California’s theme parks soon will begin reopening at reduced capacities. If people in the state continue to do the right thing to help bring COVID-19 case rates down, parks such as Disneyland will be allowed to admit more and more guests as their home counties move into less restrictive tiers.
But I hope that California’s theme parks never get to the point where they admit 100 percent of the people they let through the gates on their busiest days before the pandemic. It’s hard to feel the magic of a theme park visit when an overflowing crowd blocks all the views.
Disneyland, in particular, knew that it had a people problem even before COVID-19 closed the world’s parks. That’s why the company poured millions into its “Project Stardust” plan to squeeze some extra capacity from a park that was already packed to the seams before Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge opened in 2019. And that’s why Disney was continually fidgeting with its ticket prices and annual pass program to try to keep fans from swarming the park.
The pandemic provided Disney with an opportunity to trash its annual pass program and start fresh. It also has provided parks with a chance to rethink their approach to capacity as well.
Disneyland, Six Flags Magic Mountain and other parks that have announced their reopening dates will be requiring advance reservations to visit once they return. If parks keep that as a requirement after this pandemic is over, they will have a powerful new tool to help ensure a better experience for all their visitors.
No one wants to go to a park just to find the gates closed because it’s full. Airline-like ticket plans with variable pricing and blockout dates didn’t make anyone happy, either. First-come, first-served advance reservations are fair and easy to understand. Can’t get your first choice? Pick another date. That helps move visitors from what would have been the busiest days to less crowded ones, managing attendance just like parks’ old variable pricing and blockout calendars tried to do.
Now that parks can use reservations to manage attendance better, perhaps that will allow them to lower the maximum number of people they let in on any given day while still making the big money they were pulling in before COVID hit.
It’s easy to complain that everyone wants to be the last person admitted to a theme park. Keep the gates open until they arrive, then close up so no one else can add to the crowd and the lines. But I think that most of us just want to be able to enjoy the parks. So long as crowds don’t overwhelm the experience, most of us are happy to share.
The challenge for parks will be to find what that magical tipping point is and to make that their new capacity going forward. Then price tickets so that people are filling the parks to that level on as many days as possible. If parks can do that, they can create something even more magical than they offered before the pandemic.
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