September 8, 2025 • 33 mins
Universal’s roaming Art the Clown character has become a lightning rod at Halloween Horror Nights Orlando, with videos showing guests harassing, chasing, and even blocking his path. Meanwhile, Hollywood’s version of the same character ran smoothly—suggesting this is less about the IP and more about training, staffing, and audience management.
Philip and Scott break down why safety lapses around street performers are a business problem as much as a guest problem, and how differences in talent pools, training, and crowd “rules” create very different outcomes on each coast. Plus: what Hersheypark’s recent monorail incident and other headlines reveal about the industry’s biggest challenge—safety as a living, evolving plan. Listen to weekly BONUS episodes on our Patreon.
Philip and Scott break down why safety lapses around street performers are a business problem as much as a guest problem, and how differences in talent pools, training, and crowd “rules” create very different outcomes on each coast. Plus: what Hersheypark’s recent monorail incident and other headlines reveal about the industry’s biggest challenge—safety as a living, evolving plan. Listen to weekly BONUS episodes on our Patreon.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh my gosh. From our studios this week again in
Tampa and Orlando.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
This is green Tag Theme Parking thirty.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
I'm Philip and he is Scott Swinton of Scott Sweatson
Crea Developments. On green Tag, we look at the top
news each week in theme parks and discuss why it
matters to business professionals. And this week is our five
year anniversary.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Wow, I know. So that means, let's see fifty two
weeks a year, five years. Dang, we've done a lot
of shows.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
We've done a lot of shows. Yeah, we have not
missed a week and they've all been new content. Yeah,
it's not. Yeah, I mean we did a few. Sometimes
we do some pre recordings here and there, but we
haven't like busy because we're both busy professionals. That's why Philip, Okay, well,
maybe I don't know what I have or we just
weren't available. I'm back in Florida after having gone to
(00:51):
Halloween Horn Nights in Hollywood, and now I'm back here.
And I just occurred to him in the Yes, this
is our five year show. We started in twenty twenty
on September sixth in twenty twenty, and we have been
going on since then. We've talked about everything, you know,
the shutdowns and the and posts.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
And balloons and streamers and stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
But I don't know, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Can you do that in post? Could you just add
balloons and streamers and post Philip, Yeah, just imagine it.
Hold on, We'll just pretend that there's like balloons and
streamers dropping. Oh this is so exciting. Look at all this. Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
So I thought about doing the show where we talk
about lessons or you know, any of that stuff, but
there's always news. And I think this week's news was
interesting enough that we already started like talking before the show,
and so it's just it's an interesting thing. So this
week we're gonna do a little bit of a mash
up of things that all have to do with recent
(01:51):
safety incidents at the Empire.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
And I think that that's a good you knows as
a fifth anniversary show, I think that's a good thing,
a good topic to talk about because again, throughout the
last five years, we have mentioned safety and execution over
and over and over and over and over and over again.
So to focus on safety, and we will also get
into you know, how can how can safety be appropriately executed?
(02:15):
In the in a an experience or an attraction. So yeah,
I think it's I think it's a good weighty topic
to talk about on our five year because it kind
of reinforces our commitment and should be everyone in the
industry's commitment to recommending good safe practices that you know,
end up not only avoiding guest injuries, avoiding any sort
(02:36):
of guest situation, but from strictly a business standpoint, avoiding
any sort of lawsuit, litigation, or the absolute destruction of
your attraction or experience, because that can happen if you're
if a safety issue comes about. There are more than
enough theme park rides, more than enough theme park experiences
that have literally shut down because of a safety infraction.
(02:59):
So let's talk about the most recent and the most current.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
And Scott is a safety expert, and I'm just here
to talk about things. But so so, as I mentioned,
I went to the opening of Halloween Horn Nights in Hollywood,
and then I came back here to visit this Horror
Nights again for reasons unknown, but it to me, I
thought this year, we already talked about that, We did
(03:23):
a whole episode last week about it, and I just
want to say that I've been watching as the crowds
dial a little bit down, and to me, I still
think that the first of all, the food is still
at both parks enormously successful. Like I would not be
surprised if that food program is probably the thing that's
bringing them the most money this year, just because of
(03:45):
how both again both parks have such a robust food offerings,
and then they had the dining pass or testing in Hollywood,
so it really is like a food festival. And I
think that if you could add a food festival to Halloween,
it's like it's like, hmm, what could you do to
make more money? I know, at a food festival to
Halloween Horne.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
And that's exactly right. You know, it goes down to
have we tapped out the market? Can we expand our
market anymore? And if so, where do we look? And
you know, they can only get so blood, guts and gory,
they can only get so many haunts in so many houses,
in only so many scare zones in so let's look
at Hey, wait a minute, maybe grown ups would like
to eat something. Maybe we can tap into a different
(04:22):
market if we, you know, get those people who are
interested in Halloween but more interested in cool food, or
people who want to do Halloween but want something that's
a little bit elevated from a food standpoint, from a
culinary standpoint. And those are the people, by the way,
who have the money to spend on the extra things.
(04:44):
So it like, Yeah, it sounds like a really wise choice.
It sounds like something that you know, many parks have
talked about over the years. How do we expand without
without impinging upon our current core audience.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Yeah, and I do want to say I think again,
like Scott just mentioned, this is a good practice. We've
been talking about it for a while. It's a new
ish trend, but iopas also identified it. We talked about
it in our Outlook twenty twenty five outlook before. I mean,
we've talked about this as an emerging trend, and the
data also backs it up. I just want to put
an asterisk on that and say, you still have to
(05:20):
be reasonable within your target market and within your your
park and the you know, basically where the economic status
of your attendees. Because I am actually shocked at how
expensive the food is at Orlando and it's and whenever
food at a food vestal is more expensive than Epcot.
I think you have a problem. And I think the
(05:43):
only reason I think that it's sustainable in the Halloween
horonites examples what we talked about in the last show,
which is just the brand and just the crazy fanaticism.
But I think that if you were a zoo that
was doing a Halloween thing there's special food, I'm not
sure you could quite stretch it that far because each
each dish, right, I mean it's like the cup cupcake
is twelve thirteen dollars, right, a slice of pizza is
(06:05):
fifteen dollars.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
I mean that's that's like, I don't think you.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Could stretch it that far without the kind of the
brand mystique you know, behind it.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
And then and it's also it's also what is the
what is the event? What are the other costs surrounding
the event? You know you mentioned a zoo Zoo Tampa
several years ago actually did a dining guide for their
Halloween event.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yep, I remember this, Yeah, and it was.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
And it was really successful. I mean they did a
really nice job. But to your point, they they kept
it affordable or they kept it I mean it was
probably there are probably some people who went to zoo Tampa,
who thought, gosh, that's that's kind of pricey, but you
couldn't get the bat wings or the monster cupcakes or whatever.
You know, Indianapolis Zoo did the same thing. They they
(06:50):
did a some some event only culinary ideas. I always
whenever I pitch any new festival, whether it's Christmas or
Halloween or Summer or whatever, I always include culinary and
merchandise suggestion simply because I think it makes it for
a more rich and robust experience from a creative standpoint.
