Six Flags and Cedar Fair’s $8 billion mash-up, Herschend’s shopping spree, and Falcon’s Beyond devouring Oceaneering are just the opening salvo in a consolidation wave now squeezing most regional parks into four corporate camps. But deal-making is only the first of five seismic shifts Philip and Scott unpack this week. They probe why per-guest spending keeps climbing even as attendance flattens, how velvet-rope up-charges like Disneyland’s $400 Premier Pass and Six Flags’ $162-a-month Flash Pass are normalizing class tiers, and why every operator—from Universal’s Fan Fest Nights to SeaWorld’s Coasters After Dark—now treats shoulder-season festivals as its loyalty engine. The hosts also tackle staffing’s post-pandemic “cool-down” and ask whether AI-driven scheduling and on-site dorms finally solve the labor puzzle. Think you’ve already future-proofed your park? These five trends say otherwise. Listen to weekly BONUS episodes on our Patreon.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
From our studios in Los Angeles and Tampa. This is
Green Tag to Theme Park and thirty. I'm Philip. I'm
joined as always by my co host Scott Swinston of
Scott Swinson Creative Development. On Green Tag, we break down
the week's top news from the theme park world and
explain why it matters to professionals. This week, though we're
gonna be talking about trends, we're looking at the last
(00:23):
eighteen months of what we have talked about on this
show and trying to break up the top five ish
trends that are critical for the industry. Here we are, Scott,
we're recording this early.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I was just gonna say, do we want to explain
why we are doing Yes, Yes, trends and not about
the immediate news of the week.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Yes, we're recording this early because I am at the
Midwest Hunters Convention on a gig there. And so if
we're going to talk about trends, but if there's some
crazy news that has come out and you're wondering why
we're not talking about it, that is why. And also
if you're like, why is Philip and Scott look exactly
like last week's uppisode, Well.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
It just changed my lighting. I changed lighting.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
It's we didn't even change clothes, and I have.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Several shirts that look like this, but I'll be honest,
this is the same one.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yes, we're going this early, It's okay. So basically what
I did was I looked at the last eighteen months
and I was trying to put them into big buckets,
like what are the big things? What were we talking
about last year at the beginning of last year, and
then what are we talking about now and how has
it changed and whatnot? And you know what, the biggest
one we've talked about several weeks now, but it still
(01:30):
continues to be a thing, which is at the acquisitions
and merger because last year in twenty twenty four was
when the six Flags one was first announced, right, and
then it didn't It closed early twenty twenty five, so
we've been talking about that. There's also the Hershein Family
Entertainment acquisition, which we just talked about last episode of
(01:51):
last week about that. So that those are two big ones,
a merger and one's acquisition. But there's also the Falcons
beyond Global that has required oceaneering. We talked about that
a few episodes ago. And then I also put this
and that sort of related. But it's like our WS
Global is expanding, but they're also now entered into that
exclusive partnership with Merlin to provide the entertainment for six
(02:14):
flagship resorts, which is consolidation in a way as well,
where they're consolidating in order to serve a large entertainment.
So that's a big trend. And it seems also what
we talked about with the pendulum concept we always talk about,
which is that these things go back and forth where
it was a bunch of breakups and now it's going
(02:35):
back to basically vying to be one of the top
three or four. You're vying for the third or fourth position,
is what everybody is doing, it seems.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, or even the first and second in some cases.
But when it comes to consolidation, yes, it's absolutely the
third and fourth. And you know it's interesting because I
will make a prediction. I'm going to put on my
hold on. Wait, I have a crystal ball here. Wait,
looking into the crystal bawl. My crystal ball is solid black,
by the way, because just because I'm look, I'm wicked
(03:06):
and evil. I'm wicked and evil, but I'm going to
look into my obsidian ball and I'm going to say
that we have not seen the last consolidation announcement. I
think this is a trend that's going to continue for
a little while. And you're going to say, oh, my gosh, Scott,
who could possibly consolidate more and who could buy whom
and what merger could happen. But I think this is
(03:29):
one of those situations where we're far enough out of
the pandemic that people are starting to go, well, you
know what, here we kind of had to go back
during the pandemic and reevaluate everything we're doing in our company,
and we could do that more efficiently if we had
an economy of scale. And I think that's what has
on a very simplistic way, you know. Mean, I always
(03:50):
like to make things. I always like to dumb them
down so I can understand them. So I think on
the simplest possible terms, that is what has has inspired
some of these mergers and acquisitions. You know, there are
people who are who will argue that, no, it's just
all about money, and I'm not going to deny that
it is. It is about money. This is a business.
(04:10):
This is not a hobby. So yeah, it's about money,
and there's nothing wrong with that. What I am also
going to say is the reason it's all happening now
is because there's been enough time to kind of reevaluate
and just like we've all done personally to reevaluate how
much we work, how much we work from home, how
much we work from an office, how much you know,
what is our work life balance, blah blah blah blah
(04:30):
blah blah blah, How can we make our lives simpler
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, all this post
pandemic stuff that we've been anngst that we've been going through,
and I think companies have been doing the same thing.
I think that's why we're seeing things like all of
these mergers and acquisitions. It's like, how can we do
our how can we do what we do but do
(04:50):
it more efficiently?
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yep, yep.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
That's just kind of my my thirty thousand foot view
on why trend is happening. And like I said, I
would venture to say there's and I have no insider information,
this is not insider trading. This I don't know, but
I would venture to say that it ain't over yet,
and it's probably gonna happen on a smaller scale because
we've already seen you know, the the six flag seater
(05:18):
fairwe was the one that I did not expect. But
I'm glad. I'm kind of glad. And you know, we'll
we're gonna talk a little bit and Unhinged about a
dig a little bit deeper into you know, whether this
is a good move or not. But and the only reason,
I will tell you, the only reason we're moving it
to Unhinge. This is not a bait and switch to
get you to join our Patreon. The only reason we're
(05:40):
going to do it there is because we can be
a little bit more. We can take the gloves off
a little bit more, and we can shoot from the
hip a little bit more. Uh So, it's it's it's
not it's not to say, yeah, we're gonna talk about
this here and then then when we get into the
good stuff, you gotta pay for it. We're not I'm
not saying that at all. What I'm saying is because
because there is a another level and people will understand
(06:06):
that we can be a bit more. Frank, That's that's
the only reason that's the only reason.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Well, we've talked so much about this past several weeks.
I didn't want to spend too long on this one
because it's like we've been doing nothing but talking about
because it's the most immediate thing, you know.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
But well, and it's been it's been like boom, boom boom.
They're kind of like, you know, six Flags and hershand
and and Falcons.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
It's just been like, yeah, recently, it's all been very recent.
