COVID-19 & Coasters: Coronavirus Impacts on the Amusement Industry

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^^-- the purpose of "flattening the curve" is to avoid a rush on hospitals. The purpose usually stated is to avoid a rush until immunity is widespread. No country, or even region to my knowledge, has had the virus in a large enough portion of its people to have widespread immunity. We don't want that to happen because it would be worse than Italy. So, re: your statement, we're not willing to let it run through the population, so it lasting longer isn't an advantage. It might just last that long. This will last until we push it back, and later come back if not completely eradicated. Seems to me that 2 weeks of a true quarantine, extended for anyone still sick, would completely do that, if flawless. Maybe 4 weeks in reality. If done worldwide simultaneously, it would not be coming back. Improved testing and vigilance might then be enough.

It's been a week since Virginia Executive order 53 and 3 weeks are left, so strange to already be extending it. May make people give up. It could be to prepare us for a period of more intense lockdown. Or the plan is stay in until every last infection is gone.

Re: the amusement industry, it will be interesting to see what happens if or when it is allowed to restart. People may be afraid and some will be poor, but lots of people will be going stir crazy too and ready to go. A few may have stimulus money to spend. Only a small proportion of the population goes to parks once a year or more, so there is a lot of room to make up losses.
 
Can we restrict the political rhetoric to the Politics thread, please?

I think it is absurd to suggest that anyone is happy about anything that is happening right now. This thread is not the place for cheap digs against any political leader, regardless of his/her or your party.
 
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Um... who censored you? I asked that political rhetoric be kept in the appropriate thread. That is precisely my role as moderator.

Censorship, which I believe you strongly advocated in favor of in February, would be deleting any posts with which I disagreed. Obviously, I am not doing that. In fact, I challenge anyone to assert with any confidence what ideas I do privately support.

Anyway, baseless insults against me aside, can we please get back on topic?
 
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So I know money is going to be tight for a while for parks, but I suspect we might be in for some great coaster designs the next 5-6 years as designers like Alan Schilke must be going bonkers designing new elements and designs. And on the flip side people that develop train types and things like that must be just letting their imagination go nuts.
 
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Except no one will have money to build them. This is going to be longer lasting and further reaching than 9/11.
 
WDWRLD said:
Except no one will have money to build them. This is going to be longer lasting and further reaching than 9/11.
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I don’t really think that’s true. Even at the height of the Great Recession parks were still building coasters left and right. I’d argue parks actually have an advantage over lots of other businesses in that their pricing is fairly flexible, so they can adjust to demand and still turn a profit at the turnstiles.
 
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WDWRLD said:
Except no one will have money to build them. This is going to be longer lasting and further reaching than 9/11.
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I think that we will see a pretty quick bounce back once things begin to open back up. I don't think we will reach the highs that we were at recently
 
I personally don’t think things will jump back as quickly as many think. They are already pushing that this will re-emerge next winter and could be worse. I’m sure many will try to recover their losses and even build wealth in preparation for the “next wave”. Many people are also burning through their vacation right now trying to keep their paycheck normal. This will hurt planned trip later this season. I know we are preparing to change out a few week long trips for weekends when everyone can go without using leave.
 
The bad part for parks is they're high crowd. Perhaps there will be some appreciation for being able to have crowds, if we even can, or just an odd awareness. It might even the playing field though, popular parks less so, known less crowded and local preferred, even more focus on when to go.
 
WDWRLD said:
I personally don’t think things will jump back as quickly as many think. They are already pushing that this will re-emerge next winter and could be worse. I’m sure many will try to recover their losses and even build wealth in preparation for the “next wave”. Many people are also burning through their vacation right now trying to keep their paycheck normal. This will hurt planned trip later this season. I know we are preparing to change out a few week long trips for weekends when everyone can go without using leave.
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I haven't really heard anywhere say that this will be back next winter but worse. Most projections I've seen show the peak occurring soon and it tailing off from there.

I can tell you that most economists I know aren't very concerned about long term effects post stimulus.
 
BGWnut said:
I haven't really heard anywhere say that this will be back next winter but worse. Most projections I've seen show the peak occurring soon and it tailing off from there.

I can tell you that most economists I know aren't very concerned about long term effects post stimulus.
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The flatten the curve strategy being implemented isn’t about getting rid of the virus, but slowing the spread to keep hospitals from being overwhelmed. There’s no basis for predicting that the virus will just die out. If you look at the Spanish flu, the regions that flattened the curve had multiple humps from the virus outbreaking and receding. The only regions where it tailed off were those that took the devastation up front since they basically developed herd immunity along with a lot of people dying.

This is why I’m not very optimistic for the theme park industry. Absent a vaccine, working medication, or cheap and fast testing, I don’t see how you re-open any place of mass gathering without the risk of a super spreader incident reigniting an outbreak locally.
 
I mentioned this before somewhere but didnt have a "source" that I could post here to back it up....but now WDWNT is reporting Disney construction workers were laid off a couple weeks ago.
 
Yeah, it's construction. It's kinda the nature of their business. They get laid off when there is no work or things slow down.
 
Right, but even in the article they mention normally they can see that coming but not this time. Disney had a bunch of big projects going on so it wasnrt for the lack of workin this case.
 
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