But it's also a way to make the experience more
(07:11):
sustainable financially, because you can continue to elevate. So I
think your point is well taken, Philip, and that is
you have to make certain and I won't even say price,
I will say value, because you can be cheap as heck,
but if the stuff looks and tastes like crap, no
one's gonna buy it. So you have to make certain
that the value is there, and you have to make
(07:33):
certain that it does it's a value that falls within
the spending demo of your core audience.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, So all that being said, wrapping around to safety now.
So the article that I think we'll link to is
from Disney Dining dot com and the title is Universal
dives headfirst into crisis after Halloween horrnine's disaster, So that's
definitely on the clickbait region. The different things they mentioned
(08:00):
in this article is about the food and about it
running out. We mentioned that already last week's episode about
the premium Scream Night and how many people were there,
which we talked about last time. They talked about the
idea that the frequent fear passes with Express were sold
out and have been sold out for a while since
since opening weekend, which I think happens every year, so
(08:22):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I mean, I don't remember. Honestly, I don't remember. I
don't remember that.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
But anyway, if you think about it, that means there's
already a ton of people with Express that are just
recycling every night. And we've talked about that before, because
we've talked about how if the line is ninety one
hundred and eighty, Express is ninety already because there's so
many Express.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Well, and I guess my question is, I don't know
what sold quote unquote sold out means.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Correct?
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Where are you capping it? You know? What is the
cap if you're only selling one hundred and it's sold out,
then gosh, that's a great value and that's a wonderful thing.
If there's ten thousand or one hundred thousand and you're
sold out, that means it has very little value. So
you have to figure out what that what that cap
is where you know, here's my This has always been
(09:08):
my feeling. It is completely fine to quote unquote sell
out of any sort of premium experience, of any sort
of of guest experience in general, as long as the
cap that makes it sold out is reasonable and doesn't
(09:29):
impact do you know, you're you're getting what you're paying for.
In this article they talked about you know, they reference
guests who are saying they'll never do it again. They
felt cheated. They you know, they still had to wait.
They barely got through all the houses and they had
the premium pass, which.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Which is what I talked about. We talked about that.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
I was there and the only thing, you know, the
only thing they said that was premium was the price.
So you know, it's it's one of those things. I
guess My point is, Philip there, it's not just you,
because you know you're grousey. You you gribe that truth.
But this is a bunch of people. This is a
bunch of people who who may or may not have
the same level of experience that you do when it
comes to attending houted attractions. And you know, it's it's
(10:06):
one of those situations that it's okay to sell out
as long as you're not a sellout. Yeah you know,
I mean, yeah, you can get greedy. Once you get greedy,
then it starts to have diminishing returns. And according to
this article, there are many guests at Halloween Hornets in
Orlando that believe that it's already that it's hit that point.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yeah, and I think we will again. We talked about
this last week. But the only way to know, I mean,
you just people have to start not going right, just
like the Disney thing, right every we've talked about it
since since we started the show. Again, another theme of
the show since we started the show has been prices
continually going up at Disney and Genie Plus and all
all the up charges and all these things, and it
(10:51):
still sells out.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
So I think that's.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
The the challenge we've been coming to more and more, right,
is I think the people that are more in the
park fans to have seen it as more unaffordable.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
But again, the personn't really want us.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
They want the people who are willing to spend a
lot more because they're only going to go once every
ten years.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
You know, look how many times have you been to
Horrnites this year?
Speaker 2 (11:14):
It's exactly so they still get you.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
And we said here and talk about it. It's too expensive,
so exactly, that's exactly the point. Yeah, that's so, I mean,
but all that aside.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
It's not too expensive. That's what I'm saying. It's not
too expensive.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yeah, and I think it's just going to continue. I
don't think they're going to change anything, is my point.
They're not gonna change anything until something tanks. But all
that aside to the safety thing. So I think the thing,
aside from the food that has been the most successful
from a branding standpoint, has been this partnership with Terrifier.
(11:47):
And it's one of those sweet spots where it's a
small enough brand like it's they're easy to work with
because they were able to pull them on panels with them,
the director and the like the original. I mean, there's
so easy to work with, this so accessible, but it
got like a cult following, and it's like a horror icon.
And the character is also like easy because there's no talking,
(12:10):
there's no it's no face, it's in a mask. It's
such an easy character to have multiple people play, and
so I think the easiest.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
The best thing they've done this.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Year from the Brandy standpoint is work with Terrifier, and
it's one of those elements of working with Terrifier has
been to bring the haunted houses to both coasts, and
as I mentioned, because the eyep is easy to work with.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
In Orlando, they made a water.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Pathway right that like a wet way and a dryway,
which is just makes every bit excited because that everybody
can do those before and after trends and show how
soaked they get. So it's great from a brand marketing standpoint.
But then they're able to bring Art the clown and
let him just be the character, but all throughout both parks. Now,
in Hollywood, this was not a problem. I mean, I
(12:56):
don't know if it's because you get the Hollywood vibe
where people are like, you know, they're used to seeing
like Brad Pitt and random people. I've never seen Brad Pitt,
but I've seen other random celebrities that just randomly and
you just you know, like you're trained to just like
kind of like look at them or maybe wave or whatever.
We don't like harass them. So there's that training maybe.
But like, uh so in Hollywood when I went for
(13:17):
the media night, I went there and I think I
saw him five or six times. I mean we he
like clearly they had they had a whole team of
art characters because he was like everywhere and he was
in different costumes and outfits and he was just doing
different things and he was just hanging out.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
We saw him all the time.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
And the girl that I brought with me was also
an actress and she had like some contacts and stuff
in so he loved picking on her and they would
have like staring contests, you know, and they would just
do a bunch of a bunch of stuff. And we
saw her. We saw him all the time. Okay, but
in Florida, this is not the case. In Florida, it
has become a problem. And when when I have still
(13:58):
never seen him in Florida, by the way, like this
is the asterisk. However, I have friends that have and
I have watched on I've looked online specifically for videos
because I haven't seen them and I want to kind
of see what it's like. And he now it's becoming a
thing where he's becoming harassed and chased, and I've started
to watch all these videos of it, like kind of
(14:19):
becoming worse and worse and worse and worse and worse.
And he's supposed to be a roaming character, but now
it seems like Universal is considering pulling him into a
more safe, enclosed space just because guests are just being crazy.
People are following him around with flashlights, you know, people
are blocking his way, people are trying to take props,
people are just doing all this. Just the behavior is
(14:40):
just insane about this. And this is where we finally
get to the safety portion because Scott, I think you
have a lot more experience in this. I'm just looking
at it and I'm just like, you know, I'm one
of those things when I'm just baffled, like I'm surprised.
I'm not even surprised, and I am. It's like one
of those things where you're like, you know, it was
(15:00):
inevitable in like Florida because of the fanaticism that you get,
but you were hoping that it wouldn't you know, it
wouldn't go there, right, Like, I'm not surprised, but I'm
just like sad because to your point, I mean with.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
With celebrities in California, the reason people are trained to
behave in a certain way is if you go up
and harass Brad Pitt, what happens. Yeah, you get arrested,
you get taken away, one of his guys takes you away.
Then you get arrested. You know, So they're not they're not.