So the next one, I'm going to kind of label
this like loosely as increasing per cap slash like premium offerings.
We've been talking about this the past yeah again, in
the past eighteen months, it just seems like we're getting
more and more of these examples. And we talked about
the concept of budget, family friendly pricing and that kind
(06:52):
of stuff that's come value pricing basically that has come
come much more recently. But even with this value positioning
that a lot of places they're taking, they're still not
neglecting to flesh out their premium offerings. And we've Scott
calls it the velvet rope concept. I mean, this has
been going on for a long time, but I think
(07:13):
more recently it's become a lot more developed. And you
know some of the recent examples we talked about which
I even forgot about, but remember the Disland Resort four
hundred dollars premium pass. That's a thing that's still a thing,
and it's it's a thing at both parks. I mean,
the four hundred dollars of fast pass, you know, just that.
Remember all it is is, it's just where you can
(07:34):
use the fast pass. You get one fast passed per ride,
and you can use it at any time for any
of the rides. And it's a four hundred dollars on
top of your ticket price, you know. And and then
plus the Genie Plus and the Lightning Lane and the
Priority Lane program they're rolling out all over and you know,
Merlin talked about this when we were at Ayapa and
then kind of talked about the idea of missing the
(07:55):
pricing curve and they should adopt dynamic pricing and also
and also have the premium more premium robust offerings. Six
Flags mentioned it recently in their investor day thing where
they deliberately have to renovate their F and B because
they need to be able to have more premium offerings
for that I mean concerts, other venue. I mean it's everywhere,
(08:20):
It's everywhere. Basically, the idea is that especially in America,
because we have this bifurcating, you know, we have the
top you know nine, the top five percent controlling controlling
a significant amount of wealth almost equaling what the bottom
ninety five does. Then you have this bifurcation, so you
kind of need to be able to have the premium
experience but also still have you know, the budget items
(08:44):
so well.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
And let's let's not forget you know, six Flags now
that they are expanding. I just went to the six
Flags Great America website and one of the add ons
is the twenty twenty five National Ultimate All Season the
Flash Pass add on, so you can basically, the flash
Pass is an admission pass with all park passport to
(09:08):
enjoy immediate access to the priority boarding lane on your
on the most popular rides every time you visit of
participating six Flags park across the country. So this is
in essence, this is a fast pass for all six flagsparks.
It is a fast pass for all six flagsparks. You
(09:28):
want to guess, you want to guess what the monthly
fee is for this add on to your season pass.
Now you have to have a season pass to one
of the.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Parks to add you're adding this on.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
You're adding us onto a season pass.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
One one hundred and twenty five a month, extra.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
One hundred and sixty two one hundred and sixty two
a month, and that gets you Lightning Lane pass at
all parks. And it says let me there's there's a
couple of asterisks here. It says for five months with
an initial payment due today, plus applicable taxes and fees.
So uh, and then it's just click product for full
deal details. They're also doing add on. You can also
(10:06):
do add on all day dining passes. You can do
add on picture passes. And this is six Flags. This
isn't Disney Kids, this is six Flags. So you can
get your seasonal drink bottle. You can do that when
you purchase your pass. So for thirty five dollars you
can get an all seasoned souvenir bottle in you enjoy
Coca Cola Fountain beverages and get free refills during the
(10:28):
twenty twenty five season when you visit the park, only
a fifteen minute interval between refills.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
There's I think The reason this is such an interesting
trend is because when you look at I think a
macro sense, we started off where I don't want to
go back to back in the day, you know, I
mean you have a Disney fad day, you know, where
you didn't have fast passes. You just it was the
concept of all the guests were kind of treated equal
in a way. And now basically what we're doing is
(10:55):
creating a class system within the attractions that we go into,
where you there's always another level that you can buy into.
You know, you got I think Disney is definitely the worst,
but you know, you have even even like I have
the top pass at Disneyland, right, and then beyond that
you can do the plaid packages, right, and then beyond
the plaid you can do the Club thirty three, which
(11:17):
is I think thirty thousand a year or something. I mean,
so like you can keep plusing until you get concierge
like White Glove. And it's just this has been spreading
to more and more and more attractions, and not just
the theme parks, but also the individual smaller attractions, you know,
and even in Asia where it's you know, it's I
(11:37):
think it starts here in America and then it jumps
over and I saw it even I think I was
last Halloween. Remember when I talked about the package. I
think one of the the parks that was like two
thousand dollars for like a Halloween experience. I'm like, it's
it's like, it's crazy. But I considered it and then
I slapped myself.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
We've talked about it. I mean, you know, we experimented
with it even you know, what was it fifteen years
ago at at Bush Gardens. You know, we we were
we were like what what we had it? We had
a concept. It didn't fly. We never did it, but
we had a concept. You'd be picked up in a
hearse at your home. You would you know, be you.
You'd lounge in the back of the hearse until you
(12:17):
got to the to the park. You'd have you'd have
a separate entrance. You wouldn't go through even the parking lot.
You'd go into a back area entrance. It was yeah,
we we went.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Well, that's the thing in the in the the Middle East.
You've worked at a lot of places where they do
have those v VIP.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Oh yeah, yeah, Well, I mean, you know, in the
Middle East, in the Middle East does VIP really well
because they have a royal family. So you know, when
you when you fly, when you when you fly out
of Abu Dhabi, for example, there's a separate airport for
the royal family. It's you know, it's it's mind boggling.
But but again, these kinds of velvet rope experiences. Everybody
(12:57):
looked at Vegas and went, hey, if Vegas can do it,
why can't we Yep, Well, the reason Vega's what Vegas
did it is so that they could comp their their
high rollers. But then they discovered people actually pay for this.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
You would pay for it. Yeah, I guess I think
it also reflects not just the whole concept of classism,
but it also reflects like the idea that like, you
have people that can afford this now, whereas like I
think in the past, you had just a more robust
middle class, you had more equal kind of income systems
right where people had they were their lives were closer, right,
(13:31):
But now you have like so many people in America
that I lose their healthcare account afford xyz. You know
you have down here, so they're really like the budgets
are really really, really really thin. Then you have you know,
the largest growing demographic in America is millionaires, and so
then you have billionaires. So you have this weird thing
where you have very very very budget conscious people again
(13:52):
back to the six flags investor day, eight dollars per
hour type of value proposition they're proposing. But then you
also have the millionaire class and above millionaires and above,
So you're wondering, like, what do you provide if you're
going to try and tap into that, what do you
provide to them to encourage them to come to the park.
