If you are a Disney World fanatic, you have probably been made to salivate over the past few years due to incessant rumors about a 5th Gate (a new theme park) to be added in the near future – only to be let down when an official statement by the company is released, and it says that nothing imminent is in the works. Then, finally, something leaks out that seems likely to come to fruition. It’s for real this time. You put on your Mickey ears, you start thinking about which princess you want to dress up your daughter as for the grand opening, and then you come to find out…that it is not a real gate at all. The company that prides itself on being a provider of family oriented entertainment suddenly wants to corner the market on adult adventure experiences. You suddenly feel like Jafar in the movie Aladdin – frustrated, grand plans ruined, done in by delusions of grandeur. Then you stop and wonder: Did Disney just actually let its diehards down?
After a couple of months of rumors running rampant about a possible 5th Gate, on March 9, the New York Post’s Brian Garrity wrote an article publicly unveiling this new venture (albeit unofficially). It is to be called “Night Kingdom,” it is to cost approximately 520 million dollars, and it is supposed to be an after-dark boutique park designed for adults. Garrity writes that the tickets will cost $250 to $300 per person, and that will probably include a high-end meal. The park will be open from 4 p.m. until midnight and the projected opening is targeted for October of 2011. What in the name of Donald Duck is Disney CEO Bob Iger thinking?
There are several flaws to this idea. Garrity reports that instead of traditional rides, this park will instead offer activities such as zip-lines, spelunking, and rock-climbing (definitely dream-like fun for every Disney aficionado). For starters, why would anyone who is rich enough to afford $300 for eight hours of entertainment and sport, not counting hotel and transportation costs, choose to partake in simulated events instead of actually scaling real mountains or go skiing? This proposed park doesn’t cater to adults, it caters to the rich. Average Joe, especially in today’s economy, can’t afford to spend $600 for himself and his wife to do things they could essentially do at a local Game Works, Dave and Busters, or at a nearby national park. $300 is almost the cost of an annual pass to Disney World. Would you rather enjoy Disney all year or spend all your money in one day? Even if you can get people to spend the money at first, the chances of people coming back within five years are slim. The type of cliental that Disney is looking to nab wants to go on cruises, European vacations, road trips, and a variety of other real life adventures – they aren’t going to come back to this particular brand of adult entertainment year after year. Night Kingdom” simply won’t have the Disney magic behind it, and that is what gets families to return to the Kingdom that Mickey built year after year, or in some cases many times per year.
Garrity says that there are concerns about the state of the economy slowing down Disney’s theme park revenue in the future. Apparently, the Disney powers-that-be have decided that they need to diversify and for them, hitting the adult (upper class) market is the way to go. World Wrestling Entertainment owner Vince McMahon once thought that he should branch out, and so he created a football league to compete with the NFL. That didn’t work out too well for McMahon, as his XFL is long gone. McMahon is still the king of sports entertainment, and he doesn’t have to worry about losing his great legacy if he never succeeds in any other arena. Family entertainment is what Disney does best. They have been the leaders in that industry for decades. All of the sudden, the company wants to cast aside what they excel at and instead are more concerned about the almighty dollar. This is not only un-Disney-like, but financially, it makes no sense either.
According to Garrity, “Night Kingdom” would hold a maximum of 2,000 guests per day. Chances are, considering the price and the type of park it will be, you can probably expect the place to be less than half full on a nightly basis. It is possible that it could see many nights (due to weather, holidays, and other factors) where it is less than a quarter full. If that is the case, it would take more than a decade for Night Kingdom to turn a profit (taking into consideration operating costs and upgrades). Does this move make sense from an economic standpoint? Not from this vantage point. Are the brilliant minds at Disney blind to the possibility of how badly this project may fail? Apparently they are. Not only does it seem that Disney will end up losing money, but many loyal Disney folks will be very unhappy that their dream of a fifth park for Walt Disney World has turned into something as absurd as just about any particular scene from Alice and Wonderland.
What the Disney brain trust should do is build a legitimate 5th gate where families can come together and enjoy themselves – a concept that Walt developed back in the 1950’s, and an idea that still has plenty of merit today (remember the old adage, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”). Although it may cost twice as much to build a new theme park as it would to give birth to “Night Kingdom,” the income would come at a much higher volume and the profits will pour in much sooner. If you just calculate the money made on park tickets alone, you would see a huge difference. With the average park ticket now hovering around $70 (it could be higher three years from now), imagine how much money Disney would make if the new theme park averaged 25,000 guests a day for an entire year. That number would probably be a low attendance estimate, considering the park is new and attendance at the other four parks has been increasing over the past several years, but let’s just go with it. At those numbers, taking into account just ticket sales, the theme park would earn over 600 million dollars in a year. If the theme park cost 1.2 billion dollars to build, and if operating expenses could be taken care of by food and merchandise sales, Disney would be turning a profit by the third year. Even if those numbers are not accounting for other factors, a theme park is still going to make a great deal of money in a much shorter period of time, as opposed to the smaller adult park with the limited range of customers at its disposal. Additionally, with the possibility that the adult park could alienate the company’s core cliental, along with not having a great enough number in its target demographic to keep the park earning sufficient cash, and a lack of broad appeal, logic says that this park very may well end up being shut down and totally made over within ten years. The idea of Disney not striking gold with a new concept is not totally foreign. Disney Quest has been a complete flop and rumors have it being replaced some time in the near future. Clearly, a traditional theme park would be Disney’s best bet.
The new theme park that would be perfect for Disney World would be a version of Tokyo’s Disney Seas. That is a park that would appeal to all ages and there is nothing remotely like it in the entire resort. The Walt Disney Company has to realize something: adults are already their biggest customers. Whether it is theme parks, movies, DVD sales, or other merchandise, it isn’t the kids that are spending millions of dollars to get a piece of the magic. The adults that Disney wants to reach would definitely go to a Disney Seas park – with or without their kids (celebrities go to Disney World all the time). Walt Disney made his parks for the rich and the not so rich, the young and the young at heart, and for the adventurer as well as for the dreamer. Why change a winning formula? Instead, Disney lovers should petition the company to scrap “Night Kingdom,” the worst idea since turning Cinderella’s Castle into a birthday cake, and instead build Disney Seas at Walt Disney World, something that will thrive for decades, and bring even more magic to everyone’s Disney World experience – not only to those who are fortunate enough to be able to afford it.