They didn't take that into consideration here. They haven't trained
the audience here in Florida.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
And I will say the only situation I saw firsthand
was actually last night, and it was with another roaming character,
which is the Grapper, and he's roaming. He's medium roaming,
like he can roam, but he's supposed to he' supposed
to stay around his black phone but booth, but he
can roam in that whole area. And actually he only
had one handler, which which the fact that we have
to say he only has one handler is crazy because
(15:55):
I believe most of the Disney parks only give them
one handler. But he he was being harassed by like
by teens and they were just like, Oh, do this
and do that, and they were like, I mean, it
was like I had never seen people get that close
to a character.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
And then he was also.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Like touching some of the teams, not in the bad way,
but like kind of like you know, like you know,
he had his like prop and he was playing pop
really close to their face and they would like grab
it or this and that.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
I was like, I was like, this is.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Behavior that is like, no, wonder if they're doing this
with grabber, you know. And then the handler was like
distracted over in a corner or whatever. And then the
handler was like telling me, He's like, oh, I hate
these teenagers. They're so ridiculous this year and everything.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
It's crazy. And I was like, yeah, but like you're
letting them do it.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
I mean yeah, when there's no when there's there's no
follow up, when there's no you know, they don't there's
no they don't get in trouble for it. When you
don't get in trouble for it, you keep doing it.
That's that's reinforcement, you know. The and it also based
on that description alone and some of the videos that
I I've seen as well with with art the clown.
(17:03):
I I look at it and go Okay. Before I
would pull him from the streets and put him in
a safe, you know, little stage location, I would go
back and do a complete retraining because you know, I've
done a lot of strolling characters. I've done a lot
of strolling characters at Halloween time in and about without
(17:24):
a handler. Now, granted, I am six four and I'm
not a I'm not a slender person, so I'm I'm
a pretty I'm a pretty imposing character to begin with.
But that said, that doesn't stop twelve year old girls
who want to get content for for social media. So
they're gonna do They're gonna do whatever they want to
do and try to get away with it. And I
use twelve year old girls because twelve year old girls
(17:46):
of course know everything, just ask them. So so the
the challenge there is to make certain that A the
training is is right, B the lighting is right because people,
you know, if you think about it, when you go
to any Halloween event, you're for the most part, getting
(18:08):
people all hyped up on either alcohol, sugar, or just
adrenaline and scaring them in dark places. So they're going
to fight flight, fawn or freeze. Those are the four options,
and fighting, which we I think we'll talk about a
little bit more later. But the fawning and the fawning
(18:30):
is sort of trying to ingratiate yourself with the person
that has frightened you. And that is so annoying if
you're trying to be a terror character, it is it's
like they want to be your best bud so that
they can get away, they can become who you are.
That's what they want is to to, you know, to
be your best bud. And the strongest way to get
(18:51):
away from that is to get away from that, to
turn away, you know, don't give them the opportunity to
become your buddy as a as a monster character. And
if you can't frighten them away, then turn and walk
away and then have your handler come in. Once you
walk away, then have your handler come in and make
sure that they don't follow you. You know. That's that's
that's how I would train somebody. I also think that
(19:13):
when you start talking about invading people's privacy, or not privacy,
invading people's personal space. That's where the moment you stay
longer than a second in someone's personal space, you've just
invited some sort of retribution. You've just invited some sort
of follow up. And it's also reading the crowd. That's
(19:34):
why I say this is a training issue to me,
reading the crowd. Understand, I can go and mess with
these people and they'll have a good time with it.
If I do the same thing with these people, they're
going to either get up in my face, they're going
to push me away. You know, I scare the I
scare the fifteen year old football player who's on a
date with his girlfriend and he looks like a fool,
(19:54):
so now all his the only the only recompense he
has is to hit me. So you have to read
your crowd.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Actually, now that you're mentioning that, I well, of course,
this is why I brought this to you, Scott, because
you have the experience in this. But now that you're
mentioning it, I was like, you know, maybe this is
part of another trend we've been talking about forever since
the show started, which is the casting and the staffing
and the training and the training and how a lot.
(20:25):
Maybe maybe it's because we've talked about for a while
how like so many people during the pandemic, they left
the sector and it's been like rekind of been trying
to back build up your talent pool, and maybe this
is one of those where, like you just don't they
just have people that have not actors, that have not
had this type of training before, and they just don't
know how to diffuse it. And also we've also I
(20:47):
don't want to like put you know, like shade on
the younger generation, but we've also talked about how because
again because of the pandemic and because of the less
socialization in that generation, that you do have a generation
of kids that are just.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Don't know how to have the actual real people.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Interacting with And so maybe these two things are colliding
where you're like, oh, like they don't know how to
interact the actors eat maybe the actors are also young enough,
because some of these I'm sure are barely.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Of course, it's this is yes, I think, I think
I agree with you on all of these topics. I
think what it basically comes down to is the first
of all, they haven't set up the parameters of what
is acceptable behavior and what is not within the parks themselves.
And b I don't it sounds like and I don't
know because I'm not involved with the project at all,
(21:34):
But it sounds like the training is not necessarily the
strongest either. People automatically assume I'm playing Art the Clown.
People will be afraid of me. But they won't because
they have Art the Clown on their T shirt. So
any character that you can have on a T shirt
is not going to kill you. They they've already suspended
(21:54):
their disbelief or they've already you know it basically ignored
the brand standard of what Art the Clown stands for.
And so they're just going to try to get Art
the Clown to be their buddy, to do something fun
because they know he's not going to hurt them. So
what they have to do is figure out, Okay, if
he can't hurt them in revenge, what can he do.
He can turn and walk away so you don't get
(22:15):
your content. Yeah, so you know they've got to they've
got to establish that those those guidelines, just like you
talked about in California. In California, when you see a celebrity,
you maintain a distance. And the reason you maintain a
distance is because you know one of the celebrities. People,
whether you know who they are or not, are going
(22:36):
to come and move you out of their way and
then perhaps involve law enforcement. So the audience has been
trained there, not so much in Florida.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Yeah, I agree that that's a that's yeah, it's an
excellent way of paying it because I think about in
California when I saw we kept seeing we actually kept
seeing art like all night, and I literally was like,
how many are there?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Or like, how are we seeing? Are all it was?
He was, He felt like he was everywhere in California.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
That's great, That's what it should be.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
That's what it should be.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
And also but with us and I was rolling with
my camera, I mean we were rolling and we literally
we we ignored him for the most part, and he
came up to us multiple times, like but we just
were like let's walk past him, you know, let's just
walk by. And he would come up and then like
he would, he would stare at Jen, who I was with,
the actress I was with, and then she would just
stare back, and I think that was one of those
where an interaction that he didn't expect because she would
(23:29):
just like stare and he would stare, and they would
just stare each other, or he would do something or
whatever and then he would move on. We just you
just let him do his thing. You just you keep walking.
He does this thing. If he interacts with you, great,
If not, keep moving.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Part of the part of the training for a scare
act in an uncontrolled situation is once again reading your crowd,
reading your audience. Who do you want to engage with?
