May 22, 2023
Disney Axes Lake Nona & Galactic Starcruiser

Disney has canceled the Lake Nona Campus plans and will no longer require those Imagineers to relocate from California to Florida. Meanwhile, Disney announced that the final Galactic Starcriser voyages will be Sept 28-30, 2023. We have opinions.
Disney has canceled the Lake Nona Campus plans and will no longer require those Imagineers to relocate from California to Florida. Meanwhile, Disney announced that the final Galactic Starcriser voyages will be Sept 28-30, 2023. We have opinions.
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Okay, well, from our studios
in Abu Dhabi and Los Angeles, this
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is Green Tag Theme Park and thirty. I'm Philip, He's Scott and Scott.
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It looks like the Disney and DeSantis
saga might not have a happy ending
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after all, because Disney has just
acted its plans for the campus that they
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were going to build over in Orlando. Yeah, and thus not providing how
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many jobs to the state of Florida. Well, several thousand, several thousand.
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Well, it's just kind of moving
them over, so you know,
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but it's bringing them to the state
of Florida, and as a Floridian it's
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like, Okay, that's true,
that's true. Okay, let's set the
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context. I'm going to read the
first few paragraphs here from the New York
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Times article, which gave a nice
context here to get everyone up to speed.
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If you're not haven't been following this
saga. Oh, we forgot our
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little music to put in there.
I'm going to have to come up with
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something in March. Music is that? Yes, Yes, that's it.
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It's it'll keep coming. In March. Disney called Governor Roda Santas of Florida
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anti business for his scorched earth attempt
to tighten oversight of the company seam Park
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resort near Orlando last month when Disney
sued the governor and his allies were what
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it called a targeted campaign of government
retaliation, and company made clear that the
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seventeen billion dollar investment plan in the
area was on the line. Does the
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state want us to invest more,
employ more people and pay taxes or not,
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said Bob Iger during the earnings call, which we covered in a previous
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episode, And of course on Thursday, that was all put to the test
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because Disney Steam Park and Consumer Products
chairman showed that they were not bluffing by
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pulling the plug on the office complex
that was scheduled for construction in Orlando at
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a cost of roughly one billion.
It was heading around one point three ish.
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It would have brought more than two
thousand Disney jobs to the region,
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with one hundred and twenty thousand dollars
as the average salary, according to an
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estimate from the Florida Department at the
Economic Opportunity, which talked about this when
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it was first announced, and just
for further context, in the industry,
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it created quite a stir because most
of those jobs are of course, coming
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from imagineering in California, and you're
basically then asking a lot of creative individuals
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to move from California to Florida if
they want to keep their jobs. And
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that didn't go over well at the
time, and quite a few people had
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already started the process of relocating,
and part of the package was they would
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pay your relocation costs and all that. So, so Disney did clarify that
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they would look into allowing some of
those employees to move back to California and
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also to covering further moving expenses for
them. And of course the mayor j
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jumped on adding that it was unfortunate, but you know, kind of also
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blaming the Santists by saying it was
unfortunate, but what do you expect when
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everything is so difficult for businesses now
in Florida. So and of course the
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Santist's rebuttal has been that, you
know, Disney is suffering and their stock
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prices going down and everything going downhill
for them anyway, so they need to
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reevaluate, which is not correct at
all. Bye bye bye, just our
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last episode. Factually, I'm correct, there are no there are no facts
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to back what DeSantis is saying about
about Disney. I mean, he's just
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because he's saying it doesn't necessarily make
it real. The other thing I think
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is interesting about this move is,
you know, we had this discussion what
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two or three weeks ago or we
said, if Disney really wanted to,
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they could just say by bye Florida, and that would that would sink certainly
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the Orlando area, and it's it
wouldn't sink it. I mean, Universal
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obviously still has a very strong foothold
there and it would be um. But
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just why is why is the governor
of a state so adamantly opposed to a
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major contributor to the tax base continuing
to provide their service to people who are
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coming in and the amount of tourism
that brings in and the amount of people
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it employs. It's it is.
It is baffling. I it is baffling,
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like his reactions baffling Disney. I
actually, I think this is almost
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a little bit like all according to
plan for Disney or or Or would be
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more like convenience in a way,
because it wasn't. Iker was never in
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favor of this whole forcing cast members, forcing imagineers true to relocate basically and
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I do think that. I think
I was actually just having this conversation with
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a friend of mine who's in the
industry previously, where they were asking basically,
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would would you have done that?
Would you have moved? And I'm
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like, you know, it makes
it's very clear because whenever I go to
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Orlando, you can feel the difference. I'm sure Scott knows this, you
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know, because it's similar. You
can feel the energy there, just like
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you can feel it in Abu Dhabi, and you can feel it in these
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areas there. It's like you can't
go anywhere without seeing people running into work
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and contracts and just everyone is doing
something all the time. So there is
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that energy there. Definitely is a
capital of the world, but it starts
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to get difficult when you get into
you know, generally people live in California
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for a reason because if because otherwise
you wouldn't live here because I could tell
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you it's too expensive and there's way
too much traffics. You wouldn't live here
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unless you had a good reason.
And I think that that gets to the
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crux of it is a lot of
the the employees I can't imagine would have
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been happy. And I'm really not
sure what my answer really would have been,
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you know, in that I'm like, I'm not sure, just because
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when you there's also the politics of
this, right moving from California, which
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is very heavy blue, into something's
very heavy red, especially in the context
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of all of this the women's rights, and there's so much craziness, you
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know, so I it seems to
me like a little convenient. It's like,
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oh, well, we can we
you know, I'm not We're not
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sure they really wanted to complete this
move anyway, and they might have been
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facing additional issues with staffing, and
then this kind of comes along, and
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it's a good it's a good Like
Desantist is like almost becoming the true Disney
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villain in this because he's acteen as
a scapegoat for something they might have done
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anyway. That's just my thought.
Well, I think that's I think that
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is very possible, and it's a
very good point. At the same time,
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you know, you just said,
why would you live in California if
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you didn't have a reason to Well, if that reason moved to Florida,
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which is significantly cheaper and significantly less
of a of a of a state tax
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burden on its residence, I could
see that there would be just as many
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people who would say, yeah,
I have no reason to stay here anymore.
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I will now, you know,
follow follow the mouse. And let's
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face it, the world has become
so incredibly small now that you can go
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and live. You know, you
can you can move with your company to
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um to Orlando for two to three
years and then you know, go live
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somewhere else, or you can work
remotely, or you could go and live
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in the Middle East for five months. I mean, all of these things
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are things that just happen now.
So I I understand your argument, and
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I don't I don't discredit it.
