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From our studios in Los Angeles and Tampa. This is
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Green Tagged Theme Park and thirty. I'm Philip and I'm
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joined as always by my delightful yet a little tired
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this week cost Scott des Druggy of Scott Swinston created
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Development and on Green tag Each week we look at
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the top news and we pick the stories that we
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think are the most important for the theme park professionals,
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and we try and discuss why they're important. And this
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week we're going to start off with the news that
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I think has not really got the right amount of attention,
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which is the Disney layoffs, and then we'll see what
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else we get to. But maybe we'll talk a little
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bit about Disney's new plan for how to mitigate weather impacts,
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which does not include actual shade. So anyway, Scott just
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got back from a trip in Knoxville. He just landed
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and he's here for all of you to record the show.
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So it's a little loopy this week, but that we
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will carry through.
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We will muddle through. I mean, let's face it, you
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know you've seen us. Those of you who've listened to
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us are watched us for a while. You've seen us
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be loopy before, so this will be nothing new, and
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I will do my best to stay as focused and
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as I told Philip just before we started recording, I
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will try to stay as focused and awake as I
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possibly can. So if I doze off, it's not because
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your company is dull. It is simply because I'm tired.
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That's all there's Now, you make it a really great
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show too. Who knows? Who knows what I'm gonna say either,
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So they could be one of the other. We'll see.
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We'll find out there's a spinish espresso joke somewhere in there,
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but well, I should have just another sip. There we go.
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Okay, we have to get it into every episode. Okay,
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let's to the news. So Disney. I'm sure everybody listening
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to this has seen this story pop up in their
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feed on some platform or other, and I think that
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most people are framing it incorrectly. So I'm going to
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try and do my best to frame it in the
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larger context. We've all heard at this point that Disney
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is laying off a thousand employees as part of its
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ongoing reorganization. First thing is this has been going on
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since before tomorrow, so it's not his exact you know.
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It's like people are saying it's his thing, but it's not.
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It actually has been going on for much longer. This
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part of their larger reorganization, and it's not impacting the
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theme parks at all. It's all marketing, awards, publicity departments, film, streaming, television, cable.
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The parks operations and live entertainment are not being impacted
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at all. It's part of a larger pattern actually where
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we have seen all of Disney's digital plays kind of
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not really work. And this is a recent thing, so
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this is a larger context.
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Right.
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If you remember back that Disney invested in Epic Games,
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so they also had a partnership going on with Sora
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so that people could generate little AI videos with some
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of the characters. Well, Sora was killed a few weeks ago,
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was just shut down. They didn't even tell Disney, they
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just like shut it down. And then they told Disney
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like an hour before they announced the put out of
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the press release about it, and so open Aye just
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killed that. And then Epic Games, who Disney had invested
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a billion and a half in back in twenty twenty
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five to work on like a Disney area and Disney,
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you know through line for gaming, they're having a bad
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time right now. They laid off twenty percent of their
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workforce and they're blaming a slump that's about twenty five
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percent in players on their game, and that's part of
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a larger pattern. Gaming large is contracting right now. Sony
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had to raise the price or PlayStation five by one
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hundred dollars, which people are not happy about. And Nintendo
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cut production of its flagships, which two console thirty three
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percent after we call today sales. So it's also seening
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week are spending just across the board, So that is
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part of the larger again pattern of where people are
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spending and how that money is all working. But what
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I'm saying is this is the context right where right
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now the only thing working for Disney really is the
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theme parks, and they're some some of the streaming, right
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not as much as the physical experiences and those ips
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that they're taking through physical experiences. So that's the context
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where Disney has had these bets and the bets have
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not worked, and they laying off people, but not in
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the theme park division. And I think this is all
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part of the larger shift that Scott has talked about,
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and we've talked about on the show multiple times about
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where you're going from where Disney had started with the movie.
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You know, like snow White, you start with the movie
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and then you take that and it goes through its
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old flywheel and it ends up in the parks at
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some point. And now it's more of almost invert of that,
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where they're spending attention on the parks and they're trying
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to figure out how they can promote the parks through
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their media content distribution. And my last thing here is
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it's interesting that also this week we saw Meel Wolfe's
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new CEO choice. They spent a year trying to find
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a new CEO and they chose the CEO with no
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attractions experience. This is the CEO that comes from technology
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and integration, and it comes from meta, comes from gaming,
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comes from some of these places that are having struggles,
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but has experienced taking IP and pushing it out into
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broader experiences. And he even referenced in his LinkedIn posts
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about how my job is to make sure millions more
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people get to feel that way, the way that they
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walk in and have the wonder at the seeing meal
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with the first time, why they walk through our portals
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or encounter Malwolf in entirely new ways. And they're basically
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talking about the same strategy that Disney is mirroring, where
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they're going to be taking content that is generated from
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the live experiences and pushing it out across other platforms.
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So, Scott, what say you about this?
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Should we care about Disney's layoffs or are people overreacting?
