The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast
The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast, where we take a deep dive into geek culture, tech evolution, and the impact of the past on today’s digital world.
The Nostalgic Nerds Podcast
S1E6b - Throughput, Thrills, and Theme Parks
This is Part 2 of our 2 part Theme Park episode!
Roller coasters and databases have the same issues: concurrency, throughput, and panic when things go wrong. Theme parks are basically enterprise technology, just with more churros and slightly fewer COBOL programmers.
Join Renee and Marc on another thrilling episode of the Nostalgic Nerds Podcast where we discuss the adventurous and thrilling theme park technology space. As always, we start in the past with the origins of modern parks and rides and soar all the way to modern day before we discuss the future of theme park tech. This episode had such a nostalgia vibe for us that we had to break it into two! Join us for both episodes!
Join Renee and Marc as they discuss tech topics with a view on their nostalgic pasts in tech that help them understand today's challenges and tomorrow's potential.
email us at nostalgicnerdspodcast@gmail.com
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<v Music>
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<v Renee>The more complicated something is, the more likely it is to fail.
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<v Renee>Like, you know what I mean? Like, it just breeds failure.
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<v Renee>So, like, how do you—so resiliency is part of this plan, right?
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<v Renee>Because you cannot have Indiana Jones go down because he can't put his hat back on, right?
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<v Renee>Like, it cannot come to that because people get mad. People get mad. Right.
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<v Renee>So what did they do to make those systems better?
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<v Renee>Because it's not just—it's not just, I created an experience that is seamless
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<v Renee>as possible and you're going to buy it. It's going to run all the time,
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<v Renee>like all the time. And it's never, ever, ever going to break.
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<v Marc>Yeah.
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<v Renee>Well, complication is the enemy of reliability. Like it's just absolutely.
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<v Marc>I totally agree. And you know what? It's the let's I wouldn't say ride failure,
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<v Marc>but let's say ride experience degradation is something that happens in some
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<v Marc>of these these these more themed rides.
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<v Marc>So I can't tell you how many times I've watched Indiana Jones just sort of stand
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<v Marc>there and say the same thing five times in a row, right?
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<v Marc>And he just, he would continue to do something, but the ride would continue, right?
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<v Marc>And so the systems are built in a modular fashion so that one actuator,
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<v Marc>one audio, one, you know, different programmed system.
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<v Marc>This process, it doesn't have to work in order for everything else to work, right?
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<v Marc>Right. And the analogy is microservices before microservices.
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<v Marc>So the whole ride isn't totally dependent upon the hat coming on and off and
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<v Marc>him saying something silly.
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<v Marc>And I think that, you know, when you're talking about complexity,
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<v Marc>it's a bit of a lesson, I think, to not just us as professional technologists,
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<v Marc>but in the theme park space as well.
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<v Marc>The most complicated audio animatronic system that I know of is the Yeti in
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<v Marc>Expedition Everest in Florida.
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<v Marc>I got to ride that thing very early on. I think it was a Gartner conference
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<v Marc>or something that I was there. And I got to see it do its whole thing.
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<v Marc>And it moved around and jumped. And, you know, I don't remember all the different
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<v Marc>stuff it did, but it was quite impressive.
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<v Marc>It looked like a freaking Yeti.
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<v Marc>So, you know, perhaps Bigfoot does live and he lives in Florida. But it broke.
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<v Marc>The thing broke. And they figured that it was just too expensive to try to maintain
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<v Marc>because it was going to break again.
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<v Marc>So here's the most complex audio animatronic thing ever invented or created.
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<v Marc>And it doesn't do anything anymore. I think they nicknamed, like,
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<v Marc>the disco Yeti or something because there's lights flash and stuff,
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<v Marc>and he just stands there and looks menacing.
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<v Renee>He's not much of a—that's my point, right?
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<v Renee>Like, if you only like old stuff, you're never disappointed, right?
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<v Renee>So if I want the terror and thrill of an animatronic whatever,
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<v Renee>I'll just ride the jackrabbit with my brother while he tries to kill me.
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<v Renee>It's really tons of adrenaline.
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<v Renee>You know, I now have PTSD from it. Like, for me, it's this idea that,
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<v Renee>and maybe it's because I grew up at Kennywood, right?
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<v Renee>And Kennywood wasn't the land of, like, record-breaking, you know.
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<v Renee>Every once in a while, I mean, the Steel Phantom is no joke.
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<v Renee>That thing goes 90 miles an hour. You have to take all your jewelry off before
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<v Renee>you get on it, or you're definitely going to lose it.
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<v Renee>There's a sign that says, take out your earrings or your head will bleed.
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<v Renee>Like, it's not a joke. Like, it's a rough ride.
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<v Renee>And it's really, really fast, and it's really, really steep.
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<v Renee>I mean, it's a good coaster. It's a good, like, it's a good metal coaster.
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<v Renee>But that's not why I would go. I would go to ride the Thunderbolt.
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<v Renee>I would go to ride the Racers. I'd go to ride the Log Jammer. I would ride the Whip.
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<v Renee>And there's a part of Kennywood now. It's called Old Kennywood.
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<v Renee>And it's all the old rides. That's cool. Right? So it's the Whip.
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<v Renee>They called it Chutes. Shoot the Lake or whatever it was.
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<v Renee>It was just a big boat that would go down a chute and splash,
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<v Renee>and everybody would get wet.
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<v Renee>You see them at parks now. Those who were around in 1901, a lot of people drowned
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<v Renee>because it was like the Vasa. Every time it hit the water, it would just fall over.
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<v Renee>So a lot of people got hurt in it. But nowadays, that doesn't happen anymore.
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<v Renee>And so people don't get hurt on that. But like old Kennywood,
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<v Renee>it has the chairs spinning.
