Willie Wonka and Immersive Entertainment
What is immersive entertainment in 2024? This week, we discuss the "Willie Wonka Incicident" in Scotland, the new Immersive Fort Tokyo, and Fantasy Springs at Tokyo DisneySea.
What is immersive entertainment in 2024? This week, we discuss the "Willie Wonka Incicident" in Scotland, the new Immersive Fort Tokyo, and Fantasy Springs at Tokyo DisneySea. Watch the video here.
Show Outline
- 00:00 Intro
- 01:00 The Willie Wonka Incident in Glasglow
- 20:02 Immersive Fort Tokyo
- 26:42 Fantasy Springs at DisneySea
SOURCES:
- How a Willy Wonka Event in the U.K. Ended in Calls to Police and Demands For Refunds
- Immersive Fort Tokyo seeks to update theme park experience
- Visitors' guide to Fantasy Springs at Tokyo DisneySea
ABOUT GREEN TAGGED:
Green Tagged is An insider’s take on the theme park and themed entertainment industry trends. Green Tagged Covers the Top Theme Park News from each week. From theme parks to zoos, aquariums, and haunted houses, we scour the world for what you need to know. We may not have all the answers, but we ask the right questions. Green Tagged is hosted by Philip Hernandez and Scott Swenson, both ICAE Certified professionals in the themed entertainment design space.
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And Tampa. This is green Tagged
at Theme Park in thirty. I am
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Philip and I'm joined by my co
host Scott Swinson of Scott Swinson Created Development.
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On green tag, we try to
ask important questions and talk about why
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they matter, try to find our
way to answers. This week we are
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discussing what is immersive in twenty twenty
four. That's our that's our I don't
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know, our cornerstone or north star. Our umbrella. That's our umbrella,
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Yes, our umbrella. So of
course I think what what kind of spawned
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the idea for talking about this was
will the Willy Wonka experience, which really
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that we haven't seen anything about that
unless you unless you have no Wi Fi
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or haven't seen anything on any social
media network anywhere. Yeah, so anyway,
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I'm sorry I interrupted. Please go
ahead tell us more about this,
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this amazing Willy Wonka event in the
UK. I'm not sure that we actually
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need to discuss too much about it
because I think think everyone should know.
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I don't know. I mean,
there's a mere bout ether song just just
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google it. But uh, we're
going to link to a great article from
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Time said that said how a Willy
Wonka event in the UK ended in calls
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to police and demands for refunds,
And it gives kind of a good timeline
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of the event and the experience.
But if I'm going to boil it down,
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I think and I think, you
know, everyone already knows. I
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would rather not go into any of
the details. But if I was just
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to give the TLDR version for people
that maybe ignored it, Essentially, there
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was a real experience that was a
Willy Wonka Immersive experience billed as a Willy
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Wonka Immersive Experience in Scotland. It
did open. It was it was a
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real thing that opened, uh,
and it was pretty bad. I mean,
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it was in a warehouse. It
it just was poorly executed, right,
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Like. That's the thing that I'm
going to maintain here is that in
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my view, it wasn't it was
a real event that opened. There were
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paid actors, there were you know, some people the guests entered, they
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went through a few like quote unquote
areas. There were actors that played you
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know, creatures from Willy Wonka,
et cetera. There was you know,
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kind of candy handouts. But it
was just bad. It was just really
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poorly executed we're talking about no.
