> But it tends to happen for a short amount of time, mostly for events
I expect you're correct. While it's fantastic tech, it's also very expensive to keep highly-precise, carefully calibrated micro-machinery like this aligned and operating 12+ hours a day outdoors where temps vary from 50-110 degrees. Disney thinks in total cost of operation per hour and per customer-served.
While there's probably little that's more magical for a kid than coming across an expressively alive-seeming automaton operating in a free-form, uncontrolled environment, the cost is really high per audience member. Once there are 25 people crowded around, no new kid can see what all the commotion is about. That's why these kind of high-operating cost things tend to be found in stage and ride contexts, where the audience-served per peak hour can be in the hundreds or thousands. For outdoor free-form environments, the reality is it's still more economically viable to put humans in costumes. Especially when every high-end animatronic needs to always be accompanied by several human minders anyway.
Disney has problems with that. Their Galactic Starcruiser themed hotel experience cost more to the customer than a cruise on a real cruise ship, and Disney was still losing money on it. The cost merely to visit their parks is now too high for most Americans.
It's really hard to make money in mass market location-based entertainment. There have been many attempts, from flight simulators to escape rooms. Throughput is just too low, so cost per customer is too high.
A little mobile robot connected to an LLM chatbot, though - that's not too hard today. Probably coming to a mall near you soon. Many stores already have inventory bots cruising around. They're mobile bases with a tall column of cameras which scan the shelves.[2]
There's no reason they can't also answer questions about what's where in the store. They do know the inventory.
“ The cost merely to visit their parks is now too high for most Americans.”
I always wonder why people say things like this. It’s as if we’re just regurgitating stuff that feels right. Humans and LLMs behave the same sometimes.
Disneyworld alone gets 50 million visits a year. Magic Kingdom tickets are like $150. That’s approximately the average American’s monthly cell phone bill.
I don't think that's an incorrect statement to say it's too expensive for most Americans, even if there's still high traffic at the parks.
Disney has become significantly less accessible for the average family of 4. Aside from ticket costs, there's almost nothing free in the parks anymore... you have to pay for lightning lane passes for all the cool rides, there's minimal live entertainment, etc.
The demographics have significantly shifted. Only 1/3 visitors now come from households with children under 18, and millennials and gen z have started taking frequent trips (friend groups, couples, etc).
So while they still get the same number of "attendance", the demographics have started to shift toward older, more affluent repeat visitors.
That’s also a drastic misstatement that illustrates what I’m talking about. A poll showed that the average persons specifically designated “emergency savings fund” is $600. Many people have lots of money but don’t specifically refer to some as an emergency fund.
Also thanks to credit one does not need to have $600 to spend $600. That’s why we’ve got so many people with no savings.
What's the cost to travel there? To sleep? To eat? What's the actual experience like with that $150 ticket vs the options that are more expensive? Will you spend your entire day there waiting in line?
Those 50 million visits are the sum of daily visits across four parks, so it’s probably at most 30 million people. Even if they were all American (they aren’t), that’s like 9% of the population.
The average cell phone bill you cite is for more than one person.
I think it’s entirely fair to say that “most” Americans would find it too expensive to visit Disneyworld.
Estimates put the percent of Americans who actually HAVE been to Disney north of 75%. So it would seem unfair to say most find it too expensive, most have done it.
30 million uniques at one Disney location (there are two in the country, I think the other one increases that to at least 40 million, or roughly 12% of the entire population) per year is pretty high so that stat isn’t unbelievable. I’m sure not everybody can afford to go there every year.
I expect you're correct. While it's fantastic tech, it's also very expensive to keep highly-precise, carefully calibrated micro-machinery like this aligned and operating 12+ hours a day outdoors where temps vary from 50-110 degrees. Disney thinks in total cost of operation per hour and per customer-served.
While there's probably little that's more magical for a kid than coming across an expressively alive-seeming automaton operating in a free-form, uncontrolled environment, the cost is really high per audience member. Once there are 25 people crowded around, no new kid can see what all the commotion is about. That's why these kind of high-operating cost things tend to be found in stage and ride contexts, where the audience-served per peak hour can be in the hundreds or thousands. For outdoor free-form environments, the reality is it's still more economically viable to put humans in costumes. Especially when every high-end animatronic needs to always be accompanied by several human minders anyway.