 Yesterday numbers for some theme park companies were released, namely Disney and Universal parks. And of course, with this came the inevitable debate between different factions of theme park fans as to what these numbers actually mean, which quickly became a debate on which parks are better than other parks. Why, as theme park fans do we feel the need to do this? Written by Gregg Condon First, lets look at the numbers that started off this most recent wave of "This thing Good ... This thing Bad".
Below we'll try to explain why this isn't necessarily a great thing for Universal and a bad thing for Disney ... it's actually good for both of them ... and most of all GOOD FOR US!!! There are many different types of theme park fans, there are those that ONLY go to Disney, no matter what, those that are anti-Disney for one reason or another. Others who find Disney boring and then there are those of us who have no loyalty to any individual park or chain, but just love spending a fun day in a theme or amusement park. If you know where to look, you can find something fun at pretty much any park, and find a way to have a great day. Sure there are different levels of theme/excitement at individual parks, but at the end of the day, having fun at a park should be the highest priority. We'll start off with Disney ...
Disney is obviously the holy grail of theme parks. The whole theme park environment pretty much became popular with Disneyland in 1955 and has since expanded to 11 parks (soon to be 12 with Shanghai Disneyland) across 3 continents. It's pretty safe to say that without the success of Disneyland we'd have no Universal Studios, Sea World and most likely wouldn't have many regional parks like Six Flags and various Cedar Fair parks. Sure there'd be some of them, as many parks existed prior to Disneyland, but they certainly popularized the theme park concept in America.
But Disney isn't perfect, many of the common complaints you hear about Disneyland are "No new E-Tickets since Indy", DCA "Had to spend Billions to fix 1/2 a park", WDW "Magic Bands, no new rides", etc. Disney has figured out how to expand attendance or at the very least keep it's level of attendance without having to add something new every year. This has a lot to do with the Disney "brand". For us theme park nerds, this sometimes causes us to bash Disney, especially when we see other park chains expanding every year and in some cases at a lightning speed rate. Disney's fan base is so large, has so much disposable income and is more loyal than any other theme park fan base ... and Disney knows this. Year after year people drop thousands on Annual Passes, DVC, RunDisney races, merchandise and movies that simply adding something "large" to each property about once a decade seems to be enough to keep people coming through the turnstiles. Disney knows how to crank up the nostalgia like nobody else. Where anniversary's for theme parks become huge events in and of themselves. No need to spend $100-$200 million on a new E-Ticket when spending 1/4 of that on a year-long Anniversary celebration will bring in the same amount of people. No need to build a new dark ride when adding new elements to existing rides (Hatbox Ghost, New effects to existing rides) increase ridership and keep people coming in. That's not to say these things aren't great, because they are, but obviously Disney knows what they are doing (duh).
Disney fans are also the group of people who are so loyal they'll defend their parks so much that they wouldn't ever admit another park chain has gotten a leg up on Disney with new additions and many of them won't ever set foot in a non-Disney park. This is the group that seems to be short-changing themselves the most by not going out and experiencing what other parks have to offer.
Which brings us to Universal Studios. Over the past decade, Universal has really begun to make a splash, and while their numbers have definitely increased, they are still playing catch-up with Disney. Universal having a huge percentage increase while Disney only has a 2% increase doesn't mean it's a "Win" for Universal and a "Loss" for Disney. It simply means Universal is getting a bigger market share because they are adding quality attractions.
Universal started the "Theme Park Wars" in Orlando when they opened Universal Studios in 1990, a year or so after Disney MGM Studios opened at Walt Disney World. This was a direct response to Disney attempting to build a "Studios" park in the same vein as Universal Studios Hollywood and Universal responding in kind with a park of their own. The fact that Universal Studios Florida has expanded and added quality attractions over the last decade while Disney's Hollywood Studios has remained stagnant (for now) shouldn't be lost on anybody. And obviously the numbers are starting to look more even.