I mean they paid a significant ticket price,
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not you know, like thirty I
think thirty forty pounds, But it
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looks like something that you would see
at a middle school. I mean that's
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the level of execution. It's not
even a high school show. This is
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like, this is like a middle
school, you know level show. So
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the experience left a lot wanting and
so much so that people called the police,
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and that that's what really made it
kick into the stratosphere, was that
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some of the folks called the police
just because they you know, officers were
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called to the event. Oufscers were
called there, and the event was canceled
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after almost like midway through the first
day. A lot of the accounts say
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that the actors even like left almost
like on their breaks because of just how
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bad it was. Several of the
people said that they thought that the crowd
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was going to become unruly, so
they felt unsafe at that area just because
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people were so upset. But but
yeah, we later learned a little bit
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more about the background of the creation
event from I don't want to say their
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depositions, but just from like conversations
and interviews with some of the actors that
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were there, but essentially a lot
of the actors said that they felt that
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most of the experience was generated by
AI. So like the scripts were AI,
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you know, the characters or AI. The background stub was AI,
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and a lot of it just didn't
make any sense and they didn't the marketing
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visuals, the marketing website was AI. Yeah, that's so. This is
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the thing for me, is that, like everything, it seemed like everything
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was generated by AI. The marketing
visuals, the schematics, the website,
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apparently the scripts were the group that
put its on. It's called you know,
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the Illuminati is the name of the
group that produced it. But the
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one thing I thought was just very
telling was the very at the very end
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of the time article, they they
include a quote from the warehouse owner,
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which I kind of like, I
don't know why you dragged him into a
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bit, you know, they're they're
kind of like interviewing him because like how'd
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you let this happen? And he
kind of was like, well, you
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know, tenants rented a space,
you know what I mean, Like,
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like what do you want me to
do about it? Which is reasonable,
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but the very end says when asked
what he thought went wrong Waterfield, which
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is the owner of the venue.
He says he thinks it was a mixture
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of ignorance and perhaps some complete inexperience. The main thing for us, what
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is there was lots of disappointed families
that had to travel from all over.
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I hope House of Luminati comes good
on their promise to issue refunds everyone who
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was let down. So they have
not issued any pup, any interviews anybody,
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but they did say they were going
to refund everyone and kind of step
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back. So I think my hot
take on this is that I think he's
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he's pretty close to the mark there. It does seem like something that we
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talked about in our trends report,
which we said AI, you know,
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ungoverned AI is going to just proliferate
everywhere. I think this is part of
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it where suddenly you have AI tools
and you have a folks somebody that thought
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they could create an immersive experience right
quote unquote immersive experience and with the help
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of AI, and so they didn't
need to hire a graphic designer or an
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illustrator or a scriptwriter or any of
these people, and they put you know,
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they used AI to kind of fill
in the gaps of their of their
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you know, their their talent gaps, and they put this experience together.
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And to me, I'm like,
you know, Dell's advocate here, it
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was a real thing that people showed
up to, right, It's not like
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they were showing up to an empty
warehouse. It was a weird thing.
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We're a real thing. They hired
actors, you know, they did.
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They did issue refunds and do a
public apology immediately. They closed it down
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on the first day and issued all
that. So that's why to me,
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it seems like it was just somebody
who is exactly like this, perhaps some
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complete inexperience, ignorance and complete inexperience. And I think the reason it's so
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important for us to consider is that
this is going to keep happening even more
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so you're going to get the ignorance
of people thinking that they know that,
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you know, they look around everything
is labeled immersive now, and then they
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combine that again with this AI and
they're like, oh, well, I
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can make my own experience and just
do it. And I know Scott has
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the whole thing. The last thing
I'm gonna add on here is that it's
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just interesting to me that, you
know, being in LA I think we
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see black box shows pop up all
the time that are I don't want to
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say this level, but you know, I've been to a few, I
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want to say like rough dress rehearsal
type experiences. You know, where they're
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you still pay a ticket, but
you kind of all know that's the first
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so you kind of give them a
little bit of grace. But essentially they
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are stuff that you know, they're
shows that a single person wrote, you
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know, and you know, and
their props are just stuff they brought from
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their house, and they're in a
black box theater. So I mean,
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it's this thing where there is I
think this genre of entertainment is important as
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a way for people to test ideas
and concepts and that kind of thing,
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and so I think that's also my
concern. I have like kind of multiple
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concerns. I had the concern that
the public is going to have this huge
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backlash to this type of experience and
immersus ban blah blah blah. But I
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also think it's going to endanger people
who are genuinely trying to just test one
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of their show ideas, and that's
gonna, you know, kind of put
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a crimp on creativity because essentially,
potentially, to me, you're going to
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get an even larger trust crisis,
you know, with all of this stuff
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where it's going to be, you
know, you don't believe it unless it's
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Disney and Universal. But okay,
anyway, sorry that was way too long,
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Scott. What do you think Welcome
to my ted talk. You didn't
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know you're signed up for that.
