Theme Park Concepts @theme-park-concepts - Tumblr Blog

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Back to the future is actually a film critiquing how mass car culture destroyed American towns and cityscape. In this essay I will…

One thing I don’t see come up in public transit discourse - most public transit vehicles have lifespans of multiple decades. Most cars last at most like 20 years and that’s under perfect circumstances. Meanwhile there’s plenty of train cars out there still chugging away that were built in the 70s. Same thing with airplanes and big commercial boats.

So in addition to being more sustainable for all the other reasons. They’re also more sustainable cause they just require less replacement.

Glad carousel of progress is getting a full redo and rewrite. Annoyed it’s not me rewriting it lol

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Look, as a person who works in themed entertainment who has strong opinions, I’m all for intense criticism. But for the love of god do the research so you’re not just out here demonstrating you have no idea what you’re talking about. Ruins the credibility of whatever decent observations you have.

Also “an orange makes a bad apple” is not terribly insightful.

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It’s ironic, I’m over here watching a video complaining about how shallow brain rot an experience is, yet the video itself is shallow criticism that doesn’t get any of its details right and exists largely as just a reason to enjoy piling on.

You need to actually engage with the thing you’re criticizing. Especially with themed entertainment where so often, the criticism only ever looks at the most surface level things, I’m gonna call it “the bricks are fake” arguments.

If a themed experience is bad it’s not going to be because the bricks are fake. It’s a fictional experience, of course there is artifice. But sooooo often critics, even when they correctly identify an experience is lacking, will focus on the damn fake bricks as the reason it’s flawed and not like, the fact someone forgot to have an idea in the first place.

Also “an orange makes a bad apple” is not terribly insightful.

Somehow never made a theme park concepts Instagram. Well now there is one if you want it! (Though tbh since writing isn’t really a thing over there, it’s going to mostly be updates on the Efteling project and links to any blog posts I happen to make)

https://www.instagram.com/theme_park_concepts?igsh=MXI2MWZuZ2xvcWx3Ng%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

Something a little bit different, been slowly working on a personal project to make a physical model of Efteling’s Pagode attraction. I’ve always been obsessed with the flying island ride system for reasons I can’t really explain and it’s been nice to flex that creative muscle.

Going to make HEAVY use of 3d printing to do all this and the core ride vehicle model is finally more or less done (though I’m sure there’s plenty to keep tweaking and clean up)

No real schedule on this, will probably be a long time before the final product is done, but big milestone with some of the most painful modeling bits out of the way and thought y’all might want to see.

Honestly there’s something I find kinda melancholy about certain theme parks - they’re just so full of beauty and optimism and like the good parts of humanity and then you look at the rest of the world and it hits that there’s no reason the whole world shouldn’t be like that.

If Disney were to build a brand new castle park today, what are the 7-10 IPs you think are popular enough to warrant representing in Fantasyland or wherever you see fit? (extra: What would you want the representation for each to entail?)

Don’t really have time to go in depth but

1. I’d want them as individual attractions in otherwise original lands.

2. Personally I’d like the majority to not be “greatest hits” IP - but more obscure ones, and ones that specifically have elements that lend themselves to an experiential story. (There’s no way this would ever actually happen from a business perspective)

3. I’ve loved the idea of a fantasia/sorcerers apprentice attraction surrounding the castle/moat/dungeon. Also love the idea of a hunchback dark ride and I’ve always fantasized about an Alice in wonderland/bedknobs and broomsticks crossover attraction because why not it’d be fun.

4. Was part of a group project on wdwmagic centuries ago when I was a mere child where we brainstormed this. This was the map. I’d probably do it differently today but thought it was worth bringing up.

You know how every hotel around the seven seas lagoon has a corresponding land in the magic kingdom? Frontierland never had one but you could make the argument now that it’s switching more to a Yosemite/national park vibe that that’s a perfect match for wilderness lodge and ft wilderness and therefore is somewhat adding to the overall thematic scheme.

