So you want to build an amusement park. What’s the first thing that you need to think about?
Rides? Food? Legal requirements?
Those are all good choices. But it may be worth asking the person that Walt Disney turned to for advice when Disneyland and Walt Disney World were being planned out.
Harrison “Buzz” Price is the person that Walt relied on for all sorts of park analytics, statistics, and planning. Buzz was an integral part of much of the design and layout work of the Disney parks – in fact, Buzz was the one who chose the 160 acre orange grove that turned into Disneyland, as well as the site location for the Disney parks in Florida and Tokyo. Buzz also consulted for Six Flags, world’s fairs, ski resorts, and other destination attractions.
In other words, he knew what to do when it came to park analysis. He even wrote a book about it.
If you were to ASK BUZZ, he’s say that the most important part of initial park planning surrounds the overall goal of the park, in terms of attendance. Make the park too small, and you may be too crowded too early. Make it too large, and you may have trouble filling it up and making money. Ditto for location, parking logistics, and more.
Using a lot of Buzz Price’s analytics, the ASK BUZZ website can be used for some estimates of that initial park planning that can be hard to come by for novices.
Asking questions such as:
- Is your park seasonal?
- What’s your expected annual attendance?
- What type of attraction will you be building?
ASK BUZZ will then crunch numbers to give you some estimated acreage needed for your amusement park, for parking, the average number people you should expect in a day — and more importantly, how many people you should expect to entertain on a peak day.
Once you have this information, then you can begin to design your park to be comfortable around those numbers without going over the top. As Buzz was oft-quoted as saying, “churches aren’t built for Easter Sunday attendance.”
Visit Ask Buzz here: http://www.askbuzz.io/