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<v Renee>And it's all the old, old rides that were from the 1900s. And it's my favorite
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<v Renee>place in the park now because that's me.
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<v Renee>I like the turtles. I like the whips. I like the little roller coasters. I don't need Yetis.
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<v Renee>I don't need any of that. And even the stuff in Kennywood that is like that, there's Noah's Ark.
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<v Renee>So there were things in the early 1900s where they were funhouses.
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<v Renee>Remember the funhouses stuff you would see? And the boards would bounce while
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<v Renee>you tried to walk on them.
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<v Renee>And there would be spinning things on the floor, so it was really hard to catch
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<v Renee>your balance. Then you'd be in a hall of mirrors and you can't figure out how to get out.
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<v Renee>That was Noah's Ark in Kennywood. It was the funhouse, right?
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<v Renee>That was from 1904 or something crazy like that. It's been around forever.
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<v Renee>So it's those rides for me. I don't expect much from them, but every single
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<v Renee>time, it's like hanging around with your old friends, right?
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<v Renee>Like, it's just a really good thing. And I really, really like that.
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<v Renee>So while you were enthralled by the technology, I was just craving the click,
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<v Renee>click, click, click, click, click, click, click.
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<v Renee>That's all I craved. Click, click, click, click, click. I love it.
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<v Marc>Well and i think now especially i
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<v Marc>can't tell you how many years i've had a disneyland pass an
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<v Marc>annual pass like even when i wasn't living in california i had a pass for several
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<v Marc>years and we living in the uk
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<v Marc>had passes up until covid time for a disneyland for paris so like i mean,
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<v Marc>we would go a lot, you know, and I think for me,
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<v Marc>growing up so it's like such a such a core memory growing up around that stuff
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<v Marc>as a kid and then having the opportunity to do that with my kids and show them
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<v Marc>all the same rides right and show them you know pirates of the caribbean and how hokey that stuff.
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<v Renee>Is oh and i remember before those kids
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<v Renee>before those kids you took us like
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<v Renee>you would take me and sam a couple times a year we'd go to disneyland and i
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<v Renee>would like i don't want to go to the most crowded place on earth and be like
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<v Renee>shut up come on it'll be fun and i would go and it would be the most crowded
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<v Renee>place on earth but i would never see you or beth more happy than when we were
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<v Renee>at disneyland like it was definitely unlocking some like real stuff for you
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<v Renee>guys and it was fun to watch for sure
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<v Marc>Well you know at disney at christmas right you know the lights yeah.
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<v Renee>It's beautiful the smells
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<v Marc>And all that stuff. It's just, so I think that, you know, there's a ton of nostalgia
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<v Marc>for me and then seeing the kids also love that stuff.
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<v Marc>It's really, yeah, the tech is cool. I love that stuff.
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<v Marc>But beyond the tech, it's just about, it's just about seeing the kids,
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<v Marc>you know, have so much fun and that, and then reliving that through them.
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<v Marc>So that's what's special.
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<v Renee>That's all good. All right, so let's talk about the modern era.
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<v Renee>So we're now in the 2000s. We've gone from 1886 to the year 2000 when Rene was
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<v Renee>still younger, not thinner, but just younger.
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<v Marc>Yeah, you know, we have that sort of boom, right, in the 80s and 90s.
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<v Marc>I went deep into the financial records of various theme park companies on that.
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<v Marc>We won't go into that, but...
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<v Marc>By the, let's say, 2000s, it's quite established, right?
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<v Marc>Whether it's a Disney thing or a Universal thing or various parks in other places around the world.
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<v Marc>I think one of the biggest theme parks is actually in northern France.
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<v Marc>It's a huge place, and it's themed like Asterix and Obelix or something.
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<v Marc>But you'll have to look that up. But in the 2000s, you get this sort of different
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<v Marc>experience, this digital experience is on top of physical rides.
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<v Marc>And it's not just the thrill rides that change.
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<v Marc>So you have these holdovers or not holdovers, but things that kind of get advanced
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<v Marc>and updated, whether that's the Spider-Man rides in Universal or Star Tours.
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<v Marc>These are kind of these motion rides systems are highly computerized,
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<v Marc>which started to develop in the 80s and then get updated and updated again all
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<v Marc>throughout the 80s, 90s, and then into the 2000s.
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<v Marc>That digital experience is quite interesting, layered on top of physical rides.
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<v Marc>But you also have a bunch of technology that advances the user experience inside the park itself.
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<v Marc>So RFID wristbands, Disney called them magic bands, which incorporates different
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<v Marc>kinds of payment options, like cashless payments, fast pass queues, right?
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<v Marc>So ways to be able to cut the line, essentially.
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<v Marc>It's a pay-to-play kind of scenario.
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<v Marc>The ride photos, right? Everybody remembers this, where you're in the ride,
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<v Marc>big flash all of a sudden, and then you run out to the end of the queue,
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<v Marc>and there's the screens, and you try to figure out where you are.
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<v Marc>And then before cell phones, there were the pictures, and you couldn't take a picture of it.
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<v Marc>You had to buy the picture, and now they put watermarks on them so you can't
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<v Marc>take a picture with a cell phone. but that IOT thing,
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<v Marc>The integration, right, at
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<v Marc>park scale, there's a ton of technology that runs the theme parks today.
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<v Renee>And they give the end users apps too, right?
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<v Renee>You can mobile order your food and just pay for it and pick it up, right?
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<v Renee>Or you can join a virtual line or you can unlock an AR scavenger hunt while
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<v Renee>you're waiting. There's a lot they do, I think, for CX when they know you're
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<v Renee>just going to be standing around way longer than you're actually riding anything.