I think it's a very it's a very
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interesting counterpoint too to what's going on
here. At the same time, the
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reason I think, and I don't
know this for a fact, but the
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reason I think that they were trying
to gather everyone in Orlando is because it
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is more cost effective for a business. It is more beneficial to the company
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as a whole. I mean,
large corporations don't make choices like this that
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aren't based on some sort of of
financial gain. And it's still I can't
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help but think that it might be. You know, you're right, it
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may be it may be an easy
out for them that is possible. At
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the same time, even if it
wasn't an easy out, I don't think
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the decision would have been any different
at this point because they feel under attack
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in the state of Florida and you
and they are by well by the governor
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at least, And so whether it's
whether it is a whether it is creating
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a scapegoat or not, whether it
is a convenient way out or not,
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I don't know whether the decision would
have been any different at this point.
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Yeah, yeah, I would also
want to add or just point out here
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despite I think maybe just like just
what we both have all all just said,
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looking at Ghantum's situation, we have
done the We we kind officially did
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the same thing that Disney and was
planning to do. You know, we
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actually when they announced their plans,
we did sort of adjust hours, and
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a lot of other firms that I
know as well did the same thing,
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smaller firms, you know, support
auxiliary people. And now we're looking at
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giving up We're just giving up our
lease in California for our California building,
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and we're going to be down to
three employees in California. And all of
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them are remote. And then we
have we're going to keep our office in
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Orlando. We got like when Disney
announced this whole thing, we got a
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new office there. We're going to
keep that office there. And we're up
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to five in Orlando. So I
mean we've we've shifted. And and I
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will say to your point, it
is it is more convenient, you know,
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it's it's just easier. You know, all the work is there,
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all of our clients are there because
everything is easier there. There might be
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designers that still there are still designed
not might be there are still designers in
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in the so Cal region, but
but you know, it's not anywhere you
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can work from it. Yeah,
And and the kind of the density is
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just it's just something else, you
know, being the density. There's much
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more density being there in Orlandos.
It's just not it's it's not really comparable.
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So I do wonder to your point
of like, you know it,
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I'm still I'm still like, well, you know, the bulk of the
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industry is very clearly in Orlando in
the US. That's where it is here
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in America. So you know,
I it would almost have made more sense
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to me if they had said,
we're gonna scrap this and we're gonna put
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an office in Abu Dhabi that would
have or in the UAE somewhere, or
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in China or something that would have
almost made more sense because because it's kind
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of undeniable that the the bulk of
the industry is there in Orlandos. So
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I'm not sure. Yeah, it's
And at the same time, you know,
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working as you said, you know, even with Ghantum, you've got
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the majority of your California employees working
remotely. You can work when you work
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remotely, you can work remotely from
just about anywhere. I trust me,
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I've been doing it for the last
five months. I get it. Um.
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You know, not only am I
working my project here, but then
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I come home at the end of
the day and and have conference calls for
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other projects that are coming up.
And I'm actually quite excited to get back
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to seeing in person back in the
States. So um, somebody basically said,
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you know, is there any difference
between opening it opening this this complex
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or this campus in Orlando or Atlanta, or you know, somewhere just across
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the Florida state line where you know, you you have a lot of the
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same you could get actually probably even
more tax benefits because you know, some
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of the some of the smaller southern
cities are looking for some help. Not
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necessarily Atlanta, but some of the
smaller southern municipalities are looking for some help.
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So is it I don't I don't
know what the answer is, but
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I do think I do truly believe
that this is a situation where a state
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where the leaders of the state have
proven that they are aggressively attacking a specific
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company, and their response is well, to heck with you, I'm not
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I'm not going to play this game. I'm gonna take my pieces and go.
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And you know, you've heard me
say before, Disney could very easily
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just pull out and go away.
They can take what you know, I
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know they've established a great foothold.
I know it was um it has taken
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a long time to build the status
that they have there, to continue to
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build the infrastructure that they have there. But if need be, and if
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pushed to, they could leave.
And I don't you know, I don't
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think it's something they want to do. I don't think it's I don't even
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think it's something as as as non
business related as the the basic pissing contest
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over over the the LGBTQ plus rights. Um, I think that is I
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really think that is secondary from a
Disney from a Disney standpoint. Um.
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But but if it if it becomes
nonprofitable or it becomes more of a challenge
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to work in a specific state,
they can take all their assets and go
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somewhere else. Yeah, perhaps Abu
Dhabi or the UAE or or exact or
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wherever. Yeah. Well, I
think my takeaway from this is not really
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much different than every time the thag
has come up. You know, it's
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it's Disney is fighting the good fight. This is a fight that needs to
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happen and they need and I wish
them success. I do think that if
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anyone's gonna we need this line to
be underlined. Where As entertainment companies,
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we are private companies and we have
First Amendment rights and that needs to be
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underlined and protected. And I'm glad
they're either doing it. But from me
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from the Ghana's perspective, we're not
rushing to close our Orlando office. You
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know, We're not like we're we're
really not changing anything right now. We're
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just keeping everything kind of you know, as is, and we're not going
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to reopen our our California office,
you know, We're just not. It's
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it's there's not enough there right right
now, and it's too expensive just for
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us. We're very small, right, We're very small. It's it's just
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not. So we're not doing anything
different, and we're just kind of I'm
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just watching to see how how where
this is going to go. But otherwise
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we're not doing anything different. And
that's that's my takeaway. So and for
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the smaller parks and smaller companies,
I think my takeaway is we often think
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that we'll let somebody else deal with
the politics in our area. Don't.
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Yeah, let let your dollars,
you know, just like Disney's doing.
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Let your dollars speak for the the
environment that you are being offered wherever you're
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working, and get involved in your
you know, your chamber of commerce or
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whatever is in your area, so
that you can be aware of and your
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voice can be heard and you can
speak with your dollars as opposed to just
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speaking with your mouths. So well, I guess Disney is also speaking with
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their dollars, but I'm not sure
what they're saying with this next well,
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which again I hate to say it, but this next story is something that
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we said was most likely going to
happen. It was either going one way
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or the other. Yes we did, Yes we did. Oh gosh,
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Okay, let's get to this.
So Star Wars Galactic Star Cruiser opened March
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first, twenty twenty two, at
Disney World, and of course it's offering
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a highly immersive two night experience in
a galaxy far far away. But this
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week, Disney announced that the star
Cruiser will make its final voyage September twenty
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eighth through thirtieth, so that will
be roughly eighteen months of a run time.
