Nope. The granularity of control over park-level spend that corporate has nowadays would blow your mind.
Project 2027: New Killarney Sim Building Attraction?
- Thread starter Irishlad
- Start date
Nope. The granularity of control over park-level spend that corporate has nowadays would blow your mind.
Well now I'm a bit confused - PRKS keeps park presidents and pays them well in theory to properly administer their parks including tackling local issues corporate simply cannot see from their offices in Orlando. How do they justify restricting managerial power?
Park presidents are there to manage day to day operations within the strict budgetary parameters and broad-strokes standards and vision outlined by United Parks corporate. There's some flexibility in the exact way funds are spent after they're allocated to a project, but there is very little in the way of discretionary funds broadly—most every dollar or man hour spent must go up the chain and be justified proactively to corporate in one form or another.
Just as a simplified example, lets imagine a significant maintenance item comes up for an attraction—something outside of the normal, scheduled, foreseeable or predictable, pre-allocated maintenance schedules. BGW management can likely opt to allocate some of their pre-allocated attraction maintenance budget to diagnosing the issue and working out what would need to be done to fix the ride, etc, but local management is not typically empowered to make a decision about actually spending the money required to go further. Any significant additional outlay would almost certainly involve an approval process with the corporate offices in which BGW would need to justify the expense. Local management does not have the power to make those decisions for themselves right now.
This is why we've seen great work done repeatedly when capital expenditures roll around—even on fairly small projects like Squire's—but day to day upkeep and refreshes are essentially non-existent. BGW management has gotten VERY good at essentially hiding great thematic and aesthetic improvements to the park within independently profitable cap-ex projects (see the recent Festhaus updates)—but it's still impossible for the park to get dollars or hours approved outside of those discrete revenue-positive projects for things like upkeep or small, incremental improvements.
I think it's a broken system, to be clear, but I applaud BGW management for finding a way to make the best of a bad situation. BGW is doing far, far better than its siblings because BGW's leadership has found a way to play the game and do so in such a way that continues to provide compelling returns for corporate.
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I guess that makes sense for larger items, and kind of what I suspect.
But when it comes to minor fixes for theming and it's a departmental dispute, you're saying even that is so tightly controlled by corporate that Kevin can't guide his team to get the job done one way or the other?
Man, we really need to get private equity out of the business...
But when it comes to minor fixes for theming and it's a departmental dispute, you're saying even that is so tightly controlled by corporate that Kevin can't guide his team to get the job done one way or the other?
Man, we really need to get private equity out of the business...
I think I've revealed this before in another thread, but corporate has literally gotten down to the level of dictating daily front-line staffing hours at BGW before—as in, calls to send individual employees home on a day of lighter-than-expected attendance have come reactively from the corporate offices day-of—bypassing BGW's leadership structure entirely. BGW often can't even make their own decisions re: the staff needed to run an attraction or restaurant day-to-day right now. Cost controls are legitimately THAT tight at United properties.
Positions and budgets dedicated to park theming broadly have long been eliminated so without roles or funds dedicated directly to the endeavor, dollars or hours for such things would require discreet corporate approval from what I understand.
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Yeah, we can't improve the product at all because that'd cut into our profits and Scott's wealth.
The sad part about the staffing situation is that United makes MORE than enough money to pay their staff well. I’m using SWO as a reference as I did work there for about a year and some change, but the logic should apply to BGW and other United properties as well. I worked in merchandise while at SWO, and while on register, theres a secondary page that ambassadors can flip to that shows their store’s sales total for the day, month, and year. In addition, it also shows sales in comparison to that same day in the prior year. I imagine many other parks and businesses do a similar thing. The SeaWorld Store, in about May of 2024, year to date sales were about $12 MILLION. That ONE store. Imagine a full year. I am aware that does not take into account restocking, operating costs, or other costs that may be incurred throughout the year. But it’s corporate willingly choosing to not pay their staff more, or invest in thematic upgrades and park quality aspects. They have the money. They just don’t want to spend it.
This is what I'm referring to by getting private equity out - fuck Scott Ross and Hillpath Capital for trying to be Warren Buffett and squeezing every drop from a product, quality be damned.
I'll go one further though, fuck the Disney execs who pioneered many of the cash grab tactics that paved the way for the rest of the industry to standardize their use.
I get that a good business must return a profit, and parks are expensive. But that doesn't mean they need to be ran as just vehicles for investments to ensure constant profit growth.
I'll go one further though, fuck the Disney execs who pioneered many of the cash grab tactics that paved the way for the rest of the industry to standardize their use.
I get that a good business must return a profit, and parks are expensive. But that doesn't mean they need to be ran as just vehicles for investments to ensure constant profit growth.
For the record - with Disney, despite being a cash grab, it was the right decision for them to go that way because of the sheer volume of guests that they have and it has become near impossible to do a large majority of the park in 1 day. In my recent visit (first one since they implemented much of this) it was actually much more pleasant to do anything because it was easy to keep up with booking rides.