Yeah, we just we just watched.
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We just watched phillips entire head to
flate like a balloon as he spit out
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everything that was possibly there about this
particular about this particular topic. So a
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lot of it. Let's see if
I can dissect and sort through some of
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it, a lot of it.
Yes, I completely agree with I.
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Uh, you know, I will
say that, and we've said it before.
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The quote that I keep hearing is
AI is not going to replace creatives.
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However, creatives who don't use AI
as a tool will be replaced.
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So AI itself is not a replacement
for creatives, script writers, graphic artists,
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show planners, et cetera, et
cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
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And this is living proof of that. So if this was indeed completely
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generated, by AI and we still
I mean, it seems to be lending
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that way that the scripts were.
It is clear that the the marketing graphics
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were in fact. I've seen even
some of those and you look at them
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and you go, well, that's
clearly not real. That looks like concept
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drawing at best, and it's and
it's AI generated. I think the thing
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that we have to recognize, even
before we get into the AI dilemma is
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these things were created and put forth
as fact. So whether it is through
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inexperience or there's some sort of malevolent
intent behind this, the company that put
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this on lied to the public.
They put out imagery that was a lie.
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Whether it was created through AI or
not, it was a lie.
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So it was false advertising and it
was blatantly lying about what the experience was.
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If you see some of the videos
and they're everywhere now, of some
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of the walkthroughs with the kids,
it it looks. One of my favorites
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is it said it looks sort of
like a meth lab. It had that,
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it had that vibe to it.
So there is either through complete ineptness
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of the company and I'm not even
gonna use an experience, I'm gonna use
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ineptness because they just don't understand what
it is to sell an experience or some
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sort of malevolent behavior. They lied
to the public, they offered a such
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a subpar experience that you know,
to your point, Philip, it may
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sour those ideas of pop ups,
and yet I think it may also have
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inadvertently done the opposite as well.
It's put up a warning flag to those
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companies that may try to go on
the cheap, that may try to put
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something up. This has clearly blown
up in their face. And I would
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say that this company probably will not
come back from it, because you know,
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this is in Scotland and we're talking
about it here in the US.
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This is a pop up in a
warehouse that used you know, bad inflatable
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props off the shelf, giant mushrooms, The candy Dispersal was a jellybean per
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child. The Chocolate River was a
floating inflatable ball pit that had a bridge
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over it with no balls in it. So I mean, it was just
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it was one horrible thing after another. We've talked about the power of IP.
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I think part of the reason that
this has gotten so much traction as
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being such a catastrophic failure is because
this is an ip that there are multiple
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generations that hold this ip very near
and dear to their heart, being older
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the original ip of both the books
and the original film, the Gene Wilder
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film. It holds a very special
place in my heart. I've always since
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I was a child, I always
thought that a theme park needed to do
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a a chocolate room that you could
walk through that would be immersive, and
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then do a boat ride. It
was screaming for a theme park attraction.
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It always has been in my brain
ever since I was very very young.
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So when all of a sudden a
parent or a grandparent sees this and their
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kids have seen the more recent incarnations
of both Willy Wonka and Charlie and the
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Chocolate Factory, it's a there's a
very special place in the heart that's going
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to draw you in. And then
to have it be absolutely a travesty and
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a complete disrespect for the intellectual property
hits people on an emotional level and makes
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them angry and is probably the reason
the police had to be called, because
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you basically pulled the rug out from
under a very beloved eyep and so I
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think that's part of the reason that
we're seeing it now. It's not just
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the ineptitude, because I'm sure there
have been other real crap installations around the
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world, but this one I've been
been there, seen them, Yeah,
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because this is but this, from
what I've seen, is is just It's
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if I had not seen video,
I would not have believed how bad it
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was. I would have said,
these people are just exaggerating. No,
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it's it's horrendous. It is horrendous, and you know, I realize I've
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not experienced it, and there are
people there who can There are people out
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there listening who can say, well, Scott, you've only seen video.