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The Star Wars Glactic Star Cruiser is
one of the most creative projects ever
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and has been praised by our guests
and recognized for setting a new bar for
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innovation and immersive entertainment, said Disney. Disney went on to say this premium
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boutique experience gave us the opportunity to
try new things on a smaller scale of
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one hundred rooms. As we prepare
for its final voyage, we will take
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what we've learned to create future experiences
that can reach more of our guests and
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fans. We are so proud of
all of our cast members and imagineers who
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brought Star Wars Collecting Strukers to life, and look forward to delivering an excellent
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experience for guests during the remaining voyages
over the coming months. And let me
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just say off the bat here,
the biggest thing, the thing that drove
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me crazy about this story is how
much shit people are giving Disney for this.
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So first of all, those imagineers
and those creators, they do deserve
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kudos. They deserves are Disney deserves
kudos for trying this. It was an
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incredible experience. I didn't get to
do it. It actually was way too
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expensive for both Scott and I,
so we didn't get to do it.
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But we saw, we heard,
and we knew people that worked on it.
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It was phenomenal. It was tremendous. And again here's again, somebody,
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I'm a little soapbox here. You
know, there are only so many
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stand back, stand back. Okay, I got my coffee free for this
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one. I'm ready, Okay,
So there are only we know, there
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are only so many levers you can
pull with theme parks, just like haunts.
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You know, we know that you
start off as an fec, you
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eventually grow into a theme park and
what you your main goal for most of
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your most of the brands out there
is just butts and seats. Like my
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old chef you said I was apprenticed
to. You should say, it's through
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put, it's butts and seats.
How many people can we get to click
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the turnstile then we get into the
park. Once you reach that critical mass,
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it becomes increasing the spend per guests. And how many times we talked
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about that, We've been talking about
So then what happens when you can't possibly
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fit any more people in the park? Then you have to figure out what
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is the max spend per guest?
And once you've really come close to that,
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then you have to figure out what
could we possibly do that goes beyond
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this? Where is the ceiling?
Where is the limit? Nobody has ever
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had to solve that problem. Everybody
else is just sitting back there with the
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tried and trude method of increasing your
shoulder seasons, adding attractions, adding festivals,
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adding ba ba blah blah blah,
everything that we know works. That's
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what everybody else is doing. The
only brand that has to actually worry about
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these problems is Disney, and thank
goodness, they are dealing with it because
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then we just get to stand back
and watch what they do and then just
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copy it and make money. That's
it. It's not I mean, it's
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it's glorious. So Disney deserves praise
for trying this because we knew, like
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somebody had to do it. Somebody
had to try it, somebody has to
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test it. It didn't mean it
wasn't good. It is a test.
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That's what it has always was supposed
to be. And just like Scott had
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said a hundred times, you can't
make a bad test or you won't know
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if it actually succeeded or not.
So they had they had to make it
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a premium experience. They had to
spend the money. They had to do
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their due diligence to make it incredible. To find out what is the ceiling?
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How much will the Disney fans and
the Star Wars fans actually spend a
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day? We have to know.
And if you remember they tried that around
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the world thing, there was twenty
four thousand dollars, so loud immediately,
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okay, so these are the signals
they're getting. They're like, okay,
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well if twenty four thousand dollars will
sell out, but that's only ex seats
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and I mean it's it's all a
test, so I think this is par
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for the course. I don't think
there's anything wrong here. I think everybody
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should be proud about their contributions.
I think Disney should be congratulated for testing
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it. And what it tells all
of us is that here's the line.
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We found it and it's not a
mistake. And you know what, they
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can use that for something else.
They can use it for a regular hotel
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now, and just make it a
boutique hotel, like we have plenty of
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hotel, but there are so many
hotels that have less than one hundred rooms
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like this is. I can't,
I can't in the mainstream media. Also,
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let me just say, New York
Times, I do not appreciate you
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pull in tweets from random vloggers and
putting them into the New York Times and
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saying that, oh, we think
Disney might have mispriced this, and it
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was so clearly no, no,
no, shut up. It was not
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clear that this wasn't this was too
expensive, because if it was clear,
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they wouldn't have done it. Like, we all needed this information and now
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we have it, and we should
all be thanking them because now we know
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like now we know, now we
know if Universal wants to do a Horror
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Nights experience that's a two night Horror
Nights extravaganza in Vegas, they know,
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Hey, we're probably not gonna be
able to sell that for twelve hundred a
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night per person. And that's valual
information. Okay, I'm done. Yes,
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I was, so I was steaming
about that. Wow. Well no,
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it's funny because what we had said
very very early on was it was
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either going to be a massive financial
success yea, or rolled out to other
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parks than other other countries. Yeah, it was last. And so it
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the thing that I agree with absolutely
everything Philip has just said. I think
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that it is. It is a
great um. It was. It was
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basically a funded beta testum, which
I think is is really wise and it
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was done correctly, you know,
just to echo what Philip said when he
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was echoing what I've said in the
past, and that is, UM,
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you can't do you can't test something
if you only do it half half heartedly.
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You've got to go in and test
it fully to find out what works
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and what doesn't. Um. You
know, and I'm sure they are looking
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at it going was it the price
point. Was it the it was?
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It was perhaps I've heard some people
say it was too immersive, Um,
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it was too focused on a single
ip um and there were people who were
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coming from other places who wanted to
experience a broader spectrum of the Disney ip
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Um library. Um. I've heard
some people say it was because it reminded
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them of a cruise ship. For
the same price, they could have gone
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on a much longer cruise and seen
real things. So it kind of ta
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taps back into it. Is it
more of the the actual reality that we've
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been talking out on the show here? Who knows. But to Philip's point,
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it tested the waters. It found
that that breaking point or that that
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feasibility I wouldn't call it breaking that
feasibility limit, and I think that it
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is. I again, just like
you, Philip, I applaud them for
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doing it. I applaud them for
doing it right, and I'm sure that
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the learnings that they're taking away from
this will be applied for years and years
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to come. What I would caution
anybody who is looking at doing who looks
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at doing something testing it grandly and
then having it not meet the expectations or
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not be sustainable, either financially or
from a casting standpoint or whatever. My
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caution is, don't get locked into
in the future. Well, we tried
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it and it didn't work. Look
at it in though, in such a
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way as we tried this, and
we learned this, and this worked,
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and this worked, and this worked, and if we do it again,
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here here are the things we have
to address. So take the learnings,
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not the failures. That's the most
important takeaway I can give for because,
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let's face it, you know,
they're very, very, very very few
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of us who are going to ever
have the opportunity to work on a project
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of this magnitude with this kind of
of immersiveness and interactivity. Um And and
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who knows Disney may not do it
at this level again. Um But I
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think it's I think it's important to
recognize that no one should ever go well,
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Disney tried it and it didn't work. That's that's not fair, nor
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is it accurate, nor is it
a good way to grow. The best
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way to grow is to you know
you've you've It's it's an old adage you
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learn from your failures, but I
think you also learn from the successes within
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your failures, or you learn from
the things that are not necessarily it's not
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necessarily sustainable in a really good idea. So um, yes, Disney did
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it right. Yes, it was
not sustainable for whatever reason. And yes,
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let's hope that they build based on
what they learned from from this,
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uh, from this attraction slash immersive
hotel experience, the data that they gathered.