And you're like, well, if you have a separate entrance
and you have you don't have to interact with the
(14:12):
peasants and you can do whatever you want, you know,
I mean, that's that's but again it's that idea of
the class effectively, you know, a class system in the parks,
but also indicative of a larger economic trends.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
And I also think that in addition to the economic trends,
because I agree with you one hundred percent, Philip, in
addition to that, I think what is what has value
to people has also shifted. I think that instead of
we're going to sell you we made five of these
diamond encrusted Disney castles. Instead of doing that, they want
to sell you higher experiences. I think the more and
(14:47):
more people are Disney's a strange anomaly because they you know,
they sell popcorn buckets that go, you know, quadruple in
price by the time you get home and put them
up on eBay. But but, but, but I think people the
experience of it is is really what they want to buy.
And I think quite honestly, the popcorn bucket phenomenon that's
(15:10):
going on with Disney, I think it's the experience of
getting there, getting in line, waiting for it, being having
that sense of am I going to get it? Am
I going to get it?
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (15:19):
I got one? Yeah, I got one, I got two. Great,
I can sell one and pay for this one and
my part ticket. You know, it's there's that there is
a an interactive quality to that, there is an experiential
quality to that, and I and I think that that
is what has really kind of put a shot in
the arm for these for these various levels of increasing.
(15:42):
The one thing I do want to talk about, just
because we mentioned this before we started recording one of
our shows, the term per cap. So the term per
cap apparently means different things to different people. Yeah, and
and and I mean basically, per cap obviously stands for
per capita, and it's it's the amount you make per
guest who comes to the park or attraction. I understand
(16:04):
that completely. What's interesting to me is we often as operators,
we're less concerned about the either the overall per cap
or the ticketing per cap the gate admission per cap
than we were the in park spend per cap. Now
it makes total sense that if you're an investor or
(16:26):
an owner, you're far more interested in the overall per cap.
How much money are we making from each click of
that turnstyle. I get that, But I just want to
make sure that when we're talking about when we're talking
about high end per cap, what we're really talking about
or increasing per cap, we're increasing per cap by in
park spend or by elevating the experience add on add
(16:48):
on experiences. We're not increasing per cap by increasing the
park entrance fee, which I think is a really important
quality or a really important thing to talk about, because
we don't it allows everybody to have the opportunity to
experience your park correct experience in a different way.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Well, yeah, that's a great segue into the next one. Here,
the next big trend, which I've loosely labeled festivals to
drive loyalty. It's kind of how I've kind of loosely
labeled it, and I think it was on my mind
directly because it was brought up so often in the
six Flags call about there, and that's exactly what they're
talking about. In the six Flags call was basically saying
(17:31):
they really need to double down on attendance, but more
specifically about taking the converting attendance to season pass and
encouraging the season pass eble to return. And the way
they would do that is through guest experience but also
seasons of fun, which is their festival model, and they
were talking about how that would that would in a
(17:54):
way decrease per cap spending because they're you know, the
investors and Wall Street look at at based off of
just your gait, like how many clicks and then how
much is ticket price because there again there's a more
basic metric of measurement than I think we would look
at as industry professionals, where it's total you know, total
attendance and total get spend. But they basically the overarching
(18:16):
thing here is the concept of increasing the festivals, which
is interesting because again this is another one of those
weird like I think massive macro pendulum back and forth,
and we've talked about on the show. It's the concept
of like, are you gonna put in a new roller
coaster that takes time and effort and it's it's a
longer lead time. And again they talked about this on
(18:38):
Six Flags. They talked about how the expenses were growing
so that where they would have done five, now they're
only going to do four because that's the amount of expense,
you know, inflation that's come into that. And so but
overall we look at it where we're like, okay, it's
kind of like you balance these two things. You balance
putting in a new attraction with then balancing live and
(19:00):
teament and festivals and shoulder fill in and that kind
of thing. And it seems like now we've swung the
other way where now we're back to putting in all
these festivals and all this stuff. And the labor the
labor market has helped recently, the recent recent recent labor
market I think has helped. But when you look at
these festivals and this stuff, so the Disneyland shows the
(19:21):
disneland seventieth you know, all that, all this stuff is
part of that. But then you look at gosh like
FanFest Nights, the Universal Hollywood butter Beer season, back to Hogwarts,
Halloween Horror Nights last year, Jollywood Knights coming back again
for the second year, Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party, Nicky's
Not So Scary Halloween Party, which we didn't talk about
(19:42):
on this show yet, but they've already sold out several
nights for this year, and that's a massive party. A
Gibboogie Bash is coming back, the Coasters after Dark thing,
which we talked about last year, which we barely talked
you know, all for out about that, the DC Universe
of Light walked through, which is the Gaylord, the summer
version of their ice, you know, experience the flavors of
(20:05):
the world at six Flags, Scream Break, you know, Dark
Knights at Hershey Park. It's like, I mean it is,
the festivals are just growing like massively. I think this
is the overarching large strategy, right, is that as capital
becomes harder to deploy for those long term investments, you
(20:25):
need to shift to lower assets stuff, which is the
seasonal overlays and is staffing becomes easier, that becomes easier
to do because these are over really aligned on live entertainment,
and so then you get this explosion of all of
these things and they're what they're trying to do then
is drive repeat visitation, which increases per cap based off
the total park spend. Right, really complicated.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
That was very cool, but again you explained it very well, Philip,
Thank you very much. Thank you. I love the fact
that you said it's a pendulum because there was a
time where they felt that festivals were too risky because
you had to invest so much time for it into
something that does not produce a hard asset, so.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Crazy, and now we're like, how why would we?
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Why would we? Well, because again we've shifted from and
who knows, we will probably shift back, but we've shifted
from the mentality of we're buying something. It's the difference.
It's a difference between buying a car and using an uber.
You get to work the same way. It just depends
on what you want to do. Do you want the
pride of ownership, the convenience of knowing that your car
(21:28):
is always going to be sitting in your parking lot
or in your parking lot or your garage do you?
But do you also as a trade off, want to
have all of the frustrations of making sure that you
do your oil changes on time and if something goes
wrong with the car, it's up to you to fix it.
Or do you just want to pick up your phone
put in a bit of information. Actually, if you're going
to work, just hit work and Uber comes, picks you up,
(21:49):
drops you off. Done. So it's do you want to
accomplish the goal or do you want to own something?
And it's it's interesting because the pendulum has so swung back.
My running joke used to be back in the bush
gardens days, I used to say, well, we could either
do a brand new roller coaster which will amortize itself
as far as a bumping in attendance for anywhere from
(22:13):
three to on the outside five years, we'll see it'll
you know, it'll have a bell, it'll have a sharp decline.