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You've only seen No, I can
tell from these videos. When you can't
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even hang up a plastic tarp straight, something is horribly wrong. Uh.
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There is just one catastrophic piece of
embarrassment after another when it comes down to
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this. So uh, you know, for those people who rely completely on
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AI to replace creatives, to create, to replace real people, this is
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what happens, and it fails.
So don't do it. If you are
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a creative and you're using AI.
You know, I've admitted on here for
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for flavor boards. When I'm creating
new things and I can't find an image
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that I like, I will use
AI to help me create a flavor board.
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It is not a design, it
is a flavor board. Is there
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is there the ability as AI progresses
to continue to use it more and more
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and to rely on it more heavily. Yes, but it still needs to
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be supervised by a creative or someone
who knows what the heck they're doing.
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Otherwise you end up with Willy Wonka's
meth lab in Scotland. So there's that.
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I think the other thing that's really
really important here is you know,
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you said, you hope it doesn't
sour the idea of pop ups coming up.
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Like I said, I think it's
raised awareness and I think that smart
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business people and even not so smart
business people are going to look at it
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and go, well, the last
thing we want is a Willy Wonka catastrophe.
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So they're going to rethink how they
market, They're going to rethink how
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they put things together. I think
guests are going to become significantly Like I
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said, this is hit reform of
social media. I've seen it. I've
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seen it on uh well, if
it's on Facebook, Insta, TikTok,
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LinkedIn, Yeah, LinkedIn LinkedIn for
crying out loud. You know. It's
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yeah, it's it's literally everywhere,
literally everywhere. It's going to make consumers
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much more critical. So what that
means for us in the industry is a
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don't try to lie to your public. B the sooner you can get real
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photographs out there, not and and
not AI. The sooner you can get
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real content out the better because that
will prove to prove to your potential guests
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that this is not just a slap
together piece of trash. I don't get
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really negative about things very often,
but that's what this was. This was
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a piece of trash. But it's
because it offended me because I love the
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brand and they just they just went
so over the top in the wrong direction.
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And I also, you know,
we've always heard let the bike beware,
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Well this this is proof that it
it's it can go this far wrong.
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So don't allow your guests to stumble
into something that's this awful. First
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of all, don't produce it.
If you're in the industry, don't do
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it because it will come back and
hurt you. You know. And everybody's
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saying, well, yeah, but
nobody would know about this company, but
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no one's going to hire this company. No one's going to go anything,
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go to anything that's created by this
company because they are they're a mean,
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they're a joke. Now, well
it's I guess, I guess I don't
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I don't know if this is not
like a counterpoint. But back to our
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are like umbrella of you know,
what is an immersive experience in twenty twenty
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four. Like I you know,
part of me is like may it's just
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because I've gone to so many events, you know, as media and as
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being here in LA and all that, and I'm like, you know,
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like I've been to several events like
this. I'm not not joking like I
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have, and and I've been to
so many you know, black box shows
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that it's you know, essentially you're
just a person. There's nothing, it's
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just a black you know, literally
a black stage and one or two performers,
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right, I mean, it's just
so I think it's it's almost like
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the questions like what is acceptable?
I think that that is It's kind of
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like, you know, we talked
about AI, and we talked about the
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concept of AI is going to create
so much misinformation it's gonna be hard to
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figure out, like what is facts? Actually like what is real? You
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know, and then you're gonna it's
gonna, you know, potentially make it
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so that the the bigger brands,
you know, have more of a a
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monopoly on truth, right, Like
you're probably gonna believe something from the New
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York Times, which you're not necessarily
going to believe something from anybody else.
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So it's uh, or you know, what you pick your news source of
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choice? Doesn't that to be that? It could be Fox if you want.
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But I almost feel like we're getting
the space where like to what you
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said, like the it's almost like
the need to have those those pictures and
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have the documentation is essential now.
And I think but there's you know,
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because you're not gonna necessarily know if
someone just says it's immersive. It seems
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like that's almost like a carte blanche
to just do what they want and you're
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going to need I don't because there's
no standards and there shouldn't be. There
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should not be standards for art,
like the should There shouldn't be quality stands
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for art because art bia saincture can't
be sandardized. But right, but but
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again, immersive is just another buzzword
right now Immersive is the current buzzword.