You can't do the same interaction with every single person
because different people will react differently. Yeah, you know, And
you also have to recognize, Okay, I've got this bit
(24:02):
and if a if the beginning of the bit doesn't work,
I have to have an immediate pivot. I've got to
have an immediate improvisation to head it out so I
don't look foolish, get hurt, get cornered, get chased, get grabbed, whatever.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
And I just think you're right that the training in
Hollywood stay. And that was the other thing I didn't
mention at the top of the show. But basically, the big,
the big. Everybody is always like Orlando is better than Hollywood,
or hollywoods better. Everyone's always has these opinions about like
which is better about blah, And I'm like, the reality
is we.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Talked about before.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
They're separate events with separate situations, right with entirely separate
audiences and separate audiences, and so I don't think it's
good to compare. But I think, as I've always said,
the biggest thing is your talent pool. That is the
biggest difference. And so in Hollywood, the houses are designed
to have more acting roles, so it's not just the
(24:53):
scare zones. And this year, I think that's why, you know,
it's it's so much easy. Basically, it's so much easier
to get art to clowns in Hollywood, and that's probably
why they have so many of them. They're probably more
highly trained because they have so much a big acting
pool there as opposed to in Florida. But also the
houses in Florida. All of the actors in the houses
in Florida, as always are just animatronics. Basically, they just
(25:16):
pop out of corners and do the same thing over
and over.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
But you have.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
Hollywood and all the street spirit performers walk by and stare.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
At you, yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
And you have in Hollywood where you do have they
are trained in prov folks and they do everything that
you mentioned, and they switch up their tactics and they
also you have people in the haunted houses that execute scenes.
You know they will they will do acting inside the
hind House. You know, you have Jason that pops out
and he shoots a girl with an arrow and it's
(25:46):
two actors and they do that like all night, and
you know it's it's a great scene and it's movement based, right,
and it's like that happens in California.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
It could never happen in Florida. It's because of the staff.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Well, they have done that at times in Florida. The
challenge there is the Florida because the Florida Florida has
such a capacity push that. Unfortunately, if there is a
scene that has to be reset like that, I would
say seventy five percent of the people who go through
the house miss it. Yeah, because they have to reset
and get ready to go again.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
It is crazy.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Yeah. I saw that happen years and years and years
ago in the the Never More House that they did
about Edgar Allan Poe. There was a great scene, but
I would say maybe twenty five percent of the people
who actually went through ever saw it because the reset
was horrendous. Yeah, took forever. But we're not the only
ones talking about safety. That's the important thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Yeah, I was like, we haven't even got to the
next time.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
I know, so I'm moving aside. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
So basically, there was also an incident this week at
Hershey Park and I anyway, so just to outline the incident, basically,
there's the young boy. He got separated from his parents.
The parent kind of immediately contacted the park and they
were looking for him. But where they found him was
(27:07):
actually on the monorail tracks, like on monorail tracks, Like
he's walking on mono tracks and nobody knows how he
got on the tracks because the station was like locked off,
everything was secured all that. The monorail is not active,
so it's inactive monorail, which hence why the station and
the area were already closed off because it's inactive monorail
and so it's a closed site. So the video that
(27:31):
went viral and got picked up by literally everyone is
a video of the crowd, a crowd of people like
shouting at the boy. And then there are these two
men who are not related to the parents or their
party at all, who just jump on top, like climb
on top of the building like an adjacent building, and
then get onto the montail tracks and get the boy
(27:52):
and bring him down, and so he was fine. The
boy was fine. The whole incident probably took think they
said twenty minutes where he was randomly at the monorail's
gate area. Is so in me twenty thirty minutes the
whole situation took and he was returned and safe and
everything was fine.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
But this went all over.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
And of course this has the bad timing of being
just a month away from an accidental drowning at the
Hershey Park water park, which was deemed by everybody an
accident because you know, they were like they had one
hundred lifeguards there and it was just a complete accident
that was not at all the park of the fault
of the park, but it's been it's everywhere, It's everywhere.
(28:35):
The head president of AYAPPA had to do a segment
on today where he talked about how the injuries per
million atendees actually went down by fifty one percent. Oh
and that basically it's parts have never been safer, and
that these in both these incidents, we were not where
the park was doing everything they could and that they
could be recently set to do well.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
And I think that what this reminds us of is
safety is a journey not an end result. You know,
you never know how safe you are. Obviously, a child
in a completely quote unquote locked up, lockdown cannot access well,
obviously they can access. So you got to go back
and review where did he get through? How did he
(29:17):
get through? How do we fill that in? Because he's
a kid, he didn't know the difference. The fact that
you know, the fact that you've got the two adults
who are able to climb on a building and get
on the on the on the track, that concerns me
as well. I appreciate them being a good Samaritan. I
think that is exactly the right thing to do, But
the fact that they could means that there's a second issue.
(29:40):
If they could get on the tracks, it means there's
a second issue because, quite honestly, and you know, if
you if you search the internet long enough, well it
won't take that long, you will find so many videos
of people in places that are locked off, secure, closed.
You know there there are there are entire channels of
abandoned theme parks, people who have broke get into abandoned
(30:00):
theme parks or even behind the scenes at working theme
parks and getting you know that video, that content, et cetera,
et cetera, et cetera. So safety is always going to
be a living document. Your safety plan is always going
to be a living document. And this is just a reminder.
And thank goodness, nothing happened to the child. I think
that's great. You know that some people have said, well,
(30:23):
the parents just lost, just turned away for a moment,
and then he was on the monorail track. Well, unless
there was a transporter involved, I don't think that happened. Okay,
the kid had to be have been missing for a
little while. Now I'm not a parent, so I'm not
going to sit here and back seat parent. It is
very possible that they were panicked and looking for the child.
They were looking on the right and he was on
(30:44):
the left. That's completely I get it. I get it.
But you know, there's so many factors involved that we
just either don't know, haven't figured out yet, or have
not been reported. The reason this is an issue is because, again,
once the media gets a hold of a safety situation
for a large theme park, they're going to shake it
(31:05):
like a dog shakes apossum. You know, It's one of
those situations where it's far more it's far greater news
than someone slipped and fell in the grocery store. You know,
and there are people who slip and fall in grocery
stores and have to be taken to the hospital every
single day in almost every single community. But a small
child who was not injured on a monorail track in
a theme park is much sexier news. So we have
(31:29):
to kind of weigh that. So at the same time,
I'm saying, yes, this is a great opportunity. In fact,
if I were the safety guy at you know, at
where are we at Hershey Park? If I were the
safety guy at Hershey Park, the first thing I would
do is go thank you for helping us find yet
another way we can be safer because the child was
not injured, and it was another opportunity for us to
(31:53):
ramp up our safety. And of course everyone's going to
come back and say, well, it wasn't safe before we
thought it was. We thought it was. But no matter
how safe you think it's going to be. And again, parents,
you know this. Your kids are going to find a
way to get to where they want to be. So
it's it's another opportunity to get even safer so I'm glad,
(32:13):
and I'm glad. Yakab from IAPA spoke out about it
again just to reinforce people. It's not unsafe. It's not
more unsafe than it's ever been. It's safer than it's
ever been to be in a theme pars.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yeah, well, I think we're going to have to continue
the safety discussion and unhinged because we're already out of time.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
I don't even know. Well, we got.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
Talking about Halloween too, so that that doesn't so anyway. Well, guys,
thank you so much for being with us for five years,
for those of you who've started with us at the
very beginning, and for those of you who are recently joined.