Or we could do hollow scream for thirty years. Yeah,
that's the that's the trade off. And I think finally
people are starting to recognize that that these pop ups,
you know, and I think also the consumer has changed.
(22:36):
They don't want as much yes, there's still a place
for the Haunted Mansion. In my heart, I want to
go back and experience the Haunted Mansion because it is
an icon at Disney. But most people want to know
if I'm going to go to a park more than once,
I got to have a reason. Yeah, Oh I really
like this park. It's I like this park, but I'm
(22:59):
going now because you know, we used to say at
bush Gardens here in Tampa, people would say, oh, yeah,
I love bush Gardens. When was the last time you
were there? Gosh, I don't remember. So how do you
know you love bush Gardens? And why have you've been? Well,
it's always going to be there.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
So to create these to create these festivals, these pop ups,
these seasonal events, I will tell you right now, and
I don't think I'm gonna get in trouble for sharing
this information. One of the most requested topics for edge
A sessions for Ayappa at at in Orlando. I don't
know whether it's two in the other ones, but is
(23:35):
seasonal festivals and Halloween specifically, simply because people want to
know that. The people who haven't gotten on the bandwagon yet,
or even the people who have want to know either
how can we do this or how can we do
it better? Because again, you're basically doubling your gate if
you're doing a second gate experience. You've heard me use
(23:57):
the phrase way too many times that Halloween became thirteenth month.
And those of you who are operators, you recognize that
these kinds of seasonal festivals not only developed, not only
not only give you significantly more revenue and profit, but
also the real reason is it makes it so that
(24:18):
you build brand loyalty. You get people to come back
to your park multiple times per year. If you don't
do seasonal festivals, people will come to your park once
a year. Yep, and that's it.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yep, yep. And interesting. I keep going back to this
because I spent so long reviewing the six Flags investment
Day thing, but now they're all like stuck in my brain.
But I remember they actually did talk about the differences
between these two on the call, and basically they said
that opening a new coaster will only give a twenty
percent lift for roughly a year and then but then
(24:51):
obviously the Scott's point, it's an asset. But basically they're like,
you need a balance between the seasons of fun investment
and the FMB investment and the major capital investment because
they all kind of have to balance each other out.
And I'm like, yes, exactly. Asset. Well, everything that's an
asset is also a liability yep. So yeah, so speaking
(25:13):
of maybe liabilities, I don't know. Staffing. That's a really
weird transition, Philip, But shall we Yeah, So staffing is
the next trend. And remember last year we were talking
about how tight staffing is, and there's all sorts of drama.
Last year, the j one visus came under scrutiny. Last year,
there are sixteen states that loosened their team work rules.
(25:35):
Thirty three percent of operators called staffing critical in iopa's
research from last year in their twenty twenty four research.
And then last holiday season, events nationwide suffered from staffing,
especially during Halloween. If I remember back to like the
Six Flags where they like couldn't open their heart houses
and a bunch of locations up to weeks after the
(25:57):
start date for that, I mean, it was it was nuts,
Like all that was like bananas and all that. And
then you know, then of course RWs coming in and
taking over all of the all of the Merlin attractions
to provide entertainment for them. I don't know. Again, still
not sure why they think they can do it better
than anyway. But all that is aside. But then then
(26:18):
we talked about the whole housing element and how people
were trying to work housing into it. You know, Universal
Orlando announcing a thousand units they were building at Disney,
almost fifteen hundred units for workhouse complexes, Holiday World opening
the Compass Commons dorms for seasonal hires. I mean, there
was a big thing. And then most recently we've heard
a lot of chatter about AI solutions that basically can
(26:41):
analyze and in real time move around your staffing so
they can just deploy people the cashier thing right where
you know, this F and B area's not in high demand,
so you can immediately deploy. And that's becoming, you know,
much more of an industry wide thing, but also much
more accurate. That's helping staffing. But so now what we're
(27:02):
seeing is a staffing cool down right again, as the economy,
you know, I'm not saying it's a very session I'm
just saying the economy cooling and whatnot, and unemployment is
ticking up. Then you're having those staffing pressures ease for parks,
which is going to in theory, help seasonal staffing for
this upcoming fall and Christmas break. And then you add
(27:23):
AI to that and hopefully it'll it'll make staffing a
lot easier, which again what we talked about earlier feeds
into them being able to provide more season seasonal entertainment
to drive repeat visitation.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Well, and I think that you know, this is I
still think and people are going to argue with me.
I still think this is normalization. I still think this
is post pandemic normalization. What's happened is people after during
the pandemic realized, you know what, I don't want to work.
I really just don't want to work. I don't want
to work, and I can survive without working as hard
or without working as much. And that trend has shifted now.
(27:57):
So everything's expensive, because everything's expensive, and all of a sudden,
you can't just get by on on you know what,
you what you make off of selling your your hand
crocheted bracelets on eBay or Etsy. You have to actually
now have a bit more income. And I think that
that's why the staffing situation is coming back. And like
(28:18):
I said, in my view, it's normalization. And everybody's gonna say,
Scott's you got to stop blaming. You got to stop
blaming the pandemic for everything. I said, I'm and the
truth is, I'm not. I'm saying that we are finally
coming back to it. I mean, the pandemic was in
essence two years. I know people will argue that back
and forth as well, but it basically impacted us for
two years, and it's it takes time to come back
(28:41):
from something like that. You know, you don't recover like
a speedboat. You recover like an aircraft carrier. So it's
got you get you turn slowly, and I think this
is just finally coming back from that. That's my that's
my opinion. I don't know whether it's right or not,
but that's that's my perspective and my opinion on that situation.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Yeah, just to add one note on that too. Even
looking back at airline stuff right like that still hasn't
figured itself out. I mean, like you like looking at
the number of pilots and then you know, now we're
short of having a shortage of air traffic controllers and
there's still shortages and now now the plane is now they're.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
But that's not because if people don't want to work,
that's a different story.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Well, it goes back to the idea of it takes
time to train and so you can't shift it. Even
one or two years is too short of a time,
you know, And so they laid off so many people.
We're still struggling for shortages. But now they're reducing flight
schedules again, like we talked about the shift in travel
patterns that we talked about previous shows, so they're reducing
flight schedules. I mean, it's like the tourism sectors pretty
(29:42):
impacted much more, much more overtly, I think, by some
of the pandemic trends again because you know, we're people
have to gather, they have to get to the thing
to enjoy the experience, so it's directly impacted. But we're
going to continue this discussion on trends in our Patreon episode.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
You had to put that little plug in there. But
for the rest of you, this is this is the
end of this week. Once again, I just want to
remind you we did record this early, so if there's
any giant, huge news, we will get to it. Don't panic.