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And if someone tells me, you
know, you say, you've been to
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a lot of little black box pop
up experiences, which is great. If
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someone tells me this is an immersive
storytelling experience in the dark, that's one
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thing. If you tell me and
show me in your AI generated lies that
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this is a walk through one of
the most classic films, one of those
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classic children's films or classic children's IP
and then deliver nothing that's a whole different
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story. So I don't want it
to be confused with I'm saying it has
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to be high tech, it has
to be high cost, it doesn't.
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You just have to make certain that
the guest experience is emotional, emotionally impactful,
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and takes you through the entire experience. This was emotionally impactful, but
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again exactly the wrong way. Yeah, I take your point. Basically,
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it's the the IP tie to it. It's it's what makes it just more
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more difficult for people. Yeah,
But I my last point is just I
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think my takeaway. Scott had some
really good points for our listeners. My
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my point is going to be it's
going to be become even more essential that
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you create real media and not you
like like back in the day, right,
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Like it's like haunted houses and everybody
that want to be immersive, Like
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just they made these posters and they're
like, no, we can't show you
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any photos or we can't reveal any
of these things. I'm like, you
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need to be able to show people
what it looks like to prevent stuff like
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this. That's just going to be
my thing. But right, and even
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if they had, even if they
had shown close ups of this stuff,
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because that's trust me I have.
I've set up for more than my share
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of media days where the attraction itself
is not completed. But I didn't replicate
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anything that wasn't an actual part of
the experience. And even if they had
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done close ups on this, you
would have seen the wrinkly inflatable vinyl.
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So along A very related story to
this is that there there's a There's something
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that is built again billing itself as
a theme park that has opened in Japan.
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It's calling itself an immersive Yeah,
its calling itself an immersive theme park,
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and from the website it says,
dramatic events that we see in the
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worlds of film, anime or games, if you could experience them, not
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as the observer, but as a
protagonist, that succession of dramatic moments not
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shared with anybody around you, but
uniquely yours, creating endless thrills and excitement
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that burst up from the depths of
your heart. A day spent here is
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not just any day out of the
ordinary, is a dramatic day. They
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will totally change your life. Get
ready for the world's first immersive theme park,
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Immersive Fort Tokyo. And you know, the website has a lot of
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I'm not sure it's AI generated,
but it's it's pretty squarely in the uh
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like over dramatized concept art, idealized
idealized concept art, right, So there,
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basically it's it's a big it's it's
a space in a mall, a
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shopping mall. And essentially what they've
done is broken up into little like chunks,
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and then each chunk is like a
you know, like a little miniature
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immersive experience. Some of them are
IP related, and some of them are
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not. Some of the all the
ips are Japanese, but but they are
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some from anime that I actually really
like that look not great. And then
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you know there's a Jack the Ripper
and that kind of stuff. So there's
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like little manature immersive scenarios. It's
what I would call it. You like
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you live through a scenario like being
kidnap. I don't know why you do
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you want to do that, but
like you know, like a bank a
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bank run or whatever. The reviews
for this are terrible. It just opened
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on Friday, whe recording on Sunday. The reviews are horrendous, and it
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seems like very similar thing in that
the execution is just not there, you
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know, like when they say immersive, they really mean they just took projections
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and projected like scenes on walls and
then you have like actors in there,
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you know, and and but the
actors, it's like it's kind of the
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same thing, where like the it
doesn't sound like the stuff has been rehearsed
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or properly scripted, and that the
using the word immersive, you know,
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their translation is we're just going to
put projections up on walls, which is,
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you know, may may or may
not work, depending on you know
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how, And like look at the
immersive bank Go experiences, right like sometimes
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it could work, sometimes it doesn't. So well, yeah, I mean
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I just did I just recently did
House of hype in in Riod, which
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is immersive and is very heavily reliant
on lighting effects and projections, and their
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actors are actually you know, trained
to to create this sort of quirky,
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weird gamy kind of world. But
in reading this, I don't feel as
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though this is necessarily an immersive theme
park. I think it is a conglomerate
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of many different immersive types of things. There's from what I've read in in
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the online is is it's you know, there's there's basically an escape room.