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And make no mistake, they definitely
gathered data because that is Disney's way
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is going to be invaluable and their
entertainment across their entire spectrum. You can
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see it. You're going to see
it show up in other places, you
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know, like you said, figuring
out the degree of immersive, how how
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much is too much? All these
things. I mean, they announced the
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community the living communities as well,
and they announced there's going to be entertainment
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in those and I mean they could
bring a Star Wars experience on tour.
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There's and then the people that are
saying this is a waste of money,
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No, Disney doesn't let assets go
to waste. I mean, there's there's
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there's a lot of ways to use
this property, and I would say I
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could pretty easily see it being converted
into just a regular you know, it
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deluxe resort for the properties, and
even at a hunt. I mean,
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you know, if you remove the
immersive nature and just let people stay in
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it. I mean, people already
pay five hundred to a thousand plus a
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night anyway for just regular, regular
deluxe rooms in a non experienced hotel,
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so I could see they could just
scoosh that price point down a tad and
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make it a regular hotel with regular
concierge staff. Or maybe it's just an
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all confierge hotel. It's fine,
there's there's plenty of race recyclists. It
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really reminds me of the similar reaction
to Universal's announcement of doing something horror in
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Las Vegas, because what did we
hear so much? Well, they've already
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tried to year round haunt and trashing
it didn't work, blah blah blah.
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Well that again, this is why
we have to I mean, these are
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all data points for all of us. And yet again that's why they're not
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bringing. That's why Universal is not
bringing a year round on attraction. They
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are bringing a dining kind of cocktail
type of experience because that is what is
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working in other markets. We see
the food we just talked about the food
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trends. We see this working.
So and I'll say all that all of
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that too. I mean, look
at it's just they tested menu options out
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there that people absolutely loved. You
saw guests saying they would go back just
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for the food, or they would
stay on the ship. I mean,
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they got a lot of very positive
feedback. You saw people complaining they would
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never get to eat those things.
They can still make them, like,
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it's not like they lost their kitchens
and they lost their chefs. Like they
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can just move them or put them
into in different experiences. It's just it's
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now I'm gonna if I'm gonna look
into the Crystal Ball, because You're right,
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they will. They will repurpose this
asset somehow somewhere in the future,
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I would guess, And honestly,
in my heart of hearts, I kind
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of hope that they take it,
they take the bones, they strip it
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down, and they superimpose a new
ip for the hotel. I really hope
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that they don't make it galactic star
Cruiser light, even though I think there
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is a market for that. I
think some people would love to be able
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to say, well, I didn't
get to do the full experience, but
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I did get to stay in the
hotel. I would hope, at least
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in the short term, that they
would completely change it, because there's always
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going to be that perceived cloud of
quote unquote failure over the space and people
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will never be happy with it,
and people who went and enjoyed it before
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will say it doesn't compare, and
people who go now will be like,
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I can't believe people spent so much
money on it. It's just going to
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be negative. It's just going to
be negative for them, at least in
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the short term. Now, assuming
that Disney is going to continue to stay
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in Florida, they can if they
wish, based on the amount of land
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that they own, just sit on
it for a few years. Yeah,
384
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and let the you know, let
the negativity fade away. Um. There
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are there are properties in the Florida
Resort that have been that sat dormant for
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many, many years before they were
either redeveloped or just allowed to go back
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to natural Florida wildlife. Um,
it's it's interesting. I'm again I'm curious
388
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to see what happens. But I
would assume and almost like I said,
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almost hope that they would um that
they would let it, let it rest
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before they before they bring it back. I would hate to see it come
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back as the experience they originally intended, only watered down. But we'll see,
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We'll see what happens. You know, you you mentioned for listeners other
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people. You mentioned that listeners should
be thinking about when they do their tests
394
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to understand that it doesn't mean that
everything is a failure, just one.
395
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You know, if a project bill
doesn't mean everything about failures. You know
396
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what I just kind of talked about
how it's really only disit it has this
397
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problem or one of these problems of
trying to figure out what's going to work
398
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because they've maxed out their parks or
whatnot. I mean, do you think
399
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it's still the best option for other
people to be focusing on the other items
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we talked about increasing their guests they're
spend per guests, and increasing their capacity
401
00:29:32.440 --> 00:29:37.119
and filling out their season because essentially
this was something that was out of all
402
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that because they couldn't do that anymore
so they were trying to create a premium
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experience for premium fans. I mean, do you think that is something that
404
00:29:44.359 --> 00:29:48.440
people should be focused on or just
the old years I've been I've been touting
405
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premium experiences for premium fans. I
think that is I think that is something
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that theme parks miss out on.
And as I sit here and I look
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out the window of my hotel and
I see the I see Ferrari World outside
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my hotel. One of the premium
experiences there is you can actually hook up
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to a cable and walk on the
roof. It was something that is and
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00:30:11.359 --> 00:30:14.920
so cool because I see it happen
every day out my hotel window. Um,
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they found the right price point for
it. It continues to be sustainable,
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so you know, find those things. Is it is it a completely
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immersive experience? Not necessarily. What
it could be for you is taking advantage
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00:30:26.799 --> 00:30:30.960
of your assets. So don't think
that there is not a high end market
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00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:33.920
out there. Uh, there is, there is, and you can continue
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to find ways to expand and play
into that high end market UM and hopefully
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UM generate some additional revenue for you
know, for you and your parks.
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So keep exploring those. And what
was right for Disney is you know not
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it may not be right for us
even in theory on the on the lower
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levels or smaller parks, but that
does not mean that there is not a
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market out there for high end experiences. That does not mean that there is
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not something UM unique that you can
do to continue to get more in park
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spend or to generate additional revenue outside
of your regular hours. So keep keep
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looking, keep looking UM and continue
to look for us because we're going to
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00:31:15.880 --> 00:31:19.480
come back next week because we're done
for this week, and check us out.
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00:31:19.920 --> 00:31:22.400
Make sure that you we are on
our We do have the YouTube channel
427
00:31:22.440 --> 00:31:26.440
now, please make sure you check
us out there when I when I get
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00:31:26.440 --> 00:31:30.880
back to the States, I'm hoping
to put together some additional content from here.