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<v Renee>And they have to account for that, right? You have to account for what am I
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<v Renee>going to do to keep you entertained while you're waiting to be entertained?
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<v Renee>That's a big ask for CX, right? That's a big CX ask. And I think you can only do it with technology.
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<v Marc>Yeah, I agree. And Disney tried to do that early on by theming the lines themselves.
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<v Marc>Right. Which is an innovation that it's not really a tech innovation per se,
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<v Marc>but it's an innovation in the way that that they treated the customer and that customer experience.
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<v Marc>But the app experience, right, whether it's mobile food orders or queuing or
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<v Marc>whatever, it's it's kind of like a way to overlay technology into the into the park itself.
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<v Marc>And so you can adjust or change how the park behaves or responds,
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<v Marc>whether that's for crowd control or ride operation or staffing,
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<v Marc>those types of things, knowing all of these things are in concurrency.
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<v Marc>It's like a DevOps approach to a park operation of that constant monitoring and failover systems.
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<v Marc>It's a different kind of approach where, you know, past generations,
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<v Marc>single integrations of safety systems or control systems.
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<v Marc>Now it's every control system, every safety system,
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<v Marc>every queue system, every ordering system, all integrated with massive APIs
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<v Marc>and different microservices and servers and systems and all of that running all together.
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<v Renee>So while I'm hunting for gumbo, because I think that's what I like to eat when
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<v Renee>I'm at Disneyland is the gumbo. On my phone, someone in the background is— In the bread bowl,
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<v Marc>Right?
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<v Renee>Yeah, right. It's really good. And someone's debugging code to keep that line
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<v Renee>moving. Like people are watching everything all the time.
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<v Renee>Nothing's left for chance. Like there's constant measurement and management
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<v Renee>going on in that park all day long.
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<v Marc>Yeah. I got to see some of this working with some of the players in this space, which is kind of cool.
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<v Marc>But, you know, we'll get to that probably in a little bit here.
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<v Marc>But it's really interesting and fascinating to see that.
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<v Marc>How much of that stuff is, you know, the control center for one of the theme
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<v Marc>parks that I've done some work with, it's like a NASA control center, you know.
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<v Marc>It's really, it's a sock, you know.
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<v Renee>Yeah, it would have to be, right? I need visual on every, I need telemetry.
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<v Renee>I need visual on everybody.
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<v Renee>I need data on everybody. Here's what I think is really interesting about Disneyland
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<v Renee>in particular, because I don't know about everybody else, but I do know someone
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<v Renee>who works in Disney's compliance team. And he's a data scientist.
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<v Renee>Now, think about this for a minute. Like, you think of compliance,
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<v Renee>you think, all right, they're accountants, right?
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<v Renee>Like, it's an accounting job. Now, he's a data scientist. And he said the amount
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<v Renee>of telemetry data we get from every
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<v Renee>single ride, every single place that's pulling wattage, like, pick it.
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<v Renee>Like, we have to go through all of it. So now we're actually building code and
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<v Renee>writing code in order to get through the massive amounts of data we have just
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<v Renee>to make sure everything's in compliance with safety and regulation so that we
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<v Renee>can go back and report that, right?
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<v Renee>And so you think about that and you think, man, that whole place is digital.
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<v Renee>Like if you looked at it through the matrix, it would just be that green stuff
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<v Renee>falling down and it's Disneyland's castle behind it.
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<v Renee>Like it is purely a digital game over there now.
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<v Renee>Everything they do is around data. All of the efficiencies that they're driving,
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<v Renee>all of that new stuff that they give you, all of those apps that they give you,
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<v Renee>it's all driven from data reality, right?
00:14:52.880 --> 00:14:56.480
<v Renee>And I think that's amazing, too. As somebody who talks about nothing but compliance
00:14:56.480 --> 00:14:59.240
<v Renee>all day long, like that to me is like good for you.
00:14:59.400 --> 00:15:03.240
<v Renee>Good for you, right? Because compliance needs a digital transformation just like everybody else.
00:15:03.340 --> 00:15:07.260
<v Renee>And this is the telemetry data that tells us not only that everything's okay,
00:15:07.400 --> 00:15:10.000
<v Renee>but what we can do to improve it. Can't manage what you don't measure.
00:15:10.520 --> 00:15:12.340
<v Renee>Disney measures a lot.
00:15:12.980 --> 00:15:18.600
<v Marc>Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. They measure a lot. And I think that that's,
00:15:20.190 --> 00:15:24.730
<v Marc>It's weird sometimes having kind of a peek behind the curtain, right?
00:15:24.970 --> 00:15:29.570
<v Marc>Because you know what is measured and what isn't measured.
00:15:29.930 --> 00:15:35.570
<v Marc>Right, yeah. And, you know, what kinds of money and investment is happening in different areas.
00:15:36.470 --> 00:15:42.750
<v Marc>And then I put my customer hat on and I think, oh, man, like this would be such
00:15:42.750 --> 00:15:45.490
<v Marc>a better customer experience if you did this, this, or this,
00:15:45.630 --> 00:15:50.790
<v Marc>right? And then you go talk to folks in various product teams or whatever.
00:15:51.210 --> 00:15:54.450
<v Marc>And they're like, no, that's not our priority.
00:15:55.650 --> 00:16:00.350
<v Marc>Our priority is this over here. We're launching this new product here,
00:16:00.390 --> 00:16:06.370
<v Marc>and we've got to make sure that it performs appropriately. Or we collect all
00:16:06.370 --> 00:16:07.970
<v Marc>the data that we need for it or whatever.
00:16:08.590 --> 00:16:14.650
<v Marc>And it's like, oh, man. But if you just did this one thing, I would be able to get my food faster.