Universal Studios Hollywood has always been a tough sell as far as a "theme park" is concerned. First and foremost, it's a movie studio. For the most part during the 80's and 90's it was a one-day stop for tourists who wanted to see Hollywood in a controlled environment. Because really, if you've been to the real Hollywood, you'd much prefer the stylized version presented at USH. Locals pretty much would go to the park once a year, or even once every few years. I personally didn't go to Universal Studios Hollywood from about 1986 until 1998 even though for that entire time frame I lived no more than 30 miles from the park.
Universal seemed ok with not trying to compete with Disney on the west coast for most of it's existence and only in the past decade has begun to offer the "Buy a Day get a Year Free" passes that are so popular. It's also only been in the past 5-6 years where they've really started making a conscious decision to expand to more immersive environments and move away from simply being a "Studios" park. The current expansion going on at Universal Studios Hollywood is simply unprecedented in the history of that park. The only thing that really comes close would be the expansion of DCA 2.0. So it's definitely going to be interesting to see if the demographics change as far as locals vs tourists are concerned. And really, if they can siphon some people from Disney. But as a theme park fan, the most exciting thing is to see what kind of response Disney makes at the California parks. Because for the first time EVER, Universal Studios Hollywood has a franchise and expansion that Disney is taking notice of. So while many theme park fans will still avoid Universal for some silly reason, those of us who like all parks should be thrilled at this. One word of warning though, Universal should take a look at what Disney tried to do when they opened DCA 1.0 and pretty much locked out their loyal/local audience. Obviously Potter is no DCA 1.0 and the people will come, but changing so much of their AP program as far as locals are concerned is something that could come back to bite them.
So lets move on from Disney and Universal and talk about some other park chains. For many fans of both Disney and Universal any other park outside of Orlando or Anaheim is considered hands off, not worthy of their time and money and generally considered reserved for those who can't afford Disney. This has created a class culture that is very prevalent in the theme park world. Even for the most loyal Disney/Universal fan, there is something out there for you and you really are short changing yourself by not expanding your world beyond those chains.
Cedar Fair and Six Flags parks aren't "teenage/gang infested dirty parks", they are fun parks that really are deserving of your time. Many parks such as Knott's Berry Farm, California's Great America, Six Flags Great America, Six Flags Over Texas and others have really been expanding their family offerings over the past few years while adding great family/dark rides, new shows and other things for families to do together. While the big coasters added to parks like Six Flags Magic Mountain, Cedar Point and other parks tend to grab a lot of the headlines, looking beyond those to see the great events and rides at these parks is something many people tend to ignore.
At the end of the day, if you are limiting yourself to one theme park chain whether it's Disney, Universal, Six Flags, Cedar Point, Sea World ... whatever it is ... you are seriously short changing yourself when it comes to entertainment. It's hard to think of any other entertainment that has a group of loyal fans that are so against expanding their horizons. I can't think of people who only see movies released by one company. The loyalty people show to certain chains really is only comparable to sports fans who support one team or one sport. It's confusing and pointless and really makes no sense. Do you have a loyalty to one chain or another? Will you completely avoid any specific park due to brand loyalty? If so, please explain in the comments below. We'd love to know why. If you enjoyed this update please share with your friends and make sure you "like" us on Facebook and "follow" us on Twitter and Instagram. Also, be sure to join our new Mailing List to receive our newsletter (will be sent out about every two weeks)
