Imagine if you will, you pay a lot of good money to become a member of a private exclusive club. You expect and get treated well. Your clubs are cleaned. Your name is known by all the employees. Your opinion on changes to the place is sought out. But suddenly, one day, your exclusive domain is shattered. To add a little cash flow to the club’s bottom line, they allow in non-members on a pay as you go basis. They want prime tee times. They want their clubs cleaned. They get the same good treatment as you, but don’t pay as much as you. Not fair? No, it is not.
Well, in a way, annual passholders are the same problem as those non-members for the Disney theme parks. They purchased their passes because they saw a good deal. With the passes, people who are real Disney fans could get in as much as they wanted and not have to pay so much money.
With the rising price of a one day ticket, having an annual pass makes sense to the real Disney fan. After five or six trips, the pass has more then paid for itself. So, the diehard fan could make repeated visits to the park, some go almost daily, and enjoy the rides and shows and not have to fork over the big bucks. But those same fans are now the problem; they are costing the company money, and actually squeezing some of the fun out of going to the parks.
Yes, I am talking to all of you Disney fanatics; or Disney diehards, Disnoids, or whatever you call yourselves. The Walt Disney Company has had some problems for several years, both economic and personnel. A lot of those problems have been very well publicized. Some of the Disney diehards have been at the forefront of exposing those problems. It’s the squeaky wheel that gets the worm, and the diehards have squeaked a lot. But, is all the squeaking good? It is time for an examination of the annual passholders at the parks.
First of all, I understand why so many people want to go to the parks. It is an escape from reality; a chance to explore one’s childhood and escape the harsh reality of real life. A lot of the diehards go there an awful lot. There are websites devoted to every minutia of the parks that point out the exact times and locations that characters will show up, to pointing out the paint flaking off the wall two stories up on Main Street. All of this duly reported by the nearly daily visits of these annual passholder diehards.
Well, to those people I say this: Get a life! You are no longer helping Disney, you are hurting it! Why? Because you cost the company more money then you put into its coffers. Not just in real dollars, but in your economic impact.
Annual passholders are not the end all and be all of Disney. But to hear them talk, they are. They are everywhere in the park, choking the fun out of it. I mean pity the poor, full paying, first time or once every few years visitor. They don’t have a chance. They can’t enjoy the park as there’s a passholder in line in front of them and behind them talking about all the bad things at the park. Or, they explain to the infrequent visitor how to efficiently visit the park and not miss a single ride or show. Well, that might be okay, but if you follow their directions, you won’t have any time just to discover things, after all you’ve been told by them what to do, where to look and what to pay attention to. Running around the park like some robot to get through every ride and show is not my cup of tea. I like to visit the park and enjoy the show.
While I admire the way they enjoy the park, sometimes, it seems to me, they ought to step back and see if they still really enjoy it, or are the passholders trying to “out Disney” one another. It’s like a dare contest. And try making a change to an existing attraction that might sorely need it and the annual passholders are worse then religious fanatics. One of the reasons the Enchanted Tiki Room is still the same basic boring show is a large cadre of those passholders think it is sacrilegious to change Walt’s original Audio-Animatronics show.
And some of those people work inside Disney too. In fact, they cultivate the fanaticism of these Disney diehards. They use it as a base to promote the changes they want, or to prevent the changes they don’t want. But the passholders don’t care, all for the greater good of what they think Disney parks should be.
Well, the company is waking up to this problem. The dollars the passholders contribute to the bottom line, while steady, has not been a growing number. Looking at it strictly from a business perspective, I agree with the company’s new policy of either more restrictions on the annual passes, or a hugely increased price for them. And I mean hugely. More on the order of five or six times the current prices.
The Disney theme parks are not a private club for the sole enjoyment of the annual passholders. The parks are there for all to enjoy. The value the passholders bring to the bottom line might not be worth the cost. They passholders even have their own line at City Hall to handle all their complaints.
Come on people, if you’re going to the park to find something to complain about are you really enjoying the park? No, you are trying to compete with each other to out-Disney each other.
From a business perspective, I would rather have a couple of thousand vacationers paying full price then 5000 passholders any day. The company makes a lot more money off the former. As a shareholder and future pensioner I want Disney to remain a viable economic concern; a growing economic concern. The annual passholders do not add to that growth. They provide some dollars, but not near what they used to versus what they cost.
Bottom line, Disney is a public corporation. It offers a product that a lot of people enjoy. Me, I go to the parks once a year. I still enjoy going to the parks. I like to see changes at the park. No, I don’t like all of them, but understand some of them. And just like movies, some of the rides are great and some not so great. But it is not the center of my life. It is a form of entertainment for me and my family.
So, if the passholders want Disneyland to stay in some image they have preconceived in their minds I have a thought: Either purchase the entire company outright and run it as a private club for yourselves, or take a step back and try to enjoy the show.
Managing Editor’s Note:
If anyone is interested in writing a “rebuttal” article to what Mark has written, please e-mail me at cory@jimhillmedia.com
I would enjoy publishing a well written article that gives a counterpoint to Mark’s views.