00:16:14.650 --> 00:16:17.350
<v Renee>Don't you yeah they don't care about you they can only care about you so much
00:16:17.350 --> 00:16:21.610
<v Renee>Marc you're like i'm a i'm a pass holder in two countries and they're gonna
00:16:21.610 --> 00:16:25.730
<v Renee>be like still don't care you can only care about one thing at a time yeah
00:16:25.730 --> 00:16:30.810
<v Marc>No trust me i've i've done that i've done that like do you know who i am do
00:16:30.810 --> 00:16:39.090
<v Marc>you know yeah look at this look at this i have passes in two countries at two countries.
00:16:39.090 --> 00:16:41.990
<v Renee>So tell me about vr and
00:16:41.990 --> 00:16:44.810
<v Renee>ar because that's what we're going into now like i go to universal and all
00:16:44.810 --> 00:16:47.590
<v Renee>you're doing is sitting on a thing and there's a ton of
00:16:47.590 --> 00:16:50.610
<v Renee>stuff coming at you and you're you're flying in
00:16:50.610 --> 00:16:53.670
<v Renee>and out of things i mean i did a simpsons the simpsons ride it's pretty
00:16:53.670 --> 00:16:56.610
<v Renee>fun i love that ride yeah it's pretty fun right but then
00:16:56.610 --> 00:17:00.750
<v Renee>like the minion ride i was like i can see everybody i'm not in here alone for
00:17:00.750 --> 00:17:05.290
<v Renee>sure um and you know and like i don't know that i love the simpsons one because
00:17:05.290 --> 00:17:08.790
<v Renee>i love the simpsons but like the harry potter ride i don't think i'd care and
00:17:08.790 --> 00:17:12.250
<v Renee>like that other stuff i don't i don't think that would be because i don't they're
00:17:12.250 --> 00:17:14.130
<v Renee>theme based And I'm not into that.
00:17:14.230 --> 00:17:17.330
<v Renee>I have yet to read a Harry Potter book. It would be lost entirely on me.
00:17:18.369 --> 00:17:24.230
<v Marc>Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely a kind of a, I don't know, a transition,
00:17:24.230 --> 00:17:30.910
<v Marc>right, from the 3D-ish, right? They're not exactly virtual reality.
00:17:31.090 --> 00:17:34.410
<v Marc>They're not exactly augmented reality. reality they're
00:17:34.410 --> 00:17:37.330
<v Marc>there you know you slap the 3d goggles on and
00:17:37.330 --> 00:17:40.310
<v Marc>that 3d goggle stuff gets rendered
00:17:40.310 --> 00:17:46.910
<v Marc>right and in motion or or in in sync with the movement of the the ride system
00:17:46.910 --> 00:17:53.030
<v Marc>and star wars or star tours was was really the the kind of the precursor on
00:17:53.030 --> 00:17:57.349
<v Marc>that stuff and then you had other rides and and one of the harry potter rides
00:17:57.349 --> 00:17:58.650
<v Marc>is like that but with a much.
00:17:59.710 --> 00:18:05.550
<v Marc>That one is the the cars actually move you know you're on a broom thing and
00:18:05.550 --> 00:18:09.869
<v Marc>it moved the they actually move as well as the screens projecting and then you're
00:18:09.869 --> 00:18:14.570
<v Marc>in and out and all that stuff it's quite advanced but you know you think about
00:18:14.570 --> 00:18:18.849
<v Marc>ar and vr and these 3d systems um,
00:18:19.500 --> 00:18:23.400
<v Marc>You know, that stuff is, it's video, right?
00:18:23.560 --> 00:18:29.460
<v Marc>And it's high motion video. It's not like, you know, 10 frames a second or whatever.
00:18:29.560 --> 00:18:35.280
<v Marc>It's 24 or better frames a second, probably closer to 60 frames a second.
00:18:35.280 --> 00:18:38.859
<v Marc>And, you know, think about the GPUs that you've got to have on there.
00:18:39.040 --> 00:18:40.420
<v Marc>You've got to render some pipelines.
00:18:40.859 --> 00:18:44.400
<v Marc>You know, you've got those pipelines running. You've got to keep your latency
00:18:44.400 --> 00:18:50.980
<v Marc>low because the result, if you don't, is people get sick, right?
00:18:50.980 --> 00:18:55.440
<v Marc>If the motion of the ride, the physical car,
00:18:55.700 --> 00:19:02.220
<v Marc>doesn't line up really, really well with the thing that's on the screen or the
00:19:02.220 --> 00:19:07.240
<v Marc>thing that you're seeing in your glasses or the thing that you've got strapped on your head,
00:19:07.500 --> 00:19:11.520
<v Marc>then you're going to get sick. You're going to get motion sick.
00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:14.900
<v Marc>And some people are more sensitive to it than others.
00:19:16.099 --> 00:19:20.680
<v Marc>I never really was too bad with it until I got old.
00:19:20.720 --> 00:19:22.640
<v Renee>Right? Yeah, see, that's how bad everything happens.
00:19:23.560 --> 00:19:27.040
<v Marc>Yeah. So the kids are like, hey, we want to do Star Tours.
00:19:27.340 --> 00:19:30.940
<v Marc>And I'm like, okay, let's put the glasses on. And then I take the glasses off
00:19:30.940 --> 00:19:33.040
<v Marc>and I just sit there and close my eyes or something.
00:19:33.260 --> 00:19:35.160
<v Renee>And no one can tell because they're all still wearing them.