The various 2.5 d technologies WDI has used over the last 10 years are some of my favorite scenic designs they’ve done. Bummed it’s only in small doses.

It is abundantly clear at this point that attaching IP to attractions pretty much guarantees more and quicker success and better financial returns than original experiences most of the time. I hate that this is true as someone who wants experiences to be a source of new stories, and wants those stories to be built to serve the needs of themed attractions - but like it’s hard to argue with the data.

My hope is that either 1. More companies come onto the field that aren’t so sensitive to the need for maximum returns or 2. the big companies realize there are more broad ways to attach IP to a project (does it have to be the centerpiece of a project) or interpret what IP means (does it have to be a specific story? Can it be something public domain and broadly known? Can it be a certain creative person?)

Sigh

An interesting thing about animal kingdom is that while there is no utilidor - the park has very large sections at least 1 if not 2 stories above grade - which you can see in the tropical americas construction and in some places like behind Kali. Gives really interesting design opportunities

Just brilliant, brilliant work.

#Youtube

theme-park-concepts

Ranking Theme Parks:

Disneyland: Queer AF

California Adventure: Straight

Magic Kingdom: Gay, but has conservative relatives

Epcot: TRANS

Hollywood Studios: Straight, but experimented in college

Animal Kingdom: lesbian, obviously

Disneyland Paris: Bi

Disney Adventure World: forever closeted

theme-park-concepts

Universal Studios Orlando: At best Demi

Island of Adventure: was queer in youth but became a terf

Epic: questioning

Universal Hollywood: Elder gay

Seaworld Orlando: bi, but straight passing

Efteling: Queer, kinky, nuerodivergent, and probably a furry

Puy du Fou: somehow actually straight

Ranking Theme Parks:

Disneyland: Queer AF

California Adventure: Straight

Magic Kingdom: Gay, but has conservative relatives

Epcot: TRANS

Hollywood Studios: Straight, but experimented in college

Animal Kingdom: lesbian, obviously

Disneyland Paris: Bi

Disney Adventure World: forever closeted

Been thinking about how queues form. And the thing is…in some ways the problem of lines isn’t due to lack of capacity, merely lack of instantaneous capacity at certain times of day. I.e. everyone is going to rush to the popular rides at the beginning of the day. So if a ride handles 2000 people per hour but 2000 people show up at rope drop - that ride now has an hour long line. And even if it’s only 30 people a minute after that (what 2000 comes out to) you’ll have an hour line the rest of the day.

If you look at wait times across popular attractions you’ll notice they usually plateau and then hang out at a certain level the majority of the time - this is an indication that the instantaneous capacity at one point early could not accommodate the rush, but that since then it’s reached equilibrium.

So in a sense the problem of solving waits really is just about preventing those rushes of people all showing up at the same time.

Fastpass, fastpass +, and lightning lane and all those systems are one way of doing that but with the consequence of only really working if there’s a large dearth of capacity elsewhere - otherwise they’re making lines longer. And also they’ve contributed to an increasing unequal sense.

I think maybe though you could achieve a widespread reduction or wait times largely by just limiting attendance at rides for the first hour or two after park open or at peak times.

So like rather than reserving things in advance or or a virtual queue. Imagine a system where there’s none of that, the only caveat is that if you’re arriving before 11 you need to choose in advance your first ride - or one gets assigned to you when you enter. Otherwise the rest of the day the park is open access.

Or one could imagine a virtual queue system that turns on and off throughout the day - but for all attractions - generally is only on in the mornings but turns on like after parades end.

In my mind this kind of gives you the best of everything - you create a largely egalitarian system that prioritizes minimizing waits for everyone rather than for the individual. And you still preserve free choice most of the time, just with a little bit of suggestion at the head of the day.

Obviously this system still requires that a park have enough instantaneous capacity at the beginning of the day, and enough diversity of attractions to naturally spread interest, but idk I think it could work.

Of course what it doesn’t do is allow people the satisfaction of 0 wait or skipping or give the companies a perk to charge for so…not sure anyone would actually implement it.

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