But It's just that Philip's going to be at Midwest
Hunters Convention and so got to He's got to be there,
and I'm going to be sitting around the pool drinking mohitos.
(30:23):
I don't know, but anyway, thank you so much for listening.
We really do appreciate it. On behalf of Philip, Hernandez
and myself Scott Swinson. This is Green Tag Theme Park
in thirty and guess what We'll see you next week
From our studios in Los Angeles and Tampa. This is
Green Tag to Theme Park and thirty. I'm Philip. I'm
joined as always by my co host Scott Swinston of
Scott Swinson Creative Development. On Green Tag, we break down
the week's top news from the theme park world and
explain why it matters to professionals. This week, though we're
gonna be talking about trends, we're looking at the last
(00:23):
eighteen months of what we have talked about on this
show and trying to break up the top five ish
trends that are critical for the industry. Here we are, Scott,
we're recording this early.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
I was just gonna say, do we want to explain
why we are doing Yes, Yes, trends and not about
the immediate news of the week.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Yes, we're recording this early because I am at the
Midwest Hunters Convention on a gig there. And so if
we're going to talk about trends, but if there's some
crazy news that has come out and you're wondering why
we're not talking about it, that is why. And also
if you're like, why is Philip and Scott look exactly
like last week's uppisode, Well.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
It just changed my lighting. I changed lighting.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
It's we didn't even change clothes, and I have.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
Several shirts that look like this, but I'll be honest,
this is the same one.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yes, we're going this early, It's okay. So basically what
I did was I looked at the last eighteen months
and I was trying to put them into big buckets,
like what are the big things? What were we talking
about last year at the beginning of last year, and
then what are we talking about now and how has
it changed and whatnot? And you know what, the biggest
one we've talked about several weeks now, but it still
(01:30):
continues to be a thing, which is at the acquisitions
and merger because last year in twenty twenty four was
when the six Flags one was first announced, right, and
then it didn't It closed early twenty twenty five, so
we've been talking about that. There's also the Hershein Family
Entertainment acquisition, which we just talked about last episode of
(01:51):
last week about that. So that those are two big ones,
a merger and one's acquisition. But there's also the Falcons
beyond Global that has required oceaneering. We talked about that
a few episodes ago. And then I also put this
and that sort of related. But it's like our WS
Global is expanding, but they're also now entered into that
exclusive partnership with Merlin to provide the entertainment for six
(02:14):
flagship resorts, which is consolidation in a way as well,
where they're consolidating in order to serve a large entertainment.
So that's a big trend. And it seems also what
we talked about with the pendulum concept we always talk about,
which is that these things go back and forth where
it was a bunch of breakups and now it's going
(02:35):
back to basically vying to be one of the top
three or four. You're vying for the third or fourth position,
is what everybody is doing, it seems.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Well, or even the first and second in some cases.
But when it comes to consolidation, yes, it's absolutely the
third and fourth. And you know it's interesting because I
will make a prediction. I'm going to put on my
hold on. Wait, I have a crystal ball here. Wait,
looking into the crystal bawl. My crystal ball is solid black,
by the way, because just because I'm look, I'm wicked
(03:06):
and evil. I'm wicked and evil, but I'm going to
look into my obsidian ball and I'm going to say
that we have not seen the last consolidation announcement. I
think this is a trend that's going to continue for
a little while. And you're going to say, oh, my gosh, Scott,
who could possibly consolidate more and who could buy whom
and what merger could happen. But I think this is
(03:29):
one of those situations where we're far enough out of
the pandemic that people are starting to go, well, you
know what, here we kind of had to go back
during the pandemic and reevaluate everything we're doing in our company,
and we could do that more efficiently if we had
an economy of scale. And I think that's what has
on a very simplistic way, you know. Mean, I always
(03:50):
like to make things. I always like to dumb them
down so I can understand them. So I think on
the simplest possible terms, that is what has has inspired
some of these mergers and acquisitions. You know, there are
people who are who will argue that, no, it's just
all about money, and I'm not going to deny that
it is. It is about money. This is a business.
(04:10):
This is not a hobby. So yeah, it's about money,
and there's nothing wrong with that. What I am also
going to say is the reason it's all happening now
is because there's been enough time to kind of reevaluate
and just like we've all done personally to reevaluate how
much we work, how much we work from home, how
much we work from an office, how much you know,
what is our work life balance, blah blah blah blah
(04:30):
blah blah blah, How can we make our lives simpler
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, all this post
pandemic stuff that we've been anngst that we've been going through,
and I think companies have been doing the same thing.
I think that's why we're seeing things like all of
these mergers and acquisitions. It's like, how can we do
our how can we do what we do but do
(04:50):
it more efficiently?
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yep, yep.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
That's just kind of my my thirty thousand foot view
on why trend is happening. And like I said, I
would venture to say there's and I have no insider information,
this is not insider trading. This I don't know, but
I would venture to say that it ain't over yet,
and it's probably gonna happen on a smaller scale because
we've already seen you know, the the six flag seater
(05:18):
fairwe was the one that I did not expect. But
I'm glad. I'm kind of glad. And you know, we'll
we're gonna talk a little bit and Unhinged about a
dig a little bit deeper into you know, whether this
is a good move or not. But and the only reason,
I will tell you, the only reason we're moving it
to Unhinge. This is not a bait and switch to
get you to join our Patreon. The only reason we're
(05:40):
going to do it there is because we can be
a little bit more. We can take the gloves off
a little bit more, and we can shoot from the
hip a little bit more. Uh So, it's it's it's
not it's not to say, yeah, we're gonna talk about
this here and then then when we get into the
good stuff, you gotta pay for it. We're not I'm
not saying that at all. What I'm saying is because
because there is a another level and people will understand
(06:06):
that we can be a bit more. Frank, That's that's
the only reason that's the only reason.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Well, we've talked so much about this past several weeks.
I didn't want to spend too long on this one
because it's like we've been doing nothing but talking about
because it's the most immediate thing, you know.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
But well, and it's been it's been like boom, boom boom.
They're kind of like, you know, six Flags and hershand
and and Falcons.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
It's just been like, yeah, recently, it's all been very recent.
So the next one, I'm going to kind of label
this like loosely as increasing per cap slash like premium offerings.
