Green Tagged – Theme Parks in 30 for Oct 18
Big moves at Disney; Eastern State Penitentiary considering discontinuing Terror; INSIDE brings new voyeuristic experience to LA; coworking from a Ferris Wheel at Tokyo’s Yomiuriland; Aquarium Yoga debuts at Hong Kong’s Ocean Park; Knott’s launches Spotify playlist; Airbnb celebrates Halloween.
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7 Pivots You Can Learn From
The ingenuity of the entertainment industry is alive and well. Below are 7 pivots from attractions and brands which should inspire you to try something new. From coworking on a Ferris Wheel to Aquarium yoga and private night tours to voyeuristic window theatre – these events give me such hope for the industry.
Eastern State Penitentiary Sells out Tours & Ponders Discontinuing “Terror Behind the Walls”
Eastern State Penitentiary is deciding whether to resume its “Terror Behind the Walls” event after the success of its night tours. Sean Kelley, senior vice president of Eastern State Penitentiary Museum, stated, “Terror Behind the Walls is extremely lucrative, but the night tours are closer to our mission.” That mission is to be proactive in educating the public about the criminal justice system in the US, which has, by far, more prisoners per capita than any other country in the world.
Repurposing your historic site for private tours is a terrific idea, especially if the cost of covid proofing is excessive. We’ve had reports of multiple places trying this, including DARK at Fort Edmonton Park in Canada and the ‘Queen Mary Live: A Virtual Haunt & Music Fest.’ It’s more encouraging that these events have sold out.
A word of caution
Scary Halloween programming is costly and requires specific talent, yet it tends to be more profitable. During a crisis, the natural response from stakeholders is conservatism (IE ‘Daytime family events are easier and cost less’). And it’s not just historic sites. Theme parks—especially family-friendly ones—are always concerned about the investment in a Halloween event and whether it will make money. Therefore, this response is something Scott predicted months ago. My response is – Knowing that this coming year will see a budget deficit due to the pandemic, why would you choose the one option guaranteed not to make you money? Isn’t it more in line with you mission to do everything in your power to remain operational?
The reason for considering discontinuing the event is an excellent one—to expand education about our criminal justice system, but a real consideration is how to make up the budget deficit if Terror Behind the Walls does not continue. Over 100,000 tickets were sold for Terror Behind the Walls last year. Terror began as a fundraiser to keep Eastern State Penitentiary operating. Perhaps they have enough money saved up to ride out the recession, but if not, it seems dispensing with the seasonal event doesn’t serve the mission if the organization.
There are two questions that should be asked about the tours at Eastern State: Were the tours so successful because there wasn’t the alternative of Terror Behind the Walls, and will the tours continue to be successful? It’s unlikely that people would come to the tour year after year, as they do with the haunted attraction.
CREEP LA Introduces a Haunted House Experience from the Outside
Do you enjoy people watching? Do you have fond childhood memories of watching neighbors decorate their homes or staring at department displays? In my favorite pivot this week, the creators of CREEP LA announced a spatially distanced, bite-sized Halloween event called INSIDE. Quarantine Groups up to five people are taken on a guided, outdoor ghost tour in which they peek into the windows of haunted houses to see what’s going on inside.
One person buys a ticket for $50 and that includes up to five people within their quarantine bubble. They show up at the property, meet a guide, walk from haunted house to haunted house, stand outside, and look in the windows. There’s an actor inside performing a scripted scene with audio, visuals, set dressing, etc.
As we all know, LA county has many restrictions because of the pandemic, so, to develop this experience, CREEP LA began with the county guidelines and innovated from there. This is one of the most creative approaches we’ve seen, and it could work in any quarantine situation. It’s also scalable and movable to any number of locations. INSIDE sold out in a day.
A New Twist on Working Remotely—Japanese Theme Park Allows Guests to Work from a Ferris Wheel
Yomiuriland in western Tokyo introduced its “Amusement Workation” package on October 15. For a cost of $18 for one person and $34 for two, guests can set up in a poolside work booth with a table, chairs (both leisure and office), wi-fi, and outlets to do their work. If that’s not quite fun enough, another option is to work for an hour from a wi-fi-equipped Ferris Wheel.
This is nothing short of ingenious. There’s a hotel in the Maldives that’s doing a more elaborate workation—a week-long package for $24,000 that includes a personal assistant, laundry service, all-you-can-eat meals, and a guaranteed, beach-side workstation.
Use your assets! Whether you’re a hotel, FEC, theme park or movie theatre, find a way to use your existing assets. The Alamo drafthouse cinema offers private theatres for your quarantine group starting at $150.