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00:31:32.039 --> 00:31:34.039
I just haven't had the time to
do it because I've been working UM
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00:31:34.079 --> 00:31:37.799
but that will go up on the
on the YouTube channel as well, So
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00:31:37.279 --> 00:31:41.640
um on behalf of Philip and myself
until next time. This is Green Tag
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00:31:41.720 --> 00:31:42.799
Theme Park in thirty and we will
see you next week.
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Okay, well, from our studios
in Abu Dhabi and Los Angeles, this
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is Green Tag Theme Park and thirty. I'm Philip, He's Scott and Scott.
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It looks like the Disney and DeSantis
saga might not have a happy ending
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after all, because Disney has just
acted its plans for the campus that they
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were going to build over in Orlando. Yeah, and thus not providing how
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many jobs to the state of Florida. Well, several thousand, several thousand.
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Well, it's just kind of moving
them over, so you know,
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but it's bringing them to the state
of Florida, and as a Floridian it's
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like, Okay, that's true,
that's true. Okay, let's set the
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context. I'm going to read the
first few paragraphs here from the New York
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Times article, which gave a nice
context here to get everyone up to speed.
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If you're not haven't been following this
saga. Oh, we forgot our
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little music to put in there.
I'm going to have to come up with
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something in March. Music is that? Yes, Yes, that's it.
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It's it'll keep coming. In March. Disney called Governor Roda Santas of Florida
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anti business for his scorched earth attempt
to tighten oversight of the company seam Park
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resort near Orlando last month when Disney
sued the governor and his allies were what
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it called a targeted campaign of government
retaliation, and company made clear that the
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seventeen billion dollar investment plan in the
area was on the line. Does the
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state want us to invest more,
employ more people and pay taxes or not,
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said Bob Iger during the earnings call, which we covered in a previous
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episode, And of course on Thursday, that was all put to the test
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because Disney Steam Park and Consumer Products
chairman showed that they were not bluffing by
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pulling the plug on the office complex
that was scheduled for construction in Orlando at
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a cost of roughly one billion.
It was heading around one point three ish.
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It would have brought more than two
thousand Disney jobs to the region,
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with one hundred and twenty thousand dollars
as the average salary, according to an
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estimate from the Florida Department at the
Economic Opportunity, which talked about this when
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it was first announced, and just
for further context, in the industry,
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it created quite a stir because most
of those jobs are of course, coming
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from imagineering in California, and you're
basically then asking a lot of creative individuals
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to move from California to Florida if
they want to keep their jobs. And
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that didn't go over well at the
time, and quite a few people had
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already started the process of relocating,
and part of the package was they would
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pay your relocation costs and all that. So, so Disney did clarify that
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they would look into allowing some of
those employees to move back to California and
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also to covering further moving expenses for
them. And of course the mayor j
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jumped on adding that it was unfortunate, but you know, kind of also
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blaming the Santists by saying it was
unfortunate, but what do you expect when
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everything is so difficult for businesses now
in Florida. So and of course the
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Santist's rebuttal has been that, you
know, Disney is suffering and their stock
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prices going down and everything going downhill
for them anyway, so they need to
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reevaluate, which is not correct at
all. Bye bye bye, just our
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last episode. Factually, I'm correct, there are no there are no facts
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to back what DeSantis is saying about
about Disney. I mean, he's just
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because he's saying it doesn't necessarily make
it real. The other thing I think
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is interesting about this move is,
you know, we had this discussion what
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two or three weeks ago or we
said, if Disney really wanted to,
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they could just say by bye Florida, and that would that would sink certainly
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the Orlando area, and it's it
wouldn't sink it. I mean, Universal
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obviously still has a very strong foothold
there and it would be um. But
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just why is why is the governor
of a state so adamantly opposed to a
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major contributor to the tax base continuing
to provide their service to people who are
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coming in and the amount of tourism
that brings in and the amount of people
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it employs. It's it is.
It is baffling. I it is baffling,
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like his reactions baffling Disney. I
actually, I think this is almost
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a little bit like all according to
plan for Disney or or Or would be
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more like convenience in a way,
because it wasn't. Iker was never in
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favor of this whole forcing cast members, forcing imagineers true to relocate basically and
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I do think that. I think
I was actually just having this conversation with
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a friend of mine who's in the
industry previously, where they were asking basically,
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would would you have done that?
Would you have moved? And I'm
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like, you know, it makes
it's very clear because whenever I go to
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Orlando, you can feel the difference. I'm sure Scott knows this, you
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know, because it's similar. You
can feel the energy there, just like
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you can feel it in Abu Dhabi, and you can feel it in these
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areas there. It's like you can't
go anywhere without seeing people running into work
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and contracts and just everyone is doing
something all the time. So there is
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that energy there. Definitely is a
capital of the world, but it starts
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to get difficult when you get into
you know, generally people live in California
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for a reason because if because otherwise
you wouldn't live here because I could tell
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you it's too expensive and there's way
too much traffics. You wouldn't live here
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unless you had a good reason.
And I think that that gets to the
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crux of it is a lot of
the the employees I can't imagine would have
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been happy. And I'm really not
sure what my answer really would have been,
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you know, in that I'm like, I'm not sure, just because
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when you there's also the politics of
this, right moving from California, which
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is very heavy blue, into something's
very heavy red, especially in the context
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of all of this the women's rights, and there's so much craziness, you
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know, so I it seems to
me like a little convenient. It's like,
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oh, well, we can we
you know, I'm not We're not
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sure they really wanted to complete this
move anyway, and they might have been
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facing additional issues with staffing, and
then this kind of comes along, and
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it's a good it's a good Like
Desantist is like almost becoming the true Disney
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villain in this because he's acteen as
a scapegoat for something they might have done
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anyway. That's just my thought.
Well, I think that's I think that
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is very possible, and it's a
very good point. At the same time,
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you know, you just said,
why would you live in California if
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you didn't have a reason to Well, if that reason moved to Florida,
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which is significantly cheaper and significantly less
of a of a of a state tax
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burden on its residence, I could
see that there would be just as many
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people who would say, yeah,
I have no reason to stay here anymore.
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I will now, you know,
follow follow the mouse. And let's
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face it, the world has become
so incredibly small now that you can go
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and live. You know, you
can you can move with your company to
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um to Orlando for two to three
years and then you know, go live
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somewhere else, or you can work
remotely, or you could go and live
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in the Middle East for five months. I mean, all of these things
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are things that just happen now.
So I I understand your argument, and
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I don't I don't discredit it.