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There is an immersive show. There
is a murder mystery dinner theater kind of
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experience. There is you know,
all this stuff. Nothing is really new.
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It's just taking these ideas and slamming
them together and calling it a theme
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park. Yeah. But again you
get to that thing you said earlier about
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the like, you know, how
what is the lie or like, you
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know, where is the where is
the line between like marketing and speak and
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lying and like, I mean,
I don't think this is a theme park.
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Would I would not call this a
theme park. I could say it's
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like a immersive conglomerate or I don't
know what another word, but it's not
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a theme park. I'm sorry,
this is not well and you can't.
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It's just like you can't call me
meal Wolf installations theme parks either, you
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know? Those are you know?
And and and I would venture to say
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that the biggest challenge. And again, as an actor trainer, I always
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get upset when I hear that the
actor is just walk around not knowing what
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to do. One of the takeaways
that I think is essential for this story,
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and perhaps the previous story as well, although I didn't even get that
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far because it was just crap,
but perhaps for this story is make certain
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that if you are going in to
train immersive actors, that you train them
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in an immersive way. You don't
train them in a scripted proscenium style.
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You don't even script them in a
haunted attraction style because hanted attraction. Your
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engagement with a get with a performer
in a haunted attraction, even if you
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are going in a batched group,
is two to three minutes at the most.
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So make sure that you are training
them to live in these environments.
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And that is a very different way
of casting, a very different way of
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scripting, and a very different way
of training your actors. And I don't
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think a whole lot of people recognize
this. I know maybe three people in
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the industry who get it, and
everybody else is just like, well,
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I'm just going to put them in
costume and I'm going to have them go
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out there and tell them. I'm
going to tell them the basic story and
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They're just going to play with it. Immersive actor training takes longer than any
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other style of acting training I've ever
done to do it well because you have
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to have that right balance between script
and improvisation. You have to have that
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right balance, you know. I
always say that the missing cast member is
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the guest in a truly immersive experience. So because they're going to have to
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have the control to create the illusion
that they've they've somehow shifted the story or
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somehow contributed to the story, and
it's it's tricky. So, you know,
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the idea of this, I think
this is again as we've talked about
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so many times on this show.
I think the concept sounds great. I
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think it sounds really fun to basically
do a crime, because that's really what
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it's all about, you know.
The Sherlock Holmes is one of the ips,
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and Jack the Ripper, and and
and I don't know the I don't
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know the like, well, there
is a crime at the base of it,
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but yeah, it's a lot of
Yeah, it's a lot of spy
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and crime stuff and the and they're
using you know, they're using fake guns,
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and they're they're kidnapping people. So
it's all this sort of underbelly almost
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film noir style crime thing, is
what I get from the press release.
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But reading the reviews, it's unfortunate
they haven't quite found a way to execute
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it yet. Now I will give
this tiny little caveat, and that is
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that they may not have they may
not have been ready to open when they
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open their doors, and I know
that that's often a challenge is you're told
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here's when this is going to open, and you open whether you're ready or
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not. That said, another takeaway
is it is better, in my opinion,
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to delay your opening and have a
killer product than to put your opening
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out there earlier and then have to
overcome bad reviews from the get go.
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So we've had that's been a lot
of negative, but we don't want the
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whole show to be negative. I
think we're going to end on a positive
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or someone who I think is doing
this right, which is exactly what Scott
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just said about kind of like,
you know, giving a bit longer Lee
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time delaying, which is the Tokyo
DISNEYC. So i'll read here this is
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coming from Theme Park Insider. We'll
link to it in the show notes so
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you can actually see the whole article. But it says Disney's biggest new attraction
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debut of the year is coming up
this June and Tokyo while Disney Imagineering and
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its partners at the Oriental Land Company
are now sharing their latest looks inside the
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new Fantasy Springs expansion at Tokyo Disney
C. And it includes sectioned sections themed
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to Disney's Frozen, Tangled, and
Peter Pan And it looks absolutely incredible.