00:19:35.700 --> 00:19:41.560
<v Marc>Yeah, yeah, exactly. But that tech on that, right, the render pipelines and,
00:19:41.560 --> 00:19:47.740
<v Marc>you know, the compute systems, that edge computing processing happens really close to the edge,
00:19:48.300 --> 00:19:53.560
<v Marc>sometimes right there at the ride to keep all of that smooth because the latency
00:19:53.560 --> 00:19:59.359
<v Marc>on it, even a couple of milliseconds off, and it's enough to make people motion sickness.
00:19:59.359 --> 00:20:03.420
<v Marc>So that stuff happens really close to the ride.
00:20:03.520 --> 00:20:07.400
<v Marc>And that's expensive tech that gets run right there.
00:20:07.580 --> 00:20:13.200
<v Marc>And it's a lot of compute power processing, servers and render towers and stuff
00:20:13.200 --> 00:20:18.400
<v Marc>like that all sit really close to that stuff, if not right there in a very close
00:20:18.400 --> 00:20:22.160
<v Marc>data center connected by some fast fiber stuff.
00:20:22.400 --> 00:20:25.840
<v Renee>Well, and so, OK, that's a lot of power. That's a lot of power, right?
00:20:25.960 --> 00:20:29.260
<v Renee>So sustainability is a resilient story, too, right?
00:20:29.359 --> 00:20:33.500
<v Renee>Solar power, regenerative braking, smart waste management, making sure the park
00:20:33.500 --> 00:20:35.220
<v Renee>itself can withstand future demands.
00:20:35.380 --> 00:20:40.099
<v Renee>The infamous Hulk ride at Universal Islands of Adventure drew so much power
00:20:40.099 --> 00:20:44.460
<v Renee>that Universal had to build its own power station to supplement the power demand
00:20:44.460 --> 00:20:45.460
<v Renee>from the launch systems.
00:20:45.580 --> 00:20:49.040
<v Renee>Now, that sounds crazy, but can I just remind everybody in Culver City,
00:20:49.380 --> 00:20:53.440
<v Renee>Sony Studios has its own power just so that it can always make movies and CGI.
00:20:53.880 --> 00:20:59.920
<v Renee>It is a real, real, real suck on power and you really do have to have a way
00:20:59.920 --> 00:21:03.760
<v Renee>to to manage that it literally i mean they could have built it next to three
00:21:03.760 --> 00:21:08.560
<v Renee>mile island and then they would have been or
00:21:08.560 --> 00:21:12.040
<v Marc>That or right next to you know one of those giant.
00:21:12.040 --> 00:21:15.859
<v Renee>Gigawatts right next to hoover dam yeah
00:21:16.599 --> 00:21:18.520
<v Marc>Those giant gigawatt data centers, right?
00:21:19.440 --> 00:21:21.960
<v Renee>Exactly. Like, you got to build it right next to one of those because they're
00:21:21.960 --> 00:21:23.599
<v Renee>going to have their own power sources, too.
00:21:24.040 --> 00:21:29.160
<v Renee>So, okay, so I think the idea of bringing apps and VR and all that,
00:21:29.280 --> 00:21:31.880
<v Renee>it's really pretty amazing.
00:21:31.960 --> 00:21:34.740
<v Renee>But, like, I'm torn with apps.
00:21:34.840 --> 00:21:39.240
<v Renee>On one hand, I'm glad I have them. On another hand, I have PTSD from them.
00:21:39.260 --> 00:21:40.700
<v Renee>So I don't know what to do with that.
00:21:40.800 --> 00:21:43.940
<v Renee>I don't know if I want to get, like, hey, Renee, if you got into this ride right
00:21:43.940 --> 00:21:46.300
<v Renee>now, if you get into the line right now, you'll only wait 45 minutes.
00:21:46.300 --> 00:21:51.680
<v Renee>Quick let's run like i just don't think that's an enjoyable thing i just that's
00:21:51.680 --> 00:21:55.160
<v Renee>not how i want to spend my day right it's a it's
00:21:55.160 --> 00:21:56.900
<v Marc>A new type of anxiety right.
00:21:56.900 --> 00:21:59.660
<v Renee>Exactly you're forcing me to
00:21:59.660 --> 00:22:02.859
<v Renee>have a good time that's not fun yeah so i what
00:22:02.859 --> 00:22:06.380
<v Renee>what is one of those did you ever do that stuff did you ever do the magic band
00:22:06.380 --> 00:22:09.660
<v Renee>stuff did you ever do what what what projects were you working on that would
00:22:09.660 --> 00:22:14.300
<v Renee>have been close to that idea that it's a mobile function and and it needs to
00:22:14.300 --> 00:22:17.900
<v Renee>be constantly connected and there's processing going on behind it,
00:22:18.060 --> 00:22:20.000
<v Renee>all in the name of a better experience.
00:22:20.619 --> 00:22:25.340
<v Marc>Yeah, I won't say which business it was. I've done a couple of these projects.
00:22:25.560 --> 00:22:35.140
<v Marc>There was one that was pretty interesting and it was an AR kind of application.
00:22:35.140 --> 00:22:41.920
<v Marc>So the AR application you could use inside the park and look around,
00:22:42.180 --> 00:22:47.160
<v Marc>you know, because AR you're looking at your phone at your device,
00:22:47.340 --> 00:22:53.240
<v Marc>and then it renders the real and the unreal right there on your phone.
00:22:53.240 --> 00:22:55.220
<v Marc>So you could see things that aren't actually there.
00:22:55.780 --> 00:23:00.320
<v Marc>And we did a little bit of a proof of concept scenario where you could go,
00:23:00.520 --> 00:23:04.820
<v Marc>kind of like Pokemon Go, and do AR-type scavenger hunting.
00:23:05.060 --> 00:23:10.820
<v Marc>And then you could bring that little character that you found in the park home
00:23:10.820 --> 00:23:16.400
<v Marc>with you and then interact with it inside your home. That was kind of fun.