I think it's a very it's a very
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interesting counterpoint too to what's going on
here. At the same time, the
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reason I think, and I don't
know this for a fact, but the
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reason I think that they were trying
to gather everyone in Orlando is because it
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is more cost effective for a business. It is more beneficial to the company
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as a whole. I mean,
large corporations don't make choices like this that
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aren't based on some sort of of
financial gain. And it's still I can't
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help but think that it might be. You know, you're right, it
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may be it may be an easy
out for them that is possible. At
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the same time, even if it
wasn't an easy out, I don't think
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the decision would have been any different
at this point because they feel under attack
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in the state of Florida and you
and they are by well by the governor
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at least, And so whether it's
whether it is a whether it is creating
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a scapegoat or not, whether it
is a convenient way out or not,
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I don't know whether the decision would
have been any different at this point.
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Yeah, yeah, I would also
want to add or just point out here
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despite I think maybe just like just
what we both have all all just said,
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looking at Ghantum's situation, we have
done the We we kind officially did
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the same thing that Disney and was
planning to do. You know, we
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actually when they announced their plans,
we did sort of adjust hours, and
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a lot of other firms that I
know as well did the same thing,
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smaller firms, you know, support
auxiliary people. And now we're looking at
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giving up We're just giving up our
lease in California for our California building,
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and we're going to be down to
three employees in California. And all of
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them are remote. And then we
have we're going to keep our office in
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Orlando. We got like when Disney
announced this whole thing, we got a
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new office there. We're going to
keep that office there. And we're up
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to five in Orlando. So I
mean we've we've shifted. And and I
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will say to your point, it
is it is more convenient, you know,
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it's it's just easier. You know, all the work is there,
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all of our clients are there because
everything is easier there. There might be
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designers that still there are still designed
not might be there are still designers in
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in the so Cal region, but
but you know, it's not anywhere you
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can work from it. Yeah,
And and the kind of the density is
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just it's just something else, you
know, being the density. There's much
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more density being there in Orlandos.
It's just not it's it's not really comparable.
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So I do wonder to your point
of like, you know it,
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I'm still I'm still like, well, you know, the bulk of the
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industry is very clearly in Orlando in
the US. That's where it is here
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in America. So you know,
I it would almost have made more sense
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to me if they had said,
we're gonna scrap this and we're gonna put
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an office in Abu Dhabi that would
have or in the UAE somewhere, or
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in China or something that would have
almost made more sense because because it's kind
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00:10:46.799 --> 00:10:52.200
of undeniable that the the bulk of
the industry is there in Orlandos. So
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I'm not sure. Yeah, it's
And at the same time, you know,
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working as you said, you know, even with Ghantum, you've got
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the majority of your California employees working
remotely. You can work when you work
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00:11:05.519 --> 00:11:09.360
remotely, you can work remotely from
just about anywhere. I trust me,
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I've been doing it for the last
five months. I get it. Um.
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You know, not only am I
working my project here, but then
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I come home at the end of
the day and and have conference calls for
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other projects that are coming up.
And I'm actually quite excited to get back
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to seeing in person back in the
States. So um, somebody basically said,
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you know, is there any difference
between opening it opening this this complex
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or this campus in Orlando or Atlanta, or you know, somewhere just across
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the Florida state line where you know, you you have a lot of the
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same you could get actually probably even
more tax benefits because you know, some
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of the some of the smaller southern
cities are looking for some help. Not
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necessarily Atlanta, but some of the
smaller southern municipalities are looking for some help.
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So is it I don't I don't
know what the answer is, but
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00:12:00.919 --> 00:12:05.200
I do think I do truly believe
that this is a situation where a state
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where the leaders of the state have
proven that they are aggressively attacking a specific
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company, and their response is well, to heck with you, I'm not
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I'm not going to play this game. I'm gonna take my pieces and go.
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And you know, you've heard me
say before, Disney could very easily
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just pull out and go away.
They can take what you know, I
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know they've established a great foothold.
I know it was um it has taken
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a long time to build the status
that they have there, to continue to
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build the infrastructure that they have there. But if need be, and if
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pushed to, they could leave.
And I don't you know, I don't
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think it's something they want to do. I don't think it's I don't even
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think it's something as as as non
business related as the the basic pissing contest
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over over the the LGBTQ plus rights. Um, I think that is I
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really think that is secondary from a
Disney from a Disney standpoint. Um.
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But but if it if it becomes
nonprofitable or it becomes more of a challenge
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to work in a specific state,
they can take all their assets and go
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somewhere else. Yeah, perhaps Abu
Dhabi or the UAE or or exact or
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wherever. Yeah. Well, I
think my takeaway from this is not really
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much different than every time the thag
has come up. You know, it's
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it's Disney is fighting the good fight. This is a fight that needs to
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happen and they need and I wish
them success. I do think that if
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anyone's gonna we need this line to
be underlined. Where As entertainment companies,
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we are private companies and we have
First Amendment rights and that needs to be
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underlined and protected. And I'm glad
they're either doing it. But from me
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from the Ghana's perspective, we're not
rushing to close our Orlando office. You
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know, We're not like we're we're
really not changing anything right now. We're
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just keeping everything kind of you know, as is, and we're not going
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to reopen our our California office,
you know, We're just not. It's
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it's there's not enough there right right
now, and it's too expensive just for
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us. We're very small, right, We're very small. It's it's just
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not. So we're not doing anything
different, and we're just kind of I'm
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just watching to see how how where
this is going to go. But otherwise
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we're not doing anything different. And
that's that's my takeaway. So and for
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the smaller parks and smaller companies,
I think my takeaway is we often think
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that we'll let somebody else deal with
the politics in our area. Don't.
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Yeah, let let your dollars,
you know, just like Disney's doing.
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Let your dollars speak for the the
environment that you are being offered wherever you're
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working, and get involved in your
you know, your chamber of commerce or
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whatever is in your area, so
that you can be aware of and your
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voice can be heard and you can
speak with your dollars as opposed to just
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speaking with your mouths. So well, I guess Disney is also speaking with
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their dollars, but I'm not sure
what they're saying with this next well,
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which again I hate to say it, but this next story is something that
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we said was most likely going to
happen. It was either going one way
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or the other. Yes we did, Yes we did. Oh gosh,
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Okay, let's get to this.
So Star Wars Galactic Star Cruiser opened March
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first, twenty twenty two, at
Disney World, and of course it's offering
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a highly immersive two night experience in
a galaxy far far away. But this
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week, Disney announced that the star
Cruiser will make its final voyage September twenty
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eighth through thirtieth, so that will
be roughly eighteen months of a run time.