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What's what do you think? Well, anytime you say layoff,
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people overreact, So so that's just a given. I think
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what this what this says to me, and I agree
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with absolutely everything that you said. I think that it
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is clearly not it's not saying that the Disney theme
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parks are a challenge. In fact, it's saying that the
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Disney theme parks are the saving grace for the company
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at the moment, and that so they're they're they're not
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really laying off there, just right sizing, And I really
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hate that term, having been the victim of right sizing
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in the past. Pivoting, but pivot to a new direction,
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pivot in a new direction. Yes, yes, putting, I mean
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invest investing, shooting where the ducks are flying, investing where
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the where the money is being made. And reducing where
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it's not being made now. I also but it also
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to me in a much broader scope, is showing how
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quickly things change. Because you know, you have probably heard
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us say on this show that the next big ips
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are going to come from gaming. Well, gaming has already
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has already seen it's I won't say it's gone, it's not,
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but it's seen its zenith. And I think what happened
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was everybody followed our advice. No, everybody felt the same
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way that this is exactly where we needed to go.
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So so much was diverted into the gaming world and
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into the whole AI vibe that the product, the quality
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of the product either went down or completely saturated the market.
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And the moment you saturate any market, that's when things
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start to change, that's when things start to go down.
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So the trick is to be one step ahead of that,
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you know. And I think and I said it even
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when we were talking about gaming and how important it
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was to the industry as a whole. But even back then,
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I said, people want things to do. That's the one
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thing that COVID taught us, or one of the things
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that COVID taught us, is that people want things to do,
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not just look at on a screen. That is very
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important screen stuff. You know, people live on their phones,
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they live on their laptops, they live on their on
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their tablets. That's fine, I get that. But because that
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that is becoming so commonplace. You know, you can go
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through you can go through an entire universe on your phone.
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But because you can do it on your phone, the
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ability to do it in real life is all the
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more special now. So you know, I love the idea
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of of the focus shifting back to the live experience,
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the focus shifting back to how can we use what
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the parks are bringing us in Disney specifically and me
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Alwolf as well. How can we use what the activations
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in the parks are bringing us and figure out how
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to use that as the impetus to expand out from
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you know it all what it all comes down to
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is what is the most compelling story, What is the
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story that people are willing to invest time and money in,
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and then how do you take that to multiple platforms.
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I'm going through a very interesting thing right now. I'm
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one of the I'm one of the adjudicators for the
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education sessions for IAPPA and I can't tell you. First
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of all, we had more. We've had more submissions this
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year than pretty much ever, So anybody who's submitted, thank
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you very very much. I appreciate that. I will say, though,
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there are more submissions about how to use technology to
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gamify things that I've ever seen, and I think that's
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a perfect example. It shows that it shows that there
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are there is a glut of this out there, and
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everybody thinks this is going to be the saving grace.
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And I think people think it's going to be the
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saving grace because on paper it looks really good. You mean,
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I do a one time investment. I don't have to
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continue to staff it. I don't have to do maintenance
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on physical buildings. I don't have to do maintenance on
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physical attractions. It looks really good. The problem is it
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hits hard, hits fast, and burns out. It's like, you know,
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they say, we've all heard the phrase meteoric rise. Well, yes,
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but a media or burns out before it hits the ground.
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So we have to recognize that our a meteor rite
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burns out before it hits the ground. My science friends
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would be really upset with me when I said that,
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But it's one of those situations that you really got
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to look at it and go, Okay, yes, it's a component,
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but the moment we put all of our eggs in
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one basket, whether that is live the live element or
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the cinematic l which I wouldn't recommend for the next
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ten to fifteen years, or the gaming element, I think
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what you got to look at is where are the
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stories being being created? Where are they being created that
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so that in a in a successful way. And what
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we're seeing here with Disney right now, and I think
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what we're seeing to a certain extent with Meowolf is
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the stories, the good stories are being created in the
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real world. Now, if there's a way to extend that,
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you know, I like the quote from from meal Wolf,
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to basically extend that in that encounter from the actual
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portals to an entirely new or different way or a
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different thing. And Meowolf is always kind of played with
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you know what, how are you and how are you
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devouring the content? How are you consuming the content? And
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so I think it makes sense for them to take
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their successful installations and figure out how do we get
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these into more people's hands on different platforms. Again, it's
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nothing new because it's exactly what Disney did years and
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years ago, except they took it from a cinema and
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brought it to and brought it to a theme park
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and comic books and toys all that stuff. But now
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it's just changing that focus a little bit. Where are
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and look at you know, look at your universe. If
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you are working in a large, a large entertainment corporation,
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look at your universe and see which planets are burning
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hot right now, and figure out how to use them
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as your impetus to spread those stories, to spread those
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impactful moments to different areas or different ways. So I
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don't think I don't think it's a a I don't
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think it's a death knell for you know, gaming or
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streaming or anything like that. I think it's just putting
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the focus where the the impetus and the new ideas
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are succeeding right now, and that's in the parks.
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You know, you mentioned a little bit there about the
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some of the gaming ideas and the gamification and the
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trends that you're seeing in that with technology, and I
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was thinking along similar lines where it's like I think
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the theme parks have seemed to get inspiration from the
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gaming world, and I think that the.
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Good version of that inspiration is thinking.
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About why should guests come back to the area that
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this area, because that's in essence a game. It's like,
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why would you turn it on every day when you
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have so much competition on your phone?
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Why do you keep logging in?
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You know? And the old reminds me of dual lingo.