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While I agree that the maintenance on the water show will be significant in cost, remember that live performers, pyro, etc. along with the maintenance that needs to be done to keep Fantasmic going is a more significant cost. As for things like water clarity... that was already being done for the lagoon at DCA. No, the water fountains can not be ignored, but the overall cost of operation will be less than an entertainer-based performance.

This is Disney we're talking about, which treats maintenance like an afterthought, and even then the crews are sent out only after guests complain that the joint's starting to look ratty.

Although this show will need a bigger maintenance crew than Fantasmic, Fantasmic still needs a maintenance crew.

So Fantasmic has 109 cast members (including maintenance?) and World of Color has 30-40 maintenance guys and 4 or 5 techs. That seems cheaper to me.

Although I heard the nozzles were on a lift so that Disney won't need dive teams to fix them and they will be easier to maintain.

Yes, some of the nozzles will be on lifts. The ones that are will the the smaller nozzles that "whip" back and forth and around. The Bellagio has similar fountains and they, too, are on lifts for easier maintain. The "extreme shooters" that Jim mentioned (the top of which are seen in the article) are huge, heavy tubes that are bolted to pipe infrastructure beneath the water and not on lifts (due to their weight, presumably). On an episode of Dirty Jobs, Mike Rowe assisted in removing one of them and transporting it "backstage".  It was quite a task to do so. Disney is still going to need a team of divers for maintenance, assuming they have the "big guns".