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The Star Wars Glactic Star Cruiser is
one of the most creative projects ever
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and has been praised by our guests
and recognized for setting a new bar for
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innovation and immersive entertainment, said Disney. Disney went on to say this premium
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boutique experience gave us the opportunity to
try new things on a smaller scale of
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one hundred rooms. As we prepare
for its final voyage, we will take
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what we've learned to create future experiences
that can reach more of our guests and
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fans. We are so proud of
all of our cast members and imagineers who
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brought Star Wars Collecting Strukers to life, and look forward to delivering an excellent
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experience for guests during the remaining voyages
over the coming months. And let me
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just say off the bat here,
the biggest thing, the thing that drove
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me crazy about this story is how
much shit people are giving Disney for this.
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So first of all, those imagineers
and those creators, they do deserve
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kudos. They deserves are Disney deserves
kudos for trying this. It was an
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incredible experience. I didn't get to
do it. It actually was way too
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expensive for both Scott and I,
so we didn't get to do it.
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But we saw, we heard,
and we knew people that worked on it.
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It was phenomenal. It was tremendous. And again here's again, somebody,
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I'm a little soapbox here. You
know, there are only so many
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stand back, stand back. Okay, I got my coffee free for this
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one. I'm ready, Okay,
So there are only we know, there
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are only so many levers you can
pull with theme parks, just like haunts.
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You know, we know that you
start off as an fec, you
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eventually grow into a theme park and
what you your main goal for most of
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your most of the brands out there
is just butts and seats. Like my
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old chef you said I was apprenticed
to. You should say, it's through
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put, it's butts and seats.
How many people can we get to click
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the turnstile then we get into the
park. Once you reach that critical mass,
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it becomes increasing the spend per guests. And how many times we talked
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about that, We've been talking about
So then what happens when you can't possibly
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fit any more people in the park? Then you have to figure out what
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is the max spend per guest?
And once you've really come close to that,
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then you have to figure out what
could we possibly do that goes beyond
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this? Where is the ceiling?
Where is the limit? Nobody has ever
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had to solve that problem. Everybody
else is just sitting back there with the
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tried and trude method of increasing your
shoulder seasons, adding attractions, adding festivals,
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adding ba ba blah blah blah,
everything that we know works. That's
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what everybody else is doing. The
only brand that has to actually worry about
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these problems is Disney, and thank
goodness, they are dealing with it because
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then we just get to stand back
and watch what they do and then just
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copy it and make money. That's
it. It's not I mean, it's
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it's glorious. So Disney deserves praise
for trying this because we knew, like
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somebody had to do it. Somebody
had to try it, somebody has to
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test it. It didn't mean it
wasn't good. It is a test.
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That's what it has always was supposed
to be. And just like Scott had
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said a hundred times, you can't
make a bad test or you won't know
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if it actually succeeded or not.
So they had they had to make it
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a premium experience. They had to
spend the money. They had to do
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their due diligence to make it incredible. To find out what is the ceiling?
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How much will the Disney fans and
the Star Wars fans actually spend a
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day? We have to know.
And if you remember they tried that around
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the world thing, there was twenty
four thousand dollars, so loud immediately,
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okay, so these are the signals
they're getting. They're like, okay,
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well if twenty four thousand dollars will
sell out, but that's only ex seats
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and I mean it's it's all a
test, so I think this is par
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for the course. I don't think
there's anything wrong here. I think everybody
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should be proud about their contributions.
I think Disney should be congratulated for testing
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it. And what it tells all
of us is that here's the line.
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We found it and it's not a
mistake. And you know what, they
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can use that for something else.
They can use it for a regular hotel
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now, and just make it a
boutique hotel, like we have plenty of
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hotel, but there are so many
hotels that have less than one hundred rooms
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like this is. I can't,
I can't in the mainstream media. Also,
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let me just say, New York
Times, I do not appreciate you
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pull in tweets from random vloggers and
putting them into the New York Times and
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saying that, oh, we think
Disney might have mispriced this, and it
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was so clearly no, no,
no, shut up. It was not
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clear that this wasn't this was too
expensive, because if it was clear,
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they wouldn't have done it. Like, we all needed this information and now
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we have it, and we should
all be thanking them because now we know
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like now we know, now we
know if Universal wants to do a Horror
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Nights experience that's a two night Horror
Nights extravaganza in Vegas, they know,
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Hey, we're probably not gonna be
able to sell that for twelve hundred a
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night per person. And that's valual
information. Okay, I'm done. Yes,
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I was, so I was steaming
about that. Wow. Well no,
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it's funny because what we had said
very very early on was it was
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either going to be a massive financial
success yea, or rolled out to other
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parks than other other countries. Yeah, it was last. And so it
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the thing that I agree with absolutely
everything Philip has just said. I think
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that it is. It is a
great um. It was. It was
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basically a funded beta testum, which
I think is is really wise and it
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was done correctly, you know,
just to echo what Philip said when he
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was echoing what I've said in the
past, and that is, UM,
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you can't do you can't test something
if you only do it half half heartedly.
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You've got to go in and test
it fully to find out what works
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and what doesn't. Um. You
know, and I'm sure they are looking
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at it going was it the price
point. Was it the it was?
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It was perhaps I've heard some people
say it was too immersive, Um,
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it was too focused on a single
ip um and there were people who were
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coming from other places who wanted to
experience a broader spectrum of the Disney ip
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Um library. Um. I've heard
some people say it was because it reminded
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them of a cruise ship. For
the same price, they could have gone
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on a much longer cruise and seen
real things. So it kind of ta
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taps back into it. Is it
more of the the actual reality that we've
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been talking out on the show here? Who knows. But to Philip's point,
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it tested the waters. It found
that that breaking point or that that
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feasibility I wouldn't call it breaking that
feasibility limit, and I think that it
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is. I again, just like
you, Philip, I applaud them for
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doing it. I applaud them for
doing it right, and I'm sure that
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the learnings that they're taking away from
this will be applied for years and years
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to come. What I would caution
anybody who is looking at doing who looks
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at doing something testing it grandly and
then having it not meet the expectations or
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not be sustainable, either financially or
from a casting standpoint or whatever. My
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caution is, don't get locked into
in the future. Well, we tried
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it and it didn't work. Look
at it in though, in such a
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way as we tried this, and
we learned this, and this worked,
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and this worked, and this worked, and if we do it again,
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here here are the things we have
to address. So take the learnings,
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not the failures. That's the most
important takeaway I can give for because,
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let's face it, you know,
they're very, very, very very few
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of us who are going to ever
have the opportunity to work on a project
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of this magnitude with this kind of
of immersiveness and interactivity. Um And and
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who knows Disney may not do it
at this level again. Um But I
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think it's I think it's important to
recognize that no one should ever go well,
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Disney tried it and it didn't work. That's that's not fair, nor
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is it accurate, nor is it
a good way to grow. The best
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way to grow is to you know
you've you've It's it's an old adage you
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learn from your failures, but I
think you also learn from the successes within
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your failures, or you learn from
the things that are not necessarily it's not
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necessarily sustainable in a really good idea. So um, yes, Disney did
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it right. Yes, it was
not sustainable for whatever reason. And yes,
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let's hope that they build based on
what they learned from from this,
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uh, from this attraction slash immersive
hotel experience, the data that they gathered.