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And what I especially like about I
mean, it looks incredible, but what
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I like about it is the mix
between concept art that you can tell is
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actual concept of art. It's like
art, Yeah, it's like a real
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concept art mixed with you know,
a little bit of construction photos. It's
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like so it's kind of like,
I feel like, to me, this
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is almost exactly how you should be
doing it. It's like it's like it
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do they have photos of the real
experience with ready right now. No,
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but are they showing you here's the
concept, you know, here's what we've
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thought about, here's the idea,
here's us constructing it, so you can
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see that it's going to look like
what it's supposed to do. I mean,
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you see everything here, So I
think there should be no doubt this
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is going to be a real experience
that is going to be what the you
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know, the quality that people expect
of this park. And also I'm impressed
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just there's so much about this.
I mean you really should go read the
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article about you know, the food
looks great, you know how they've curated
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it. It also is impressive,
you know, just well everything I took
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you. Disney is impressive because they
generally have much higher budgets than any other
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park because they're not really a you
know, Disney park. But yeah,
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right, yeah, I mean they
really like they're like, well, they
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have plenty of money. Yeah yeah. And we always think, and we
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always think that Disney has the deepest
pocket and Oriented Training has the deepest pockets.
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But what I especially liked is how
many rides are packed into each area.
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I mean, they really are like
packing the rides in and we haven't
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even seen the rides yet we've only
we're only seeing the like facades. But
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yeah, excellent. Well the thing
and the thing I like about it,
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And I think part of the reason
that it's so important to include this in
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a show all about immersive experiences is
these they are creating in essence, three
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very specific immersive experiences that the rides
are part of them. This is something
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that Disney has been doing, has
been has been continuing to build upon really
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throughout them throughout their entire career.
To be completely honest, is to create
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an environment where you uh suspend your
disbelief and you live in the world of
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uh Peter Pan or you live in
the world of of Frozen and and yes,
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the rides are a part of that. But you know, you you
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truly feel as though you're on another
planet when you are when you are in
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Galaxy's Edge, you truly feel as
though you are, you know, in
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the realm of these ips when you
enter these areas. So that is truly
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the the immersive experience that I think
we're all looking for. And yes,
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I know you're you're thinking, well, Scott, you've just slammed two very
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low budget things and you've praised one
very high budget. But it's not just
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about the budget. It's about the
concept. It's about delivering upon expectations and
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more importantly, exceeding the expectations.
You know, I've quoted one of my
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mentors for years, a woman by
the name of Elaine College who worked for
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Bush Gardens in Tampa. She was
the vice president of entertainment for many,
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many years, and she used to
say, the difference between a good show
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and a great show is attention to
detail. Notice she did not say is
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budget. So by focusing on that
detail, by focusing on how do we
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convey this detail, how do we
make it so that you are truly living
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in the area, then you are
truly making something immersive. And I think
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that you know, to Phillip's point, what Disney c seems to be doing
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here is they're sharing the information so
that we believe that it's real now because
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we've seen concept art of where the
creative's minds are and where the actual construction
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is. So we're not going to
get wonkafied from our Scotland, our Scotland
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disaster. So there is really good
immersive out there. And what you consider
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immersive, whether it is a three
hundred and sixty degree film that people stand
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in and tip as they go round
the corner, or whether it is something
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that guests actually get to engage with
actors and can control the scenario or create
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the illusion they're controlling the scenario,
or whether it's living in your favorite film.
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These are all different levels, different
definitions of immersive. But I think
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the most important thing is whatever definition
you decide upon, you make sure you
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communicate that accurately to your guests so
no one is disappointed and we can continue
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to grow this wonderful realm of immersive
entertainment. So, speaking of the growing
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of realms, we want to continue
to grow our listenership as well. So
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if you know anyone who would be
interested in the types of things that we
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talk about on the show, please
let them know, please have them join
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our listenership, and we will be
back here every week. But now we
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have to because our time is over, So until next week, this is
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Green Tag Theme Park in thirty and
we will see you next week.