00:23:16.859 --> 00:23:21.160
<v Marc>We did a mobile ordering proof of concept once because.
00:23:21.780 --> 00:23:26.340
<v Marc>And I haven't been to California or Florida for several years,
00:23:26.520 --> 00:23:35.280
<v Marc>but in Paris for a long time, you couldn't actually order food on an app,
00:23:35.300 --> 00:23:37.920
<v Marc>which I thought was just insane, right?
00:23:37.920 --> 00:23:41.380
<v Marc>In 2018, 2019, whatever.
00:23:41.940 --> 00:23:46.780
<v Marc>And you're like, you can't order food on the app? What's up with that?
00:23:46.960 --> 00:23:51.180
<v Marc>And so we did a project with one of these companies, Proof of Concept,
00:23:51.440 --> 00:23:55.980
<v Marc>where we basically demoed mobile ordering system. Yeah.
00:23:57.119 --> 00:23:59.900
<v Marc>And then, you know, tried to show how many benefits there were, right?
00:24:00.320 --> 00:24:05.859
<v Marc>You know, higher spend, more throughput, more predictability,
00:24:06.820 --> 00:24:08.400
<v Marc>you know, booking systems and all of this.
00:24:09.099 --> 00:24:11.760
<v Marc>And they were like, yeah, no, that's not our highest priority.
00:24:14.440 --> 00:24:17.440
<v Marc>But, you know, this is that, you know, scenario where I was like,
00:24:17.520 --> 00:24:19.619
<v Marc>oh, but come on, you know, the customer experience.
00:24:19.800 --> 00:24:24.260
<v Marc>I'm the customer. I'm telling you, this is, you know. But eventually,
00:24:24.260 --> 00:24:27.700
<v Marc>they did roll that stuff out, which is cool.
00:24:28.520 --> 00:24:33.640
<v Marc>And you've seen it adopted in lots of places now. So I think that integration
00:24:33.640 --> 00:24:37.200
<v Marc>is happening not just in those ways,
00:24:37.240 --> 00:24:45.599
<v Marc>but now you're starting to see the apps turn into a ride booking and tickets.
00:24:45.599 --> 00:24:53.180
<v Marc>I think I used the app in Paris, Disneyland Paris last year for booking seats.
00:24:53.380 --> 00:24:58.400
<v Marc>I didn't pay anything. I just pre-booked a seat for one of the shows,
00:24:58.440 --> 00:25:00.240
<v Marc>which I think is cool, right?
00:25:00.619 --> 00:25:04.580
<v Marc>You know, it's a little bit like, oh, I can do this on the app,
00:25:04.580 --> 00:25:06.780
<v Marc>and then I don't have to wait in line.
00:25:06.940 --> 00:25:12.359
<v Marc>Or maybe the line is shorter. Which I think with all the telemetry that exists
00:25:12.359 --> 00:25:15.080
<v Marc>inside of these theme parks,
00:25:15.359 --> 00:25:22.240
<v Marc>you would think that you could probably do a pretty good job of helping people
00:25:22.240 --> 00:25:27.560
<v Marc>plan what rides they want to go on, what restaurants they want to eat at,
00:25:27.780 --> 00:25:30.420
<v Marc>what shows they want to see, that kind of thing.
00:25:30.420 --> 00:25:33.380
<v Marc>And I think that that's starting to emerge.
00:25:33.520 --> 00:25:36.320
<v Marc>As I said, I haven't been to some of the U.S.
00:25:36.880 --> 00:25:43.480
<v Marc>Parks, theme parks, but I've been to some of the Hong Kong and Japan and the
00:25:43.480 --> 00:25:47.760
<v Marc>Disney parks and then some of the other non-Disney stuff outside the U.S.
00:25:47.760 --> 00:25:55.180
<v Marc>And it's, you know, for all its faults, Disney is, is like not exactly bleeding
00:25:55.180 --> 00:26:00.660
<v Marc>edge on that kind of customer experience stuff, but they're not lagging, you know, as, as well.
00:26:00.820 --> 00:26:05.780
<v Marc>So, so there are some cool, cool applications there, but I, I kind of get what you're saying, right?
00:26:06.660 --> 00:26:14.120
<v Marc>Do I really want the mobile experience to overtake the physical experience?
00:26:14.120 --> 00:26:15.900
<v Marc>And I, I kind of think, no.
00:26:16.790 --> 00:26:18.410
<v Marc>Half the fun is watching people.
00:26:18.410 --> 00:26:21.470
<v Renee>Think about it though like in 2013 disney spent
00:26:21.470 --> 00:26:24.370
<v Renee>over a billion dollars on its magic band now
00:26:24.370 --> 00:26:27.150
<v Renee>i the first time i saw that is 2015 i'm there
00:26:27.150 --> 00:26:31.570
<v Renee>for a conference for disaster recovery or something and they i'm checking in
00:26:31.570 --> 00:26:35.490
<v Renee>and they give me this thing and i'm like what is this right now like you wear
00:26:35.490 --> 00:26:39.770
<v Renee>it and i'm like for what like are you like yeah because i'm a i'm a security
00:26:39.770 --> 00:26:43.090
<v Renee>and risk person like i don't like right knowing where the heck i am And they're
00:26:43.090 --> 00:26:45.230
<v Renee>like, well, it's how you get into your room. I'm like, uh-huh.
00:26:45.470 --> 00:26:48.670
<v Renee>And it's how you pay for things on the property. I'm like, uh-uh.
00:26:49.910 --> 00:26:54.050
<v Renee>I'm not doing this. Like, there's no chance. Because it is easy to walk around
00:26:54.050 --> 00:26:57.510
<v Renee>that place going tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.
