Bob Rogers DGate

Excerpts from…
“How To Survive The Coming Revolution in
Themed Entertainment”
By Bob Rogers
“In the early 1950’s Walt Disney ignored
conventional wisdom of his day and
reinvented our business…Walt Disney died
in 1966 but his revolution continued on
without him, and was taken over by less
original thinkers throughout the industry…
Today that revolution has become the
establishment. Its well developed, often
inflexible rules tend to select against new
ideas while replicating old ones.
Too often, derivative, copycat thinking
regulates our industry’s economic models
and its creative options...That’s why today,
it is time to once again re-invent the
business.

The real revolution started late one stormy night in
a Chicago hotel room. You have entered a classic
smoke filled room. There are Cuban cigars,
caviar, an entire case of Chivas Regal and seven
men.
It is 1953 during the annual meeting of the
National Association of Parks, Pools and
Beaches, the organization that later became the
IAAPA. Walt Disney is not here. The three men
representing Walt know nothing about theme
parks. They are Dick Irvine, Nat Weinkoff and a
kid named Buzz Price. The other four men are
here to confidently tell the first three why Walt’s
ideas will fail. They are the giants of our industry
in 1953, the worlds most experienced, respected
and successful owners and operators of
amusement parks; William Schmitt owner of
Riverview Park in Chicago, Harry Batt of
Pontchartrain Beach Park in New Orleans, Ed
Schott of Cincinnati’s Coney Island and George
Whitney of Playland at the Beach in San
Francisco.

The three from Disney unroll the now famous bird’s
eye master plan drawing by Herbie Ryman and stick
it to the wall with masking tape. Now they stand
back and invite comment.
It is a massacre. All proven moneymakers are
conspicuously missing:
 No roller coaster, no Ferris wheel, no shoot the
chute, no tunnel of love, no hot dog carts, no beer
and worst of all, no carny games like the baseball
throw.
 Without barkers along the midway to sell the
sideshows, the marks won’t pay to go in.
 Overall, there isn’t enough ride capacity to make
a profit.
 Custom rides will NEVER work.
 Most of Mr. Disney’s proposed park produces no
revenue.
 There is entirely too much wasteful landscaping.
 Walt’s design has only one entrance
 You can’t operate year round. One Hundred
Twenty Days is the way to go.
 Town Square is loaded with things that don’t
produce revenue.

 The Jungle Cruise ride will never work
because most of the animals will be asleep
most of the time.
 The interior designs of the restaurants
is too expensive all anyone ever eats is hot
dogs and beer.
 Walt’s screwy ideas about cleanliness
and great landscape maintenance are
economic suicide.
Modern mid-twentieth century amusement
park management theory dictates:
 Build it cheap and then control your
costs.
 Pay your employees the least you can
and then get ready to fire them because
they WILL steal from you.
 Customers spend only $1 per capita
when they go to an amusement park and
will NEVER spend any more.

The main thing Walt did was figure out how to get
the per caps up to $4.50 the first year. And by the
second $6.00
The industry was astonished...How: STAY TIME.
Before Disney, the stay time for an average
amusement park was less than two hours.
Disney created an environment with an ambiance
that was so refreshing and pleasant that the stay
time went to an unheard of average of seven
hours.”
The current DraggonsGate “Stay Time” is in
excess of 8 hours. Due to its size and offerings
and because of the ever-changing stories in each
of the 8 Worlds it is physically impossible to
experience all of DraggonsGate in a single one-
day visit.

“wGfPiPhvuaeioelretskatetwnsorda.ra”iatarienfhgesawptlwfemmondiinhninuougtuteernsssoooonmrnmHoJnuoaerrraeryysfsoirc “The result of this balanced blend of theming,
landscaping and entertainment was a
revolutionary new and different income profile.”
“Disneyland was the first major attraction
planned by storytellers rather than engineers,
architects, operators or curators...After his
death, what began as Walt’s audience friendly
revolution, hardened into the new
establishment. It has codified into a set of
rules that regulate all designs. Many of these
rules are just as dogmatic as the rules Walt
overcame in 1953.”
“Here are ways to start the next revolution:
1. No Lines: too much of a theme park visit is
spent waiting in line.”
DraggonsGate’s proprietary Digital Kiosk
Technology will provide visitors with advanced
reservations for all Activities, Adventures and
Attractions, doing away with waiting in long
lines.