Here's to another five years. Hopefully we'll go way into
the future. And until next week on behalf of Philip
(32:57):
and myself. This is Green Tag Theme Park in thirty
and we will see you in seven days
Oh my gosh. From our studios this week again in
Tampa and Orlando.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
This is green Tag Theme Parking thirty.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
I'm Philip and he is Scott Swinton of Scott Sweatson
Crea Developments. On green Tag, we look at the top
news each week in theme parks and discuss why it
matters to business professionals. And this week is our five
year anniversary.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Wow, I know. So that means, let's see fifty two
weeks a year, five years. Dang, we've done a lot
of shows.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
We've done a lot of shows. Yeah, we have not
missed a week and they've all been new content. Yeah,
it's not. Yeah, I mean we did a few. Sometimes
we do some pre recordings here and there, but we
haven't like busy because we're both busy professionals. That's why Philip, Okay, well,
maybe I don't know what I have or we just
weren't available. I'm back in Florida after having gone to
(00:51):
Halloween Horn Nights in Hollywood, and now I'm back here.
And I just occurred to him in the Yes, this
is our five year show. We started in twenty twenty
on September sixth in twenty twenty, and we have been
going on since then. We've talked about everything, you know,
the shutdowns and the and posts.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
And balloons and streamers and stuff.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
But I don't know, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
Can you do that in post? Could you just add
balloons and streamers and post Philip, Yeah, just imagine it.
Hold on, We'll just pretend that there's like balloons and
streamers dropping. Oh this is so exciting. Look at all this. Wow.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
So I thought about doing the show where we talk
about lessons or you know, any of that stuff, but
there's always news. And I think this week's news was
interesting enough that we already started like talking before the show,
and so it's just it's an interesting thing. So this
week we're gonna do a little bit of a mash
up of things that all have to do with recent
(01:51):
safety incidents at the Empire.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
And I think that that's a good you knows as
a fifth anniversary show, I think that's a good thing,
a good topic to talk about because again, throughout the
last five years, we have mentioned safety and execution over
and over and over and over and over and over again.
So to focus on safety, and we will also get
into you know, how can how can safety be appropriately executed?
(02:15):
In the in a an experience or an attraction. So yeah,
I think it's I think it's a good weighty topic
to talk about on our five year because it kind
of reinforces our commitment and should be everyone in the
industry's commitment to recommending good safe practices that you know,
end up not only avoiding guest injuries, avoiding any sort
(02:36):
of guest situation, but from strictly a business standpoint, avoiding
any sort of lawsuit, litigation, or the absolute destruction of
your attraction or experience, because that can happen if you're
if a safety issue comes about. There are more than
enough theme park rides, more than enough theme park experiences
that have literally shut down because of a safety infraction.
(02:59):
So let's talk about the most recent and the most current.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
And Scott is a safety expert, and I'm just here
to talk about things. But so so, as I mentioned,
I went to the opening of Halloween Horn Nights in Hollywood,
and then I came back here to visit this Horror
Nights again for reasons unknown, but it to me, I
thought this year, we already talked about that, We did
(03:23):
a whole episode last week about it, and I just
want to say that I've been watching as the crowds
dial a little bit down, and to me, I still
think that the first of all, the food is still
at both parks enormously successful. Like I would not be
surprised if that food program is probably the thing that's
bringing them the most money this year, just because of
(03:45):
how both again both parks have such a robust food offerings,
and then they had the dining pass or testing in Hollywood,
so it really is like a food festival. And I
think that if you could add a food festival to Halloween,
it's like it's like, hmm, what could you do to
make more money? I know, at a food festival to
Halloween Horne.
Speaker 3 (04:02):
And that's exactly right. You know, it goes down to
have we tapped out the market? Can we expand our
market anymore? And if so, where do we look? And
you know, they can only get so blood, guts and gory,
they can only get so many haunts in so many houses,
in only so many scare zones in so let's look
at Hey, wait a minute, maybe grown ups would like
to eat something. Maybe we can tap into a different
(04:22):
market if we, you know, get those people who are
interested in Halloween but more interested in cool food, or
people who want to do Halloween but want something that's
a little bit elevated from a food standpoint, from a
culinary standpoint. And those are the people, by the way,
who have the money to spend on the extra things.
(04:44):
So it like, Yeah, it sounds like a really wise choice.
It sounds like something that you know, many parks have
talked about over the years. How do we expand without
without impinging upon our current core audience.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Yeah, and I do want to say I think again,
like Scott just mentioned, this is a good practice. We've
been talking about it for a while. It's a new
ish trend, but iopas also identified it. We talked about
it in our Outlook twenty twenty five outlook before. I mean,
we've talked about this as an emerging trend, and the
data also backs it up. I just want to put
an asterisk on that and say, you still have to
(05:20):
be reasonable within your target market and within your your
park and the you know, basically where the economic status
of your attendees. Because I am actually shocked at how
expensive the food is at Orlando and it's and whenever
food at a food vestal is more expensive than Epcot.
I think you have a problem. And I think the
(05:43):
only reason I think that it's sustainable in the Halloween
horonites examples what we talked about in the last show,
which is just the brand and just the crazy fanaticism.
But I think that if you were a zoo that
was doing a Halloween thing there's special food, I'm not
sure you could quite stretch it that far because each
each dish, right, I mean it's like the cup cupcake
is twelve thirteen dollars, right, a slice of pizza is
(06:05):
fifteen dollars.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
I mean that's that's like, I don't think you.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
Could stretch it that far without the kind of the
brand mystique you know, behind it.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
And then and it's also it's also what is the
what is the event? What are the other costs surrounding
the event? You know you mentioned a zoo Zoo Tampa
several years ago actually did a dining guide for their
Halloween event.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yep, I remember this, Yeah, and it was.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
And it was really successful. I mean they did a
really nice job. But to your point, they they kept
it affordable or they kept it I mean it was
probably there are probably some people who went to zoo Tampa,
who thought, gosh, that's that's kind of pricey, but you
couldn't get the bat wings or the monster cupcakes or whatever.
You know, Indianapolis Zoo did the same thing. They they
(06:50):
did a some some event only culinary ideas. I always
whenever I pitch any new festival, whether it's Christmas or
Halloween or Summer or whatever, I always include culinary and
merchandise suggestion simply because I think it makes it for
a more rich and robust experience from a creative standpoint.
But it's also a way to make the experience more
(07:11):
sustainable financially, because you can continue to elevate. So I
think your point is well taken, Philip, and that is
you have to make certain and I won't even say price,
I will say value, because you can be cheap as heck,
but if the stuff looks and tastes like crap, no
one's gonna buy it. So you have to make certain
that the value is there, and you have to make
(07:33):
certain that it does it's a value that falls within
the spending demo of your core audience.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Yeah, So all that being said, wrapping around to safety now.