00:26:57.710 --> 00:27:00.190
<v Renee>And next thing you know, I got a bill for $4,000, right?
00:27:00.430 --> 00:27:01.590
<v Marc>But that's the point.
00:27:01.850 --> 00:27:05.130
<v Renee>Yeah, I know that's the point. But, like, I had to gear myself for it.
00:27:05.130 --> 00:27:08.490
<v Renee>I'm like, I'm not falling for it. I'm not falling for it. I'm not wearing this.
00:27:08.610 --> 00:27:11.870
<v Renee>And I'm not falling for it. But I could see why a family of four,
00:27:12.110 --> 00:27:15.550
<v Renee>when the kids are off and they're teenagers, like, yeah, use your band.
00:27:15.710 --> 00:27:16.810
<v Renee>Don't spend more than $30.
00:27:17.350 --> 00:27:20.990
<v Renee>And if you do, you're taking it out of your money, right? I think that's really interesting.
00:27:21.170 --> 00:27:26.590
<v Renee>And to think that they spent a billion dollars on it. It was basically an IoT rollout at a city scale.
00:27:26.730 --> 00:27:31.350
<v Renee>But the same problems. Just what I said, security, privacy, uptime, user adoption.
00:27:31.750 --> 00:27:35.370
<v Renee>Like, it's all out. And the user adoption, all you can catch them once.
00:27:35.790 --> 00:27:39.010
<v Renee>Like, you catch them once. And if they say no, that's it, right?
00:27:39.010 --> 00:27:42.270
<v Renee>And so like that part of it for me, like I was thinking about that,
00:27:42.350 --> 00:27:44.310
<v Renee>like rolling out something like that.
00:27:45.070 --> 00:27:47.910
<v Renee>I think a lot of people would adopt it. I think they would use it.
00:27:47.990 --> 00:27:50.330
<v Renee>I think they would keep it as a souvenir and that kind of thing.
00:27:50.770 --> 00:27:51.130
<v Marc>Yeah.
00:27:51.390 --> 00:27:55.750
<v Renee>But there are a class of us who would be like, no, you don't need to know my
00:27:55.750 --> 00:28:00.270
<v Renee>geolocation data and where I spend money, how much I spent and who I was with. No, no.
00:28:01.090 --> 00:28:05.010
<v Marc>Yeah. So Magic Bands, I don't know if they're still doing Magic Bands,
00:28:05.110 --> 00:28:09.150
<v Marc>but the idea, the concept, and...
00:28:09.980 --> 00:28:14.340
<v Marc>You know, frankly, from a security perspective, I can't remember,
00:28:14.520 --> 00:28:21.500
<v Marc>I think I was at Chase or maybe one of the other places, and Disney was a customer.
00:28:22.640 --> 00:28:27.180
<v Marc>And we looked at it and we're like, well, this is great because you're not storing the card data.
00:28:27.380 --> 00:28:32.060
<v Marc>Because sometimes in the past, I won't say, you know, which companies,
00:28:32.240 --> 00:28:35.980
<v Marc>but some companies would store card data. And then for every transaction,
00:28:36.180 --> 00:28:40.620
<v Marc>they would buzz that card and merchants shouldn't be storing card data.
00:28:40.740 --> 00:28:43.140
<v Marc>So they had a token system, right?
00:28:43.420 --> 00:28:49.240
<v Marc>And the token system was great because that was the way that you could run those
00:28:49.240 --> 00:28:56.200
<v Marc>cards, but keep the data secure in a central vault or use somebody else's token system,
00:28:56.360 --> 00:28:58.520
<v Marc>which is I think what we were trying to get them to do.
00:28:58.520 --> 00:29:03.980
<v Marc>So, but there's an interoperability problem and, you know, with early implementations
00:29:03.980 --> 00:29:05.620
<v Marc>of tokens and stuff like that.
00:29:05.740 --> 00:29:08.440
<v Marc>But that's a different topic some other time.
00:29:08.600 --> 00:29:12.540
<v Marc>But the payment side of things, which is where I really got involved,
00:29:13.240 --> 00:29:17.240
<v Marc>you know, the friction on it is super low, right?
00:29:17.460 --> 00:29:21.460
<v Marc>It's your room key, as you said. It's the thing you use to pay for stuff.
00:29:21.460 --> 00:29:22.920
<v Marc>It's how you get into the parks.
00:29:23.400 --> 00:29:29.780
<v Marc>I mean, you know, that's pretty cool. And then the MagicBand stuff was like
00:29:29.780 --> 00:29:38.060
<v Marc>your card ramped up, you know, 10X with the tagging and geolocation.
00:29:38.500 --> 00:29:39.220
<v Renee>Yeah, see, yeah.
00:29:39.400 --> 00:29:44.020
<v Marc>I can't remember what wireless protocol they were using. I can't remember if
00:29:44.020 --> 00:29:48.440
<v Marc>it was Bluetooth or BLE or one of the others.
00:29:48.720 --> 00:29:52.420
<v Renee>Did they ever use it to see what part of the park was busy, where everybody
00:29:52.420 --> 00:29:56.640
<v Renee>was? Did they look at it in real time for, like, just mobs of people?
00:29:57.260 --> 00:30:01.680
<v Marc>Yeah, I'm not sure. I didn't come across that. I think they're pretty quiet
00:30:01.680 --> 00:30:04.360
<v Marc>about it. And that's not something I was working on one way or the other.
00:30:04.720 --> 00:30:09.840
<v Marc>But if they were using one of the wireless protocols, they could,
00:30:10.040 --> 00:30:14.280
<v Marc>in theory, have mapped density in certain areas.