If you have any comments, please share them below.  One of the best things about any "Con" is the amazing Cosplay people come up with. And for Star Wars Celebration the amount of creativity and love people put into their Cosplay was simply amazing. We'll pretty much let the pictures below speak for themselves. We do have our top-10 that we'll post below as well. Written by Amanda Condon - Pictures by Gregg Condon and Amanda Condon  This means you nerds!!! =)  See, Stormtroopers and those Rebel terrorists can get along.  Darth Maul  Random Mandalorian walking the streets of Anaheim  LOTS of Mandalorians  Joker Jedi and, we aren't sure. Anybody?  More Mandalorians  These Stormtroopers have seen better days.  Even more Mandalorians  Tink Mandalorian  Pink Storm Trooper and Clone Trooper  Whiny Anakin =)  Emperor's Royal Guard  Ithorian?  Ashoka Lives!!!  Honestly not sure, but it was really cool.   Oola  DeadMau5 Jedi. Ok, on to our top 10. This proved to be much more difficult than we anticipated. =)  #10 - Not Star Wars, we know. But Dr. Indiana Jones still made an appearance, and it was awesome.  #9 - Group of Mandalorian's in suits
 #7 - Hera Syndulla and Zeb from Star Wars Rebels  #6 - Han Solo in Carbonite  #5 - Cutest Cosplay Ever  #4 - Jawas  #3 - Amazing Star Speeder Cosplay. Way to use the EVC at SWCA!  #2 - Malakili and Slave Leia  #1 - Slave Elsa and Hans Solo. Perfect blend of Disney and Star Wars. Alright, that's going to wrap it up for our look at Star Wars Celebration Cosplay. It was truly a great Con and the people were amazing. We have a few more Star Wars Celebration updates to catch up on as I was under the weather for a week or so and really didn't feel like being creative. =) So stay tuned for a couple of updates this week, including a look at Star Wars Battlefront later today. May the 4th be with you ... If you enjoyed this update please share with your friends and make sure you "like" us on Facebook and "follow" us on Twitter and Instagram. Also, be sure to join our new Mailing List to receive our newsletter (will be sent out about every two weeks)
If you have any comments, please share them below.  During Star Wars Celebration there were a few things that were pretty major announcements. One was obviously the new trailer, the Star Wars Rebels premiere would be another one. But right up there was the panel and trailer for the all new Star Wars Battlefront game coming in November from EA/Dice. Written by Joshua Condon The panel on Friday morning was probably the 3rd most sought after panel of the weekend after the JJ Abrams panel on Thursday morning and Mark Hamill on Saturday night. The fact that this was in a smaller room didn't help matters and it would have been better had this been in the large arena. That issue aside, what we saw was the amazing trailer (below) as well as some of the talented people who worked on the game, and it's quite clear that their passion for the franchise is up there with most of us crazy fans, so Battlefront is in good hands. I was a huge fan of the games on the PS2 so I'm really looking forward to this new game ... so much so that I'm finally going to have to bite the bullet and buy a PS4. So Sony can thank EA/Dice for that. =) So before we get to the panel, let's check out the amazing trailer. This is in-game footage, not a trailer created just to show stuff off. Looks pretty amazing right? So lets get to the panel itself.  We were one of the lucky ones and got our spot at the front of the second section for the presentation.  Once the panel began it was revealed that not only did the game designers get some amazing access to the Lucas Archives to scan all of the props from the movies themselves, but they actually visited the locations where the movies were filmed.  Checking out the AT-ST   In addition to the amazing panel, on the show floor they also had another game demo that was in Dolby Atmos as well as some additional information about the game. We were unfortunately not allowed to get pictures/video of the second trailer, but as you can see below, they went all out for the demo. The line for this was one of the longest over the entire weekend.   They really went all out for this presentation.    And this was the last picture we could take. The second trailer was even more amazing gameplay footage that showed how the game can be played in the first and third person, and even more awesome Darth Vader footage.  Star Wars Battlefront will be released on November 17. There is also DLC of the new planet, "Battle of Jakku" that is released on December 8, ten full days before the new movie comes out. BUT ... if you pre-order the game, you will be able to download Battle of Jakku on December 1. We're really looking forward to seeing what other information comes out about this amazing game at E3 this year. Hope you enjoyed this quick look at what could possibly be game of the year. What do you think about the trailer and the care they are putting into this game? Are you excited for November? If you enjoyed this update please share with your friends and make sure you "like" us on Facebook and "follow" us on Twitter and Instagram. Also, be sure to join our new Mailing List to receive our newsletter (will be sent out about every two weeks)
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