So the article that I think we'll link to is
from Disney Dining dot com and the title is Universal
dives headfirst into crisis after Halloween horrnine's disaster, So that's
definitely on the clickbait region. The different things they mentioned
(08:00):
in this article is about the food and about it
running out. We mentioned that already last week's episode about
the premium Scream Night and how many people were there,
which we talked about last time. They talked about the
idea that the frequent fear passes with Express were sold
out and have been sold out for a while since
since opening weekend, which I think happens every year, so
(08:22):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
I mean, I don't remember. Honestly, I don't remember. I
don't remember that.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
But anyway, if you think about it, that means there's
already a ton of people with Express that are just
recycling every night. And we've talked about that before, because
we've talked about how if the line is ninety one
hundred and eighty, Express is ninety already because there's so
many Express.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Well, and I guess my question is, I don't know
what sold quote unquote sold out means.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Correct?
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Where are you capping it? You know? What is the
cap if you're only selling one hundred and it's sold out,
then gosh, that's a great value and that's a wonderful thing.
If there's ten thousand or one hundred thousand and you're
sold out, that means it has very little value. So
you have to figure out what that what that cap
is where you know, here's my This has always been
(09:08):
my feeling. It is completely fine to quote unquote sell
out of any sort of premium experience, of any sort
of of guest experience in general, as long as the
cap that makes it sold out is reasonable and doesn't
(09:29):
impact do you know, you're you're getting what you're paying for.
In this article they talked about you know, they reference
guests who are saying they'll never do it again. They
felt cheated. They you know, they still had to wait.
They barely got through all the houses and they had
the premium pass, which.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Which is what I talked about. We talked about that.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
I was there and the only thing, you know, the
only thing they said that was premium was the price.
So you know, it's it's one of those things. I
guess My point is, Philip there, it's not just you,
because you know you're grousey. You you gribe that truth.
But this is a bunch of people. This is a
bunch of people who who may or may not have
the same level of experience that you do when it
comes to attending houted attractions. And you know, it's it's
(10:06):
one of those situations that it's okay to sell out
as long as you're not a sellout. Yeah you know,
I mean, yeah, you can get greedy. Once you get greedy,
then it starts to have diminishing returns. And according to
this article, there are many guests at Halloween Hornets in
Orlando that believe that it's already that it's hit that point.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yeah, and I think we will again. We talked about
this last week. But the only way to know, I mean,
you just people have to start not going right, just
like the Disney thing, right every we've talked about it
since since we started the show. Again, another theme of
the show since we started the show has been prices
continually going up at Disney and Genie Plus and all
all the up charges and all these things, and it
(10:51):
still sells out.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
So I think that's.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
The the challenge we've been coming to more and more, right,
is I think the people that are more in the
park fans to have seen it as more unaffordable.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
But again, the personn't really want us.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
They want the people who are willing to spend a
lot more because they're only going to go once every
ten years.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
You know, look how many times have you been to
Horrnites this year?
Speaker 2 (11:14):
It's exactly so they still get you.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
And we said here and talk about it. It's too expensive,
so exactly, that's exactly the point. Yeah, that's so, I mean,
but all that aside.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
It's not too expensive. That's what I'm saying. It's not
too expensive.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Yeah, and I think it's just going to continue. I
don't think they're going to change anything, is my point.
They're not gonna change anything until something tanks. But all
that aside to the safety thing. So I think the thing,
aside from the food that has been the most successful
from a branding standpoint, has been this partnership with Terrifier.
(11:47):
And it's one of those sweet spots where it's a
small enough brand like it's they're easy to work with
because they were able to pull them on panels with them,
the director and the like the original. I mean, there's
so easy to work with, this so accessible, but it
got like a cult following, and it's like a horror icon.
And the character is also like easy because there's no talking,
(12:10):
there's no it's no face, it's in a mask. It's
such an easy character to have multiple people play, and
so I think the easiest.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
The best thing they've done this.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
Year from the Brandy standpoint is work with Terrifier, and
it's one of those elements of working with Terrifier has
been to bring the haunted houses to both coasts, and
as I mentioned, because the eyep is easy to work with.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
In Orlando, they made a water.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Pathway right that like a wet way and a dryway,
which is just makes every bit excited because that everybody
can do those before and after trends and show how
soaked they get. So it's great from a brand marketing standpoint.
But then they're able to bring Art the clown and
let him just be the character, but all throughout both parks. Now,
in Hollywood, this was not a problem. I mean, I
(12:56):
don't know if it's because you get the Hollywood vibe
where people are like, you know, they're used to seeing
like Brad Pitt and random people. I've never seen Brad Pitt,
but I've seen other random celebrities that just randomly and
you just you know, like you're trained to just like
kind of like look at them or maybe wave or whatever.
We don't like harass them. So there's that training maybe.
But like, uh so in Hollywood when I went for
(13:17):
the media night, I went there and I think I
saw him five or six times. I mean we he
like clearly they had they had a whole team of
art characters because he was like everywhere and he was
in different costumes and outfits and he was just doing
different things and he was just hanging out.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
We saw him all the time.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
And the girl that I brought with me was also
an actress and she had like some contacts and stuff
in so he loved picking on her and they would
have like staring contests, you know, and they would just
do a bunch of a bunch of stuff. And we
saw her. We saw him all the time. Okay, but
in Florida, this is not the case. In Florida, it
has become a problem. And when when I have still
(13:58):
never seen him in Florida, by the way, like this
is the asterisk. However, I have friends that have and
I have watched on I've looked online specifically for videos
because I haven't seen them and I want to kind
of see what it's like. And he now it's becoming a
thing where he's becoming harassed and chased, and I've started
to watch all these videos of it, like kind of
(14:19):
becoming worse and worse and worse and worse and worse.
And he's supposed to be a roaming character, but now
it seems like Universal is considering pulling him into a
more safe, enclosed space just because guests are just being crazy.
People are following him around with flashlights, you know, people
are blocking his way, people are trying to take props,
people are just doing all this. Just the behavior is
(14:40):
just insane about this. And this is where we finally
get to the safety portion because Scott, I think you
have a lot more experience in this. I'm just looking
at it and I'm just like, you know, I'm one
of those things when I'm just baffled, like I'm surprised.
I'm not even surprised, and I am. It's like one
of those things where you're like, you know, it was
(15:00):
inevitable in like Florida because of the fanaticism that you get,
but you were hoping that it wouldn't you know, it
wouldn't go there, right, Like, I'm not surprised, but I'm
just like sad because to your point, I mean with.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
With celebrities in California, the reason people are trained to
behave in a certain way is if you go up
and harass Brad Pitt, what happens. Yeah, you get arrested,
you get taken away, one of his guys takes you away.
Then you get arrested. You know, So they're not they're not.