We've been talking about this the past yeah again, in
the past eighteen months, it just seems like we're getting
more and more of these examples. And we talked about
the concept of budget, family friendly pricing and that kind
(06:52):
of stuff that's come value pricing basically that has come
come much more recently. But even with this value positioning
that a lot of places they're taking, they're still not
neglecting to flesh out their premium offerings. And we've Scott
calls it the velvet rope concept. I mean, this has
been going on for a long time, but I think
(07:13):
more recently it's become a lot more developed. And you
know some of the recent examples we talked about which
I even forgot about, but remember the Disland Resort four
hundred dollars premium pass. That's a thing that's still a thing,
and it's it's a thing at both parks. I mean,
the four hundred dollars of fast pass, you know, just that.
Remember all it is is, it's just where you can
(07:34):
use the fast pass. You get one fast passed per ride,
and you can use it at any time for any
of the rides. And it's a four hundred dollars on
top of your ticket price, you know. And and then
plus the Genie Plus and the Lightning Lane and the
Priority Lane program they're rolling out all over and you know,
Merlin talked about this when we were at Ayapa and
then kind of talked about the idea of missing the
(07:55):
pricing curve and they should adopt dynamic pricing and also
and also have the premium more premium robust offerings. Six
Flags mentioned it recently in their investor day thing where
they deliberately have to renovate their F and B because
they need to be able to have more premium offerings
for that I mean concerts, other venue. I mean it's everywhere,
(08:20):
It's everywhere. Basically, the idea is that especially in America,
because we have this bifurcating, you know, we have the
top you know nine, the top five percent controlling controlling
a significant amount of wealth almost equaling what the bottom
ninety five does. Then you have this bifurcation, so you
kind of need to be able to have the premium
experience but also still have you know, the budget items
(08:44):
so well.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
And let's let's not forget you know, six Flags now
that they are expanding. I just went to the six
Flags Great America website and one of the add ons
is the twenty twenty five National Ultimate All Season the
Flash Pass add on, so you can basically, the flash
Pass is an admission pass with all park passport to
(09:08):
enjoy immediate access to the priority boarding lane on your
on the most popular rides every time you visit of
participating six Flags park across the country. So this is
in essence, this is a fast pass for all six flagsparks.
It is a fast pass for all six flagsparks. You
(09:28):
want to guess, you want to guess what the monthly
fee is for this add on to your season pass.
Now you have to have a season pass to one
of the.
Speaker 1 (09:37):
Parks to add you're adding this on.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
You're adding us onto a season pass.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
One one hundred and twenty five a month, extra.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
One hundred and sixty two one hundred and sixty two
a month, and that gets you Lightning Lane pass at
all parks. And it says let me there's there's a
couple of asterisks here. It says for five months with
an initial payment due today, plus applicable taxes and fees.
So uh, and then it's just click product for full
deal details. They're also doing add on. You can also
(10:06):
do add on all day dining passes. You can do
add on picture passes. And this is six Flags. This
isn't Disney Kids, this is six Flags. So you can
get your seasonal drink bottle. You can do that when
you purchase your pass. So for thirty five dollars you
can get an all seasoned souvenir bottle in you enjoy
Coca Cola Fountain beverages and get free refills during the
(10:28):
twenty twenty five season when you visit the park, only
a fifteen minute interval between refills.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
There's I think The reason this is such an interesting
trend is because when you look at I think a
macro sense, we started off where I don't want to
go back to back in the day, you know, I
mean you have a Disney fad day, you know, where
you didn't have fast passes. You just it was the
concept of all the guests were kind of treated equal
in a way. And now basically what we're doing is
(10:55):
creating a class system within the attractions that we go into,
where you there's always another level that you can buy into.
You know, you got I think Disney is definitely the worst,
but you know, you have even even like I have
the top pass at Disneyland, right, and then beyond that
you can do the plaid packages, right, and then beyond
the plaid you can do the Club thirty three, which
(11:17):
is I think thirty thousand a year or something. I mean,
so like you can keep plusing until you get concierge
like White Glove. And it's just this has been spreading
to more and more and more attractions, and not just
the theme parks, but also the individual smaller attractions, you know,
and even in Asia where it's you know, it's I
(11:37):
think it starts here in America and then it jumps
over and I saw it even I think I was
last Halloween. Remember when I talked about the package. I
think one of the the parks that was like two
thousand dollars for like a Halloween experience. I'm like, it's
it's like, it's crazy. But I considered it and then
I slapped myself.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
We've talked about it. I mean, you know, we experimented
with it even you know, what was it fifteen years
ago at at Bush Gardens. You know, we we were
we were like what what we had it? We had
a concept. It didn't fly. We never did it, but
we had a concept. You'd be picked up in a
hearse at your home. You would you know, be you.
You'd lounge in the back of the hearse until you
(12:17):
got to the to the park. You'd have you'd have
a separate entrance. You wouldn't go through even the parking lot.
You'd go into a back area entrance. It was yeah,
we we went.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Well, that's the thing in the in the the Middle East.
You've worked at a lot of places where they do
have those v VIP.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Oh yeah, yeah, Well, I mean, you know, in the
Middle East, in the Middle East does VIP really well
because they have a royal family. So you know, when
you when you fly, when you when you fly out
of Abu Dhabi, for example, there's a separate airport for
the royal family. It's you know, it's it's mind boggling.
But but again, these kinds of velvet rope experiences. Everybody
(12:57):
looked at Vegas and went, hey, if Vegas can do it,
why can't we Yep, Well, the reason Vega's what Vegas
did it is so that they could comp their their
high rollers. But then they discovered people actually pay for this.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
You would pay for it. Yeah, I guess I think
it also reflects not just the whole concept of classism,
but it also reflects like the idea that like, you
have people that can afford this now, whereas like I
think in the past, you had just a more robust
middle class, you had more equal kind of income systems
right where people had they were their lives were closer, right,
(13:31):
But now you have like so many people in America
that I lose their healthcare account afford xyz. You know
you have down here, so they're really like the budgets
are really really, really really thin. Then you have you know,
the largest growing demographic in America is millionaires, and so
then you have billionaires. So you have this weird thing
where you have very very very budget conscious people again
(13:52):
back to the six flags investor day, eight dollars per
hour type of value proposition they're proposing. But then you
also have the millionaire class and above millionaires and above,
So you're wondering, like, what do you provide if you're
going to try and tap into that, what do you
provide to them to encourage them to come to the park.
And you're like, well, if you have a separate entrance
and you have you don't have to interact with the
(14:12):
peasants and you can do whatever you want, you know,
I mean, that's that's but again it's that idea of
the class effectively, you know, a class system in the parks,
but also indicative of a larger economic trends.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
And I also think that in addition to the economic trends,
because I agree with you one hundred percent, Philip, in
addition to that, I think what is what has value
to people has also shifted. I think that instead of
we're going to sell you we made five of these
diamond encrusted Disney castles. Instead of doing that, they want
to sell you higher experiences. I think the more and
(14:47):
more people are Disney's a strange anomaly because they you know,
they sell popcorn buckets that go, you know, quadruple in
price by the time you get home and put them
up on eBay. But but, but, but I think people the
experience of it is is really what they want to buy.