“
2. “Today new becomes old faster than ever
before. Yet state of the art attractions like
Pirates of the Caribbean, Spider man, and The
Twilight Zone Tower of Terror are becoming
more expensive and less adaptive.”

The DraggonsGate experience provides ever
changing stories and adventures. We are
substituting the short thrill and expense of a 180
second amusement park ride with compelling
and surprised filled adventure experiences for
the entire family. The DraggonsGate model does
not require an investment of a $150 million
amusement park ride every 2 years to
re-attract visitors

“If the traveling unit of Cirque du Soleil can completely re-make itself every two or three years,
why can’t a themed attraction re-make itself every two years?”
DraggonsGate does this very thing utilizing ever changing stories, situations, environments,
character interaction and adventures.

“

3. “More reliance on flexible live
shows. Characters and parades are
only a start.”
At DraggonsGate, visitors have the
option to not only view parades but
actually march and participate in
them. Visitors can create characters
of their own, take on well-known
historical or mythological characters,
train as Vikings, Knights, Gladiators,
and meet and adventure with the
most popular characters from the
biggest video games on the planet!

“

4. “New forms, new formats, new ideas built to
recover their costs in a single season, showing
large profits in two seasons.”
DraggonsGate is designed to profitable from day
one. Its first season. Intended to retail the basic
daily admission at $65, provides guests with
admission and a basic costume.
Projections in the first season for 144 days in NY,
provides a total attendance of 2.5M visitors being
supported by a $33 million advertising campaign
within a targeted 4 hour drive time radius
targeting 47 million people representing the
highest per cap in the US.

“

5. “More emphasis on less
expensive facilities.”
DraggonsGate’s expenses are
mostly targeted to labor of actors and
specialty performances.
Most facilities are façade based
Hollywood styled exterior back lot
and interior sound stages
6. “How about a more theatrical
approach, requiring the audience to
willingly suspend their disbelief in
order to enter the story.”
This is the basis of the
DraggonsGate Experience!

“
7. “Above all, far more emphasis on great
storytelling to fire the guest’s interest and
imagination.”
DraggonsGate guests can play a variety of roles
and become co-creators of their own
entertainment experience by active participation
in or witnessing; adventures and activities from
parades and ancient board games to major
events.

8. “Better Food”.
DraggonsGate will pride itself on its food
offerings: Italian food found in The Roman
Village, Sushi to Schezuan in DraggonsGate’s
Samurai World, wholesome organic, vegitarian
and vegan foods from around the world found in
the Ancient City of Healing and International
foods in the DraggonsGate Common.

9. “Offering first class seats.
A coach seat from LA to Paris runs
about $700. The same seat first class
can run over $11,000.
If guests are willing to pay $132 a day
to ride through Disney’s Animal
Kingdom, would they pay 10 times that
amount to camp outside the compound
where they have an authentic chance
of coming face to face with a giraffe,
zebra or monkey? If our guests will pay
$132 for a single day to visit the Magic
Kingdom, Orlando, how much would
they pay to dress as characters from
Cinderella, ride the magic pumpkin
during a parade and spend a night in
the castle?”

DraggonsGate is not …

…Lord of the Rings the ride,
it is Lord of the Rings “The Experience”

...Game of Thrones the television series,
it is Game of Thrones “The Experience”

...For Honor the hit Video Game,
it is For Honor “The Experience”

…Gladiator the movie,
it is Gladiator “The Experience”

Our guests have the option to witness any one of 30 parades
each day or march in them!
They can watch the Gladiators or train to become one!

Providing thrills, interactive experiences and fun is what a visit to a
DraggonsGate Park is all about.

At DraggonsGate we don't give away
stuffed animals...
It CASH!
Annual Contests and Prizes: (includes 1st,
2nd & 3rd prize winners)

Archery $10,000
Ancient Board Games $31,000
Bocce $17,000
Celtic Music Competition $45,000
Childrens Fund Rock Paper Sissors $4,000
Strongest Man on Earth $45,000
Ancient Golf $1,500,000
The 12 Treasures of Briton $1,000,000

Bob Rogers
BRC Entertainment Arts

Bob Rogers is the chairman of BRC Entertainment Arts-planners, creators and
producers of original themed entertainment since 1981. Internationally known as
a master storyteller, BRC Entertainment arts has been honored with over 250
international awards for creative excellence including two Academy Award
nominations and three THEA awards for outstanding Achievement in themed
entertainment.
Clients include: Disney, NASA, General Motors, Warner Brothers and Universal
Studios.