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And make no mistake, they definitely
gathered data because that is Disney's way
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is going to be invaluable and their
entertainment across their entire spectrum. You can
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see it. You're going to see
it show up in other places, you
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know, like you said, figuring
out the degree of immersive, how how
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much is too much? All these
things. I mean, they announced the
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community the living communities as well,
and they announced there's going to be entertainment
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in those and I mean they could
bring a Star Wars experience on tour.
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There's and then the people that are
saying this is a waste of money,
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No, Disney doesn't let assets go
to waste. I mean, there's there's
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there's a lot of ways to use
this property, and I would say I
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could pretty easily see it being converted
into just a regular you know, it
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deluxe resort for the properties, and
even at a hunt. I mean,
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you know, if you remove the
immersive nature and just let people stay in
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it. I mean, people already
pay five hundred to a thousand plus a
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night anyway for just regular, regular
deluxe rooms in a non experienced hotel,
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so I could see they could just
scoosh that price point down a tad and
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make it a regular hotel with regular
concierge staff. Or maybe it's just an
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all confierge hotel. It's fine,
there's there's plenty of race recyclists. It
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really reminds me of the similar reaction
to Universal's announcement of doing something horror in
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Las Vegas, because what did we
hear so much? Well, they've already
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tried to year round haunt and trashing
it didn't work, blah blah blah.
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Well that again, this is why
we have to I mean, these are
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all data points for all of us. And yet again that's why they're not
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bringing. That's why Universal is not
bringing a year round on attraction. They
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are bringing a dining kind of cocktail
type of experience because that is what is
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working in other markets. We see
the food we just talked about the food
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trends. We see this working.
So and I'll say all that all of
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that too. I mean, look
at it's just they tested menu options out
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there that people absolutely loved. You
saw guests saying they would go back just
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for the food, or they would
stay on the ship. I mean,
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they got a lot of very positive
feedback. You saw people complaining they would
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never get to eat those things.
They can still make them, like,
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it's not like they lost their kitchens
and they lost their chefs. Like they
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can just move them or put them
into in different experiences. It's just it's
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now I'm gonna if I'm gonna look
into the Crystal Ball, because You're right,
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they will. They will repurpose this
asset somehow somewhere in the future,
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I would guess, And honestly,
in my heart of hearts, I kind
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of hope that they take it,
they take the bones, they strip it
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down, and they superimpose a new
ip for the hotel. I really hope
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that they don't make it galactic star
Cruiser light, even though I think there
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is a market for that. I
think some people would love to be able
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to say, well, I didn't
get to do the full experience, but
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I did get to stay in the
hotel. I would hope, at least
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in the short term, that they
would completely change it, because there's always
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going to be that perceived cloud of
quote unquote failure over the space and people
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will never be happy with it,
and people who went and enjoyed it before
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will say it doesn't compare, and
people who go now will be like,
379
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I can't believe people spent so much
money on it. It's just going to
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be negative. It's just going to
be negative for them, at least in
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the short term. Now, assuming
that Disney is going to continue to stay
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in Florida, they can if they
wish, based on the amount of land
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that they own, just sit on
it for a few years. Yeah,
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and let the you know, let
the negativity fade away. Um. There
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are there are properties in the Florida
Resort that have been that sat dormant for
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many, many years before they were
either redeveloped or just allowed to go back
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to natural Florida wildlife. Um,
it's it's interesting. I'm again I'm curious
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to see what happens. But I
would assume and almost like I said,
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almost hope that they would um that
they would let it, let it rest
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before they before they bring it back. I would hate to see it come
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back as the experience they originally intended, only watered down. But we'll see,
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We'll see what happens. You know, you you mentioned for listeners other
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people. You mentioned that listeners should
be thinking about when they do their tests
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to understand that it doesn't mean that
everything is a failure, just one.
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You know, if a project bill
doesn't mean everything about failures. You know
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what I just kind of talked about
how it's really only disit it has this
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problem or one of these problems of
trying to figure out what's going to work
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because they've maxed out their parks or
whatnot. I mean, do you think
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it's still the best option for other
people to be focusing on the other items
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we talked about increasing their guests they're
spend per guests, and increasing their capacity
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and filling out their season because essentially
this was something that was out of all
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that because they couldn't do that anymore
so they were trying to create a premium
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experience for premium fans. I mean, do you think that is something that
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people should be focused on or just
the old years I've been I've been touting
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premium experiences for premium fans. I
think that is I think that is something
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that theme parks miss out on.
And as I sit here and I look
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out the window of my hotel and
I see the I see Ferrari World outside
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my hotel. One of the premium
experiences there is you can actually hook up
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to a cable and walk on the
roof. It was something that is and
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so cool because I see it happen
every day out my hotel window. Um,
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they found the right price point for
it. It continues to be sustainable,
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so you know, find those things. Is it is it a completely
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immersive experience? Not necessarily. What
it could be for you is taking advantage
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of your assets. So don't think
that there is not a high end market
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out there. Uh, there is, there is, and you can continue
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to find ways to expand and play
into that high end market UM and hopefully
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UM generate some additional revenue for you
know, for you and your parks.
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So keep exploring those. And what
was right for Disney is you know not
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it may not be right for us
even in theory on the on the lower
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levels or smaller parks, but that
does not mean that there is not a
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market out there for high end experiences. That does not mean that there is
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not something UM unique that you can
do to continue to get more in park
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spend or to generate additional revenue outside
of your regular hours. So keep keep
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looking, keep looking UM and continue
to look for us because we're going to
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come back next week because we're done
for this week, and check us out.
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00:31:19.920 --> 00:31:22.400
Make sure that you we are on
our We do have the YouTube channel
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00:31:22.440 --> 00:31:26.440
now, please make sure you check
us out there when I when I get
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00:31:26.440 --> 00:31:30.880
back to the States, I'm hoping
to put together some additional content from here.
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I just haven't had the time to
do it because I've been working UM
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but that will go up on the
on the YouTube channel as well, So
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um on behalf of Philip and myself
until next time. This is Green Tag
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Theme Park in thirty and we will
see you next week.