They didn't take that into consideration here. They haven't trained
the audience here in Florida.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
And I will say the only situation I saw firsthand
was actually last night, and it was with another roaming character,
which is the Grapper, and he's roaming. He's medium roaming,
like he can roam, but he's supposed to he' supposed
to stay around his black phone but booth, but he
can roam in that whole area. And actually he only
had one handler, which which the fact that we have
to say he only has one handler is crazy because
(15:55):
I believe most of the Disney parks only give them
one handler. But he he was being harassed by like
by teens and they were just like, Oh, do this
and do that, and they were like, I mean, it
was like I had never seen people get that close
to a character.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
And then he was also.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Like touching some of the teams, not in the bad way,
but like kind of like you know, like you know,
he had his like prop and he was playing pop
really close to their face and they would like grab
it or this and that.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
I was like, I was like, this is.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Behavior that is like, no, wonder if they're doing this
with grabber, you know. And then the handler was like
distracted over in a corner or whatever. And then the
handler was like telling me, He's like, oh, I hate
these teenagers. They're so ridiculous this year and everything.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
It's crazy. And I was like, yeah, but like you're
letting them do it.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
I mean yeah, when there's no when there's there's no
follow up, when there's no you know, they don't there's
no they don't get in trouble for it. When you
don't get in trouble for it, you keep doing it.
That's that's reinforcement, you know. The and it also based
on that description alone and some of the videos that
I I've seen as well with with art the clown.
(17:03):
I I look at it and go Okay. Before I
would pull him from the streets and put him in
a safe, you know, little stage location, I would go
back and do a complete retraining because you know, I've
done a lot of strolling characters. I've done a lot
of strolling characters at Halloween time in and about without
(17:24):
a handler. Now, granted, I am six four and I'm
not a I'm not a slender person, so I'm I'm
a pretty I'm a pretty imposing character to begin with.
But that said, that doesn't stop twelve year old girls
who want to get content for for social media. So
they're gonna do They're gonna do whatever they want to
do and try to get away with it. And I
use twelve year old girls because twelve year old girls
(17:46):
of course know everything, just ask them. So so the
the challenge there is to make certain that A the
training is is right, B the lighting is right because people,
you know, if you think about it, when you go
to any Halloween event, you're for the most part, getting
(18:08):
people all hyped up on either alcohol, sugar, or just
adrenaline and scaring them in dark places. So they're going
to fight flight, fawn or freeze. Those are the four options,
and fighting, which we I think we'll talk about a
little bit more later. But the fawning and the fawning
(18:30):
is sort of trying to ingratiate yourself with the person
that has frightened you. And that is so annoying if
you're trying to be a terror character, it is it's
like they want to be your best bud so that
they can get away, they can become who you are.
That's what they want is to to, you know, to
be your best bud. And the strongest way to get
(18:51):
away from that is to get away from that, to
turn away, you know, don't give them the opportunity to
become your buddy as a as a monster character. And
if you can't frighten them away, then turn and walk
away and then have your handler come in. Once you
walk away, then have your handler come in and make
sure that they don't follow you. You know. That's that's
that's how I would train somebody. I also think that
(19:13):
when you start talking about invading people's privacy, or not privacy,
invading people's personal space. That's where the moment you stay
longer than a second in someone's personal space, you've just
invited some sort of retribution. You've just invited some sort
of follow up. And it's also reading the crowd. That's
(19:34):
why I say this is a training issue to me,
reading the crowd. Understand, I can go and mess with
these people and they'll have a good time with it.
If I do the same thing with these people, they're
going to either get up in my face, they're going
to push me away. You know, I scare the I
scare the fifteen year old football player who's on a
date with his girlfriend and he looks like a fool,
(19:54):
so now all his the only the only recompense he
has is to hit me. So you have to read
your crowd.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
Actually, now that you're mentioning that, I well, of course,
this is why I brought this to you, Scott, because
you have the experience in this. But now that you're
mentioning it, I was like, you know, maybe this is
part of another trend we've been talking about forever since
the show started, which is the casting and the staffing
and the training and the training and how a lot.
(20:25):
Maybe maybe it's because we've talked about for a while
how like so many people during the pandemic, they left
the sector and it's been like rekind of been trying
to back build up your talent pool, and maybe this
is one of those where, like you just don't they
just have people that have not actors, that have not
had this type of training before, and they just don't
know how to diffuse it. And also we've also I
(20:47):
don't want to like put you know, like shade on
the younger generation, but we've also talked about how because
again because of the pandemic and because of the less
socialization in that generation, that you do have a generation
of kids that are just.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Don't know how to have the actual real people.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Interacting with And so maybe these two things are colliding
where you're like, oh, like they don't know how to
interact the actors eat maybe the actors are also young enough,
because some of these I'm sure are barely.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
Of course, it's this is yes, I think, I think
I agree with you on all of these topics. I
think what it basically comes down to is the first
of all, they haven't set up the parameters of what
is acceptable behavior and what is not within the parks themselves.
And b I don't it sounds like and I don't
know because I'm not involved with the project at all,
(21:34):
But it sounds like the training is not necessarily the
strongest either. People automatically assume I'm playing Art the Clown.
People will be afraid of me. But they won't because
they have Art the Clown on their T shirt. So
any character that you can have on a T shirt
is not going to kill you. They they've already suspended
(21:54):
their disbelief or they've already you know it basically ignored
the brand standard of what Art the Clown stands for.
And so they're just going to try to get Art
the Clown to be their buddy, to do something fun
because they know he's not going to hurt them. So
what they have to do is figure out, Okay, if
he can't hurt them in revenge, what can he do.
He can turn and walk away so you don't get
(22:15):
your content. Yeah, so you know they've got to they've
got to establish that those those guidelines, just like you
talked about in California. In California, when you see a celebrity,
you maintain a distance. And the reason you maintain a
distance is because you know one of the celebrities. People,
whether you know who they are or not, are going
(22:36):
to come and move you out of their way and
then perhaps involve law enforcement. So the audience has been
trained there, not so much in Florida.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
Yeah, I agree that that's a that's yeah, it's an
excellent way of paying it because I think about in
California when I saw we kept seeing we actually kept
seeing art like all night, and I literally was like,
how many are there?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Or like, how are we seeing? Are all it was?
He was, He felt like he was everywhere in California.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
That's great, That's what it should be.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
That's what it should be.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
And also but with us and I was rolling with
my camera, I mean we were rolling and we literally
we we ignored him for the most part, and he
came up to us multiple times, like but we just
were like let's walk past him, you know, let's just
walk by. And he would come up and then like
he would, he would stare at Jen, who I was with,
the actress I was with, and then she would just
stare back, and I think that was one of those
where an interaction that he didn't expect because she would
(23:29):
just like stare and he would stare, and they would
just stare each other, or he would do something or
whatever and then he would move on. We just you
just let him do his thing. You just you keep walking.
He does this thing. If he interacts with you, great,
If not, keep moving.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Part of the part of the training for a scare
act in an uncontrolled situation is once again reading your crowd,
reading your audience. Who do you want to engage with?
