Mouse Magic HD Blogs

It has been reported that American Idol Experience had a soft opening, the first, today and 700 guests were in attendance. It is unsure who performed on stage, my guess is one of Disney's many talented cast members. Hopefully soon we will have some typical park guest reviews available.

It has been reported that Fantasmic Monday night was standing room only 1 hour prior to show time. Guest relations at The Studios still had a line 45 min after park close. I do hope this means that possibly Fantasmic will be brought back for more shows, however at a rumored $30,000 price tag per show that is $150,000 Disney saves per week when Fantasmic is only 2 nights a week. Disney will probably do a cost-benefit analysis and try to decide if the lost/unhappy customers is worth keeping F! shows to a minimum.

Congrats to all those who ran the Disney Marathon (full, half, kids, 5k, etc.) this weekend. It takes a lot of time and commitment to prepare and even more sweat and tears just to finish. Also congrats to those who have already made the commitment now for upcoming races, best of luck in all your training and preparation for those races.

Disney has a poster at the Burbank Studios that is causing a ruckus among the Internet Community. (see below)

The site is active (Link) and seems to just feature the question, "Are You 23?" then Tink flys in and a countdown to March 10th appears. So what is this whole site counting down to?

Some things to think about:

- Disney was founded in 1923
- 23 years ago would be 1986
- March 10th is a Tuesday

One big theory that the poster has now removed from the WDWMagic Forums is that this will be a new fan club you can join at $100/yr and there will be "cool, exclusive merchandise, CDs, DVDs, etc. They will also be invited to a yearly or bi-yearly (to be determined at the moment) event in Anaheim or Orlando (the first event is scheduled to be in Anaheim). Each Company department will be presenting something unique that Disney fans would appreciate (behind-the-scenes looks at theme park technology, a pre-release screening of a new movie, etc). This convention is expected to be huge, with Disney sparing no expense."

Disney's marketing has worked, we are all waiting for March 10th, let's hope it is worth the hype and wait.

The American Idol Experience will officially open February 14th. It is currently going through cast member previews, soft opening will be occurring soon, passholder previews will be in February a little more then a week before official opening. The Disney community is giving poor reviews before it even opens. Die hard Disney fans already ridding it off, but are they being too tough?

I took the Passholder Tour of the facilities and it looks great! The outside suffered from budget cuts, but I think it will fit in more into the park where the initial artist conceptions were too flashy. Inside for the typical audience (as more people will sit in the audience then go through the audition process) is amazing. If you watched last few seasons of American Idol then you will feel like you are actually in Hollywood (when it gets down to the last few, not the initial 24 or so) for the show. Disney has done a great job at mimicking the design and feel while still being "green" by using LEDs instead of neon lights, etc.

The argument isn't about the look, it is about the feeling of it being a "glorified karaoke" night. I disagree with this assessment. Each show will have 3-4 or so performers. 6 shows a day, with a 7th finale, will mean 18-24 people performing. With MGM, sorry DHS, having about a daily average attendance of about 26,000 Source that means 0.1% (rounding up!) of the visitors to the park that day need to be able to sing, audition and be good enough to make it to the show. That also brings me into the other point, it is an audition process where karaoke night is whoever wants to sing can get up there and sing.

For Disney this is also a smart business move. From what I heard from Matt Hochberg from WDWToday, Fremantle Media, the company responsible for AI, paid for the refurbishment. Disney received money to update a building that has sat empty for years. Also the maintenance cost will be very low, however it will be an attraction that can eat up crowds. I would not be surprised if the cost per visitor is the lowest out of all the parks. Now this is no excuse for Disney to cheap out and make mediocre attractions.

Now I do think this attraction is a little too late, but even if it lasts five years, assuming two or three years left of the show and then a few more years the attraction sticks around it is a good attraction to get us through this economy bubble. Only time will tell and we will find out come February 14th and on how much of a hit or flop this attraction will become.