And I think quite honestly, the popcorn bucket phenomenon that's
(15:10):
going on with Disney, I think it's the experience of
getting there, getting in line, waiting for it, being having
that sense of am I going to get it? Am
I going to get it?
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (15:19):
I got one? Yeah, I got one, I got two. Great,
I can sell one and pay for this one and
my part ticket. You know, it's there's that there is
a an interactive quality to that, there is an experiential
quality to that, and I and I think that that
is what has really kind of put a shot in
the arm for these for these various levels of increasing.
(15:42):
The one thing I do want to talk about, just
because we mentioned this before we started recording one of
our shows, the term per cap. So the term per
cap apparently means different things to different people. Yeah, and
and and I mean basically, per cap obviously stands for
per capita, and it's it's the amount you make per
guest who comes to the park or attraction. I understand
(16:04):
that completely. What's interesting to me is we often as operators,
we're less concerned about the either the overall per cap
or the ticketing per cap the gate admission per cap
than we were the in park spend per cap. Now
it makes total sense that if you're an investor or
(16:26):
an owner, you're far more interested in the overall per cap.
How much money are we making from each click of
that turnstyle. I get that, But I just want to
make sure that when we're talking about when we're talking
about high end per cap, what we're really talking about
or increasing per cap, we're increasing per cap by in
park spend or by elevating the experience add on add
(16:48):
on experiences. We're not increasing per cap by increasing the
park entrance fee, which I think is a really important
quality or a really important thing to talk about, because
we don't it allows everybody to have the opportunity to
experience your park correct experience in a different way.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Well, yeah, that's a great segue into the next one. Here,
the next big trend, which I've loosely labeled festivals to
drive loyalty. It's kind of how I've kind of loosely
labeled it, and I think it was on my mind
directly because it was brought up so often in the
six Flags call about there, and that's exactly what they're
talking about. In the six Flags call was basically saying
(17:31):
they really need to double down on attendance, but more
specifically about taking the converting attendance to season pass and
encouraging the season pass eble to return. And the way
they would do that is through guest experience but also
seasons of fun, which is their festival model, and they
were talking about how that would that would in a
(17:54):
way decrease per cap spending because they're you know, the
investors and Wall Street look at at based off of
just your gait, like how many clicks and then how
much is ticket price because there again there's a more
basic metric of measurement than I think we would look
at as industry professionals, where it's total you know, total
attendance and total get spend. But they basically the overarching
(18:16):
thing here is the concept of increasing the festivals, which
is interesting because again this is another one of those
weird like I think massive macro pendulum back and forth,
and we've talked about on the show. It's the concept
of like, are you gonna put in a new roller
coaster that takes time and effort and it's it's a
longer lead time. And again they talked about this on
(18:38):
Six Flags. They talked about how the expenses were growing
so that where they would have done five, now they're
only going to do four because that's the amount of expense,
you know, inflation that's come into that. And so but
overall we look at it where we're like, okay, it's
kind of like you balance these two things. You balance
putting in a new attraction with then balancing live and
(19:00):
teament and festivals and shoulder fill in and that kind
of thing. And it seems like now we've swung the
other way where now we're back to putting in all
these festivals and all this stuff. And the labor the
labor market has helped recently, the recent recent recent labor
market I think has helped. But when you look at
these festivals and this stuff, so the Disneyland shows the
(19:21):
disneland seventieth you know, all that, all this stuff is
part of that. But then you look at gosh like
FanFest Nights, the Universal Hollywood butter Beer season, back to Hogwarts,
Halloween Horror Nights last year, Jollywood Knights coming back again
for the second year, Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party, Nicky's
Not So Scary Halloween Party, which we didn't talk about
(19:42):
on this show yet, but they've already sold out several
nights for this year, and that's a massive party. A
Gibboogie Bash is coming back, the Coasters after Dark thing,
which we talked about last year, which we barely talked
you know, all for out about that, the DC Universe
of Light walked through, which is the Gaylord, the summer
version of their ice, you know, experience the flavors of
(20:05):
the world at six Flags, Scream Break, you know, Dark
Knights at Hershey Park. It's like, I mean it is,
the festivals are just growing like massively. I think this
is the overarching large strategy, right, is that as capital
becomes harder to deploy for those long term investments, you
(20:25):
need to shift to lower assets stuff, which is the
seasonal overlays and is staffing becomes easier, that becomes easier
to do because these are over really aligned on live entertainment,
and so then you get this explosion of all of
these things and they're what they're trying to do then
is drive repeat visitation, which increases per cap based off
the total park spend. Right, really complicated.
Speaker 2 (20:46):
That was very cool, but again you explained it very well, Philip,
Thank you very much. Thank you. I love the fact
that you said it's a pendulum because there was a
time where they felt that festivals were too risky because
you had to invest so much time for it into
something that does not produce a hard asset, so.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Crazy, and now we're like, how why would we?
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Why would we? Well, because again we've shifted from and
who knows, we will probably shift back, but we've shifted
from the mentality of we're buying something. It's the difference.
It's a difference between buying a car and using an uber.
You get to work the same way. It just depends
on what you want to do. Do you want the
pride of ownership, the convenience of knowing that your car
(21:28):
is always going to be sitting in your parking lot
or in your parking lot or your garage do you?
But do you also as a trade off, want to
have all of the frustrations of making sure that you
do your oil changes on time and if something goes
wrong with the car, it's up to you to fix it.
Or do you just want to pick up your phone
put in a bit of information. Actually, if you're going
to work, just hit work and Uber comes, picks you up,
(21:49):
drops you off. Done. So it's do you want to
accomplish the goal or do you want to own something?
And it's it's interesting because the pendulum has so swung back.
My running joke used to be back in the bush
gardens days, I used to say, well, we could either
do a brand new roller coaster which will amortize itself
as far as a bumping in attendance for anywhere from
(22:13):
three to on the outside five years, we'll see it'll
you know, it'll have a bell, it'll have a sharp decline.
Or we could do hollow scream for thirty years. Yeah,
that's the that's the trade off. And I think finally
people are starting to recognize that that these pop ups,
you know, and I think also the consumer has changed.