Aquarium at Hong Kong’s Ocean Park Offers Yoga with the Fishes
Speaking of using assets, Ocean Park in Hong Kong is offering fitness activities such as dance classes, meditation, and yoga. It’s also opening hiking trails below its cable-car ride overlooking the South China Sea and will include air-conditioned tents and barbeque grills for guests who wish to camp. The park’s “Be One with the Fish” yoga classes take place within the park aquarium among the aquatic exhibits.
Some of these classes have special add-on fees in addition to the park ticket, which a few people weren’t aware of and became upset about. However, most parks have upcharges, and a fitness class certainly seems like something one would have to pay extra for.
Ocean Park is stunning, and the cable-car ride is stunning, so opening up these areas for recreation is on-brand in terms of reflecting the outdoorsy culture of the area.
This is a perfect example of how to pivot well—taking the assets you have and using them in a different way. It’s not the first aquarium to offer yoga in that environment—some US parks have offered this—but it’s a memorable experience.
Knott’s Initiates Spotify Playlists Featuring Music from Its Scare Zones
Knott’s has its own playlist on Spotify that has more than a dozen pieces of music from its Knott’s Scary Farm scare zones. The music provides a little taste of an event that people won’t be able to experience in person this year, which is a great idea. Universal has been releasing virtual backgrounds and high-resolution images as well as behind-the-scenes looks at their most popular areas to keep its brand top of mind this year. This is a way of engaging customers by offering something additive to what they’re doing at home.
London and Edinburgh Dungeons Offer a Halloween Meal in the Torture Chamber
London Dungeon and Edinburgh Dungeon are hosting immersive, three-course dining experiences including a course that takes place in the torture chamber. This offering isn’t open to the general public. A contest is being held, and the winners (one pair of diners) take part in a Halloween meal at each Dungeon. We’re thinking this may be a way of generating press for a beta test of an event they’re planning to roll out. However, this is a great pivot to more fully utilize the space and add money to the bottom line.
Airbnb Offers Spooky Story Time with Alice Cooper
Airbnb is offering Halloween experiences, and they’ve been rigorously pivoting to provide online content and stay on brand. One of these experiences was Spooky Story Time with Alice Cooper. This event cost $500 per ticket, and it sold out, although it only 10 people participated.
This is a terrific way to give people social proof of an experience that they can show their friends—“I partied with Alice Cooper, and it’s on the video.” It seems theme parks—especially smaller ones—could do something similar. They could have their main character do a Christmas story time, have other people join, and sell it. In this way, people pay for advertising the brand.
The Disney Minute
Disney is finally doubling down on streaming, while simultaneously closing two shows at Disneyland and facing scrutiny on their theme park reopening. The streaming move is refreshing, as it represents more long-term thinking. And yet, during a recession and park closures, will Disney sacrifice even more short-term revenue (investing in and launching experiences straight to Disney + rather than to other paid distribution) to build out a robust subscription DTC model? There’s an opportunity here for Disney to go full vertical and shift a large sector of their business to DTC subscription. We’ll see whether they’re fully committed to that.
Disney’s Reorganizing Efforts
To further accelerate its direct-to-consumer strategy, Disney announced it will be centralizing its media businesses into a single organization responsible for content distribution, advertising sales, and Disney+. The company stated that this reorganizing isn’t a response to COVID, but that the pandemic accelerated the rate of a transition that was going to happen anyway.
As a result of this reorganization, one person will manage the distribution operations, sales, and advertising across all three of Disney’s content groups.
Disney also said its film “Soul” will stream exclusively on Disney+ and there would be no fee required as there was for “Mulan.” It seems to us this no-fee announcement speaks volumes.
Relatedly, Disney announced that 214 actors would be permanently laid off as a result of the closing of “Mickey and the Magical Map” and “Frozen: Live at the Hyperion” at Disneyland Resort.
Having one person at Disney who’s overseeing all the brand content as one entity should lead to pushing the right content in the right direction. Disney is a big mover, so this will have repercussions throughout the entertainment space. This consolidation should make Disney more agile and provide it with individualized opportunities to partner with other brands. Disney started as a movie company, expanded into theme parks, and it continues to be nimble.
However, it’s still not the full commitment to streaming that would rival Netflix or Prime.
California Governor Sends Team to Visit Florida Parks to Obtain Reopening Guidance
A team from Governor Newsom’s administration visited the Walt Disney Resort—last week to examine their safety procedures to inform reopening guidance for theme and amusement parks in California.
What stands out here is the governor’s statement, which implies a lack of trust. This could be due to the amount of complaints from visitors that Disney has been unable to enforce mask guidelines when recently increasing occupancy at the parks.