00:30:14.280 --> 00:30:19.820
<v Marc>Although, like, I've looked at a lot of the research on wireless density mapping
00:30:19.820 --> 00:30:24.940
<v Marc>and stuff, human density mapping, and it works pretty well, but it doesn't work
00:30:24.940 --> 00:30:28.900
<v Marc>really great when you get really dense crowds.
00:30:29.100 --> 00:30:35.000
<v Marc>So I would think that if you had, if you did that, use that as a telemetry mechanism
00:30:35.000 --> 00:30:40.500
<v Marc>or a bit of data, that the most it would tell you when you're crowding was just, oh, it's too crowded.
00:30:41.060 --> 00:30:50.040
<v Marc>Yeah, yeah. so but I I I'm not sure how capable they were on that stuff but but you know what like.
00:30:51.180 --> 00:30:56.340
<v Marc>With mobile phones, like thinking about where you're going, like everybody in
00:30:56.340 --> 00:31:00.100
<v Marc>that park is walking around with a mobile phone and everybody has probably got
00:31:00.100 --> 00:31:03.860
<v Marc>the app because they want to see how long it takes to get onto whatever ride.
00:31:04.080 --> 00:31:08.840
<v Marc>Me, you know, 50 minutes to get onto Peter Pan. No, I'm not going to do it. I'll wait.
00:31:09.280 --> 00:31:13.560
<v Marc>But everybody's got the app, right? And if everybody's got the app,
00:31:13.740 --> 00:31:16.920
<v Marc>like what crowdsourcing capabilities do you have in that scenario?
00:31:17.360 --> 00:31:22.580
<v Marc>I think that's kind of cool. I should probably reach out to some of my contacts
00:31:22.580 --> 00:31:27.640
<v Marc>over there and just, you know, pick their brand and see what they're doing with that stuff.
00:31:27.940 --> 00:31:30.620
<v Renee>Yeah, while you're talking to them, ask them what they're doing with AI because
00:31:30.620 --> 00:31:33.960
<v Renee>that's the future, right? If we look ahead, that's where we're headed.
00:31:34.180 --> 00:31:37.560
<v Renee>So how do you think they're going to leverage AI in the theme parks?
00:31:37.720 --> 00:31:40.600
<v Renee>I mean, part of it's going to be safety, but I think part of it is going to
00:31:40.600 --> 00:31:43.080
<v Renee>be, you know, customer experience, right?
00:31:43.180 --> 00:31:45.860
<v Renee>Like you have a ton of opportunity there, don't you think?
00:31:46.420 --> 00:31:51.900
<v Marc>I think so. So, you know, it's funny because for the last few episodes,
00:31:52.080 --> 00:31:55.900
<v Marc>right, we've talked about, you know, what's the future and the future is like, well, AI.
00:31:57.320 --> 00:32:02.080
<v Marc>And I don't think that that's, you know, understating or overstating.
00:32:02.300 --> 00:32:08.500
<v Marc>I think it's just the reality of where things are going because that level of
00:32:08.500 --> 00:32:15.800
<v Marc>integration, you know, whether it's AI or robotics, it's kind of the next frontier, right?
00:32:15.800 --> 00:32:23.240
<v Marc>What happens when a ride adjusts intensity based on heart rate or stress level?
00:32:23.800 --> 00:32:30.020
<v Marc>I was watching the Apple announcement yesterday, and they did a whole section
00:32:30.020 --> 00:32:33.180
<v Marc>on the AirPods and the AirPod Pro thing.
00:32:33.420 --> 00:32:39.860
<v Marc>And the AirPods can tell you your heart rate and stress levels and how long
00:32:39.860 --> 00:32:41.880
<v Marc>you've walked and all that sort of stuff.
00:32:42.790 --> 00:32:48.910
<v Marc>And if you think about it, the level of telemetry that you have on a phone or
00:32:48.910 --> 00:32:56.390
<v Marc>a smartwatch or now AirPod Pros, right, like you could tell when people aren't happy.
00:32:56.590 --> 00:33:01.270
<v Marc>You could tell when stress is higher. You could tell when heart rate increases.
00:33:01.910 --> 00:33:07.270
<v Marc>And you can adjust conditions potentially given that information.
00:33:07.270 --> 00:33:11.350
<v Renee>So instead of like, you know, don't stand up and keep your hands inside,
00:33:11.350 --> 00:33:14.930
<v Renee>it's like, may I read your biometrics, please? And I will keep you safe.
00:33:15.490 --> 00:33:21.210
<v Marc>Yeah, I think so. Right. And perhaps you start to use that for personalization
00:33:21.210 --> 00:33:23.130
<v Marc>of the thrill rides themselves.
00:33:23.610 --> 00:33:32.690
<v Marc>Right. The resilience question. Yeah, it is a little crazy, but I think that
00:33:32.690 --> 00:33:35.150
<v Marc>that's there's there's a bit at odds.
00:33:35.310 --> 00:33:39.930
<v Marc>Right. Because that personalization could be really cool.
00:33:40.610 --> 00:33:44.650
<v Marc>But could you do that personalization at scale?
00:33:44.930 --> 00:33:50.770
<v Marc>Right. Thinking about one of my kids' favorite rides, the Haunted Mansion,
00:33:51.130 --> 00:33:54.470
<v Marc>the concurrency is quite high on that ride.
00:33:54.650 --> 00:34:01.370
<v Marc>The riders per hour is among the highest in the industry. It's about 2,400 riders per hour at peak.
00:34:01.530 --> 00:34:03.650
<v Marc>So that's really pretty high.
00:34:03.850 --> 00:34:10.510
<v Marc>So could you adapt that experience to a personalized experience?
00:34:11.449 --> 00:34:15.430
<v Marc>I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I'm sure Imