones who have to work out in the crowds. On a busy day, there can be 70 - 85,000 guests in the park. At 85 or 86,000 Park Managers seem to be required to actually call the County Fire Marshall, who officially closes the front doors. Why have they picked this number? Why not 75,000? It can’t be based on exit strategies, in case of a fire, say. There seem to be no exit plans. Or on the inability to get emergency vehicles anywhere into the park, because on busy days you simply can’t move anywhere.

Maybe it’s based on food reserves that can be served. Who knows?

But here are the real numbers; *85,000 doesn’t count Cast Members! *It’s an attendance figure only.

So with 5000 – 10,000 Cast Members in the park (Disney won’t release figures on any of this, so it’s really hard to pin down) working above and below ground, coming and going, running parades, security everywhere, the actual numbers in the park can be up to 95,000.

But – that doesn’t count those BIG STROLLERS. Because they take up the room of two to three people. And it doesn’t count Fatmobiles, the electric cars those old fat people ride when they can’t fit into wheelchairs anymore. They as well take up the room of 2-3 people. As a matter of fact, the only way of getting yourself any room in Disneyland on a busy day is to ride a Fatmobile and charge directly at a crowd. People run! It’s great sport!

So – if 1 person in 10 brings a huge stroller, and 1 in 20 bring a Fatmobile, on a busy day the park is crowded with in effect 107,750 people! And this is a lowball estimate.

The problem is, it’s the job of Disney Management to get more people to come to the park, not less. High attendance is of course seen as a good thing. A profit of as little as $10 per guest can be as high as 800,000 in profit per day on busy days! At 15,000,000 per year attending, that’s $150,000,000 in profit per year. Every year. For ever.

And that’s why you see all those billboards on Highway 5 trying to get more people to come to the Park. They want more people. It’s their job, and they do it very well. More people come there every year. It ruins the experience, but nobody cares. Even visitors don’t seem to care, even when they can only go on 3-5 rides a day. And how do you make people NOT come to Disneyland? And why?

The problem is, there may be no solution to any of this. People think that if they really look at any bad situation long enough and ponder hard enough, an answer will pop up that will solve everything. But maybe this just isn’t solvable. Maybe there’s no way to fix it.

So –

What Would Walt Do?