(22:36):
They don't want as much yes, there's still a place
for the Haunted Mansion. In my heart, I want to
go back and experience the Haunted Mansion because it is
an icon at Disney. But most people want to know
if I'm going to go to a park more than once,
I got to have a reason. Yeah, Oh I really
like this park. It's I like this park, but I'm
(22:59):
going now because you know, we used to say at
bush Gardens here in Tampa, people would say, oh, yeah,
I love bush Gardens. When was the last time you
were there? Gosh, I don't remember. So how do you
know you love bush Gardens? And why have you've been? Well,
it's always going to be there.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
So to create these to create these festivals, these pop ups,
these seasonal events, I will tell you right now, and
I don't think I'm gonna get in trouble for sharing
this information. One of the most requested topics for edge
A sessions for Ayappa at at in Orlando. I don't
know whether it's two in the other ones, but is
(23:35):
seasonal festivals and Halloween specifically, simply because people want to
know that. The people who haven't gotten on the bandwagon yet,
or even the people who have want to know either
how can we do this or how can we do
it better? Because again, you're basically doubling your gate if
you're doing a second gate experience. You've heard me use
(23:57):
the phrase way too many times that Halloween became thirteenth month.
And those of you who are operators, you recognize that
these kinds of seasonal festivals not only developed, not only
not only give you significantly more revenue and profit, but
also the real reason is it makes it so that
(24:18):
you build brand loyalty. You get people to come back
to your park multiple times per year. If you don't
do seasonal festivals, people will come to your park once
a year. Yep, and that's it.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yep, yep. And interesting. I keep going back to this
because I spent so long reviewing the six Flags investment
Day thing, but now they're all like stuck in my brain.
But I remember they actually did talk about the differences
between these two on the call, and basically they said
that opening a new coaster will only give a twenty
percent lift for roughly a year and then but then
(24:51):
obviously the Scott's point, it's an asset. But basically they're like,
you need a balance between the seasons of fun investment
and the FMB investment and the major capital investment because
they all kind of have to balance each other out.
And I'm like, yes, exactly. Asset. Well, everything that's an
asset is also a liability yep. So yeah, so speaking
(25:13):
of maybe liabilities, I don't know. Staffing. That's a really
weird transition, Philip, But shall we Yeah, So staffing is
the next trend. And remember last year we were talking
about how tight staffing is, and there's all sorts of drama.
Last year, the j one visus came under scrutiny. Last year,
there are sixteen states that loosened their team work rules.
(25:35):
Thirty three percent of operators called staffing critical in iopa's
research from last year in their twenty twenty four research.
And then last holiday season, events nationwide suffered from staffing,
especially during Halloween. If I remember back to like the
Six Flags where they like couldn't open their heart houses
and a bunch of locations up to weeks after the
(25:57):
start date for that, I mean, it was it was nuts,
Like all that was like bananas and all that. And
then you know, then of course RWs coming in and
taking over all of the all of the Merlin attractions
to provide entertainment for them. I don't know. Again, still
not sure why they think they can do it better
than anyway. But all that is aside. But then then
(26:18):
we talked about the whole housing element and how people
were trying to work housing into it. You know, Universal
Orlando announcing a thousand units they were building at Disney,
almost fifteen hundred units for workhouse complexes, Holiday World opening
the Compass Commons dorms for seasonal hires. I mean, there
was a big thing. And then most recently we've heard
a lot of chatter about AI solutions that basically can
(26:41):
analyze and in real time move around your staffing so
they can just deploy people the cashier thing right where
you know, this F and B area's not in high demand,
so you can immediately deploy. And that's becoming, you know,
much more of an industry wide thing, but also much
more accurate. That's helping staffing. But so now what we're
(27:02):
seeing is a staffing cool down right again, as the economy,
you know, I'm not saying it's a very session I'm
just saying the economy cooling and whatnot, and unemployment is
ticking up. Then you're having those staffing pressures ease for parks,
which is going to in theory, help seasonal staffing for
this upcoming fall and Christmas break. And then you add
(27:23):
AI to that and hopefully it'll it'll make staffing a
lot easier, which again what we talked about earlier feeds
into them being able to provide more season seasonal entertainment
to drive repeat visitation.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
Well, and I think that you know, this is I
still think and people are going to argue with me.
I still think this is normalization. I still think this
is post pandemic normalization. What's happened is people after during
the pandemic realized, you know what, I don't want to work.
I really just don't want to work. I don't want
to work, and I can survive without working as hard
or without working as much. And that trend has shifted now.
(27:57):
So everything's expensive, because everything's expensive, and all of a sudden,
you can't just get by on on you know what,
you what you make off of selling your your hand
crocheted bracelets on eBay or Etsy. You have to actually
now have a bit more income. And I think that
that's why the staffing situation is coming back. And like
(28:18):
I said, in my view, it's normalization. And everybody's gonna say,
Scott's you got to stop blaming. You got to stop
blaming the pandemic for everything. I said, I'm and the
truth is, I'm not. I'm saying that we are finally
coming back to it. I mean, the pandemic was in
essence two years. I know people will argue that back
and forth as well, but it basically impacted us for
two years, and it's it takes time to come back
(28:41):
from something like that. You know, you don't recover like
a speedboat. You recover like an aircraft carrier. So it's
got you get you turn slowly, and I think this
is just finally coming back from that. That's my that's
my opinion. I don't know whether it's right or not,
but that's that's my perspective and my opinion on that situation.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Yeah, just to add one note on that too. Even
looking back at airline stuff right like that still hasn't
figured itself out. I mean, like you like looking at
the number of pilots and then you know, now we're
short of having a shortage of air traffic controllers and
there's still shortages and now now the plane is now they're.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
But that's not because if people don't want to work,
that's a different story.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Well, it goes back to the idea of it takes
time to train and so you can't shift it. Even
one or two years is too short of a time,
you know, And so they laid off so many people.
We're still struggling for shortages. But now they're reducing flight
schedules again, like we talked about the shift in travel
patterns that we talked about previous shows, so they're reducing
flight schedules. I mean, it's like the tourism sectors pretty
(29:42):
impacted much more, much more overtly, I think, by some
of the pandemic trends again because you know, we're people
have to gather, they have to get to the thing
to enjoy the experience, so it's directly impacted. But we're
going to continue this discussion on trends in our Patreon episode.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
You had to put that little plug in there. But
for the rest of you, this is this is the
end of this week. Once again, I just want to
remind you we did record this early, so if there's
any giant, huge news, we will get to it. Don't panic.
But It's just that Philip's going to be at Midwest
Hunters Convention and so got to He's got to be there,
and I'm going to be sitting around the pool drinking mohitos.
(30:23):
I don't know, but anyway, thank you so much for listening.
We really do appreciate it. On behalf of Philip, Hernandez
and myself Scott Swinson. This is Green Tag Theme Park
in thirty and guess what We'll see you next week
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