For general parks though, this doesn’t work because there isn’t a huge overcrowding issue, there’s enough rides that lack huge lines, and these easy access programs that they adopted has hindered their ability to operate well. They’ve taken on Disney’s programs while failing to recognize the issues that exist that are unique to them and why they are such a draw that required the style of business they went to.
Most regional parks should have gone the way of having better food, better entertainment, better merchandise in a way that things like more expensive meals, upcharge seats, and more expensive merch is something people don’t mind spending money on. The issue they have now they are stuck in the cycle of chasing the sale through more and more programs like fastlanes and photokeys to make up for the loss of money.
And, yes, because so many are private equity are involved and the courts have decided that Shareholders are more important than the consumer - we will never see a year where they say ‘let’s be flat (or down) for the sake of building a better product where you can make more money off less people in the long run. So many things are couched in volume and velocity now for companies because that’s more quantifiable than quality impacting spending.
I mean you can make the argument with the original Fast Pass at the Magic Kingdom was intended to be a development for improved guest experiences.
But honestly, I think Kevin over at Defunctland's whole hour long video covered the issue better than I ever could. The reality is that the originator of the concept was intending it for limited used, but then higher level execs morphed it into the cash grab nightmare it's become.
I paid my entry fee like everyone else, I shouldn't have to pay even more just to ride everything I planned on riding.
Even in that scenario, it sounds like a cost-cutting plan since immersive queues are a thing - if you're entertained while standing in line, you're not going to have as many complaints about standing in line and may even enjoy your experience a bit more.
But that's far from the only Disney program that's been morphed into regional park cash grabs, if I'm not mistaken.
Meal plans, drink plans, photo pass - the idea of making regular in-park incremental revenue streams into a subscription service knowing most that pay won't use the product enough to offset the cost I believe started at Disney, though I obviously could be wrong about that if you know differently.
Well, like I said, the issue isn't that Disney did that stuff - because it made sense for their business. It's everyone else that blindly copied it without needing it. About the only place that should have taken Disney's lead is Universal.
Regional parks chasing money via 'micro transactions' over being a quality draw was the mistake.
Regional parks chasing money via 'micro transactions' over being a quality draw was the mistake.
if they do a flying theater, it would be cool to see Questor get remastered to work for it... then run it seasonal. then pull a plot twist and pull out Arkbard Adventure tours just for fun 
but hey, having a "holiday" overlay would also be nice... Remember SeaWorld used to do polar express in their sims... but i would bet it could be converted over for flying theater if they had the money for it... or something with Rudolph... (if there is anything they can pull together like what happened with polar express)
but hey, having a "holiday" overlay would also be nice... Remember SeaWorld used to do polar express in their sims... but i would bet it could be converted over for flying theater if they had the money for it... or something with Rudolph... (if there is anything they can pull together like what happened with polar express)
I’m fine with the flying theater concept if Kevin and the the creative team are allowed free say and rein over the decisions and conceptsif they do a flying theater, it would be cool to see Questor get remastered to work for it... then run it seasonal. then pull a plot twist and pull out Arkbard Adventure tours just for fun
but hey, having a "holiday" overlay would also be nice... Remember SeaWorld used to do polar express in their sims... but i would bet it could be converted over for flying theater if they had the money for it... or something with Rudolph... (if there is anything they can pull together like what happened with polar express)
United is definitely micromanaging in some ways (and I wish BGW was owned by Herschend instead), but I still gotta give someone at corporate credit for approving the Nessie and Verbolten revamps. I hope whatever this is has a similar level of touch to what they’ve shown lately.
My understanding is that the Diner house has been almost completely removed already in preparation for getting the building ready for the next project. This gives my hope that we are not just looking a new sim overlay.
What if the park adds a B&M family launch coaster like penguin trek keeping story elements of corkscrew Hill
Please, NO!
Not opposed to a coaster, but it needs to be left elsewhere. Ireland/Wild Reserve are the only two lands where there is no major roller coaster to depreciate the sightlines and they’re also much calmer and quaint as a result. They should stay that way. Also, the park has too many launches at this point, and they really need to focus on non-coaster attractions, such as the new sim building ride, flatrides, and similar items.
Yeah, now that Curse of DarKastle's building has been allocated to a coaster, I firmly believe the Killarney Sim Building needs to be utilized for something at least darkride adjacent—whether it be a new simulator, a flying theater, a madhouse, some sort of new theater attraction like Danse Macabre, one of those new compact, turntable darkride concepts, or even a themed, indoor flat ride.
Long-term, I'm in favor of a coaster utilizing the land behind Killarney out towards the park entry area, but I'd want to see the station outside the Killarney hamlet walls. The park needs more indoor, family experiences and the Sim Building is far more valuable as a home for that than as a coaster station.
Long-term, I'm in favor of a coaster utilizing the land behind Killarney out towards the park entry area, but I'd want to see the station outside the Killarney hamlet walls. The park needs more indoor, family experiences and the Sim Building is far more valuable as a home for that than as a coaster station.
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