You can't do the same interaction with every single person
because different people will react differently. Yeah, you know, And
you also have to recognize, Okay, I've got this bit
(24:02):
and if a if the beginning of the bit doesn't work,
I have to have an immediate pivot. I've got to
have an immediate improvisation to head it out so I
don't look foolish, get hurt, get cornered, get chased, get grabbed, whatever.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
And I just think you're right that the training in
Hollywood stay. And that was the other thing I didn't
mention at the top of the show. But basically, the big,
the big. Everybody is always like Orlando is better than Hollywood,
or hollywoods better. Everyone's always has these opinions about like
which is better about blah, And I'm like, the reality
is we.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Talked about before.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
They're separate events with separate situations, right with entirely separate
audiences and separate audiences, and so I don't think it's
good to compare. But I think, as I've always said,
the biggest thing is your talent pool. That is the
biggest difference. And so in Hollywood, the houses are designed
to have more acting roles, so it's not just the
(24:53):
scare zones. And this year, I think that's why, you know,
it's it's so much easy. Basically, it's so much easier
to get art to clowns in Hollywood, and that's probably
why they have so many of them. They're probably more
highly trained because they have so much a big acting
pool there as opposed to in Florida. But also the
houses in Florida. All of the actors in the houses
in Florida, as always are just animatronics. Basically, they just
(25:16):
pop out of corners and do the same thing over
and over.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
But you have.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
Hollywood and all the street spirit performers walk by and stare.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
At you, yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
And you have in Hollywood where you do have they
are trained in prov folks and they do everything that
you mentioned, and they switch up their tactics and they
also you have people in the haunted houses that execute scenes.
You know they will they will do acting inside the
hind House. You know, you have Jason that pops out
and he shoots a girl with an arrow and it's
(25:46):
two actors and they do that like all night, and
you know it's it's a great scene and it's movement based, right,
and it's like that happens in California.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
It could never happen in Florida. It's because of the staff.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
Well, they have done that at times in Florida. The
challenge there is the Florida because the Florida Florida has
such a capacity push that. Unfortunately, if there is a
scene that has to be reset like that, I would
say seventy five percent of the people who go through
the house miss it. Yeah, because they have to reset
and get ready to go again.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
It is crazy.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Yeah. I saw that happen years and years and years
ago in the the Never More House that they did
about Edgar Allan Poe. There was a great scene, but
I would say maybe twenty five percent of the people
who actually went through ever saw it because the reset
was horrendous. Yeah, took forever. But we're not the only
ones talking about safety. That's the important thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Yeah, I was like, we haven't even got to the
next time.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
I know, so I'm moving aside. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
So basically, there was also an incident this week at
Hershey Park and I anyway, so just to outline the incident, basically,
there's the young boy. He got separated from his parents.
The parent kind of immediately contacted the park and they
were looking for him. But where they found him was
(27:07):
actually on the monorail tracks, like on monorail tracks, Like
he's walking on mono tracks and nobody knows how he
got on the tracks because the station was like locked off,
everything was secured all that. The monorail is not active,
so it's inactive monorail, which hence why the station and
the area were already closed off because it's inactive monorail
and so it's a closed site. So the video that
(27:31):
went viral and got picked up by literally everyone is
a video of the crowd, a crowd of people like
shouting at the boy. And then there are these two
men who are not related to the parents or their
party at all, who just jump on top, like climb
on top of the building like an adjacent building, and
then get onto the montail tracks and get the boy
(27:52):
and bring him down, and so he was fine. The
boy was fine. The whole incident probably took think they
said twenty minutes where he was randomly at the monorail's
gate area. Is so in me twenty thirty minutes the
whole situation took and he was returned and safe and
everything was fine.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
But this went all over.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
And of course this has the bad timing of being
just a month away from an accidental drowning at the
Hershey Park water park, which was deemed by everybody an
accident because you know, they were like they had one
hundred lifeguards there and it was just a complete accident
that was not at all the park of the fault
of the park, but it's been it's everywhere, It's everywhere.
(28:35):
The head president of AYAPPA had to do a segment
on today where he talked about how the injuries per
million atendees actually went down by fifty one percent. Oh
and that basically it's parts have never been safer, and
that these in both these incidents, we were not where
the park was doing everything they could and that they
could be recently set to do well.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
And I think that what this reminds us of is
safety is a journey not an end result. You know,
you never know how safe you are. Obviously, a child
in a completely quote unquote locked up, lockdown cannot access well,
obviously they can access. So you got to go back
and review where did he get through? How did he
(29:17):
get through? How do we fill that in? Because he's
a kid, he didn't know the difference. The fact that
you know, the fact that you've got the two adults
who are able to climb on a building and get
on the on the on the track, that concerns me
as well. I appreciate them being a good Samaritan. I
think that is exactly the right thing to do, But
the fact that they could means that there's a second issue.
(29:40):
If they could get on the tracks, it means there's
a second issue because, quite honestly, and you know, if
you if you search the internet long enough, well it
won't take that long, you will find so many videos
of people in places that are locked off, secure, closed.
You know there there are there are entire channels of
abandoned theme parks, people who have broke get into abandoned
(30:00):
theme parks or even behind the scenes at working theme
parks and getting you know that video, that content, et cetera,
et cetera, et cetera. So safety is always going to
be a living document. Your safety plan is always going
to be a living document. And this is just a reminder.
And thank goodness, nothing happened to the child. I think
that's great. You know that some people have said, well,
(30:23):
the parents just lost, just turned away for a moment,
and then he was on the monorail track. Well, unless
there was a transporter involved, I don't think that happened. Okay,
the kid had to be have been missing for a
little while. Now I'm not a parent, so I'm not
going to sit here and back seat parent. It is
very possible that they were panicked and looking for the child.
They were looking on the right and he was on
(30:44):
the left. That's completely I get it. I get it.
But you know, there's so many factors involved that we
just either don't know, haven't figured out yet, or have
not been reported. The reason this is an issue is because, again,
once the media gets a hold of a safety situation
for a large theme park, they're going to shake it
(31:05):
like a dog shakes apossum. You know, It's one of
those situations where it's far more it's far greater news
than someone slipped and fell in the grocery store. You know,
and there are people who slip and fall in grocery
stores and have to be taken to the hospital every
single day in almost every single community. But a small
child who was not injured on a monorail track in
a theme park is much sexier news. So we have
(31:29):
to kind of weigh that. So at the same time,
I'm saying, yes, this is a great opportunity. In fact,
if I were the safety guy at you know, at
where are we at Hershey Park? If I were the
safety guy at Hershey Park, the first thing I would
do is go thank you for helping us find yet
another way we can be safer because the child was
not injured, and it was another opportunity for us to
(31:53):
ramp up our safety. And of course everyone's going to
come back and say, well, it wasn't safe before we
thought it was. We thought it was. But no matter
how safe you think it's going to be. And again, parents,
you know this. Your kids are going to find a
way to get to where they want to be. So
it's it's another opportunity to get even safer so I'm glad,
(32:13):
and I'm glad. Yakab from IAPA spoke out about it
again just to reinforce people. It's not unsafe. It's not
more unsafe than it's ever been. It's safer than it's
ever been to be in a theme pars.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yeah, well, I think we're going to have to continue
the safety discussion and unhinged because we're already out of time.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
I don't even know. Well, we got.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
Talking about Halloween too, so that that doesn't so anyway. Well, guys,
thank you so much for being with us for five years,
for those of you who've started with us at the
very beginning, and for those of you who are recently joined.
Here's to another five years. Hopefully we'll go way into
the future. And until next week on behalf of Philip
(32:57):
and myself. This is Green Tag Theme Park in thirty
and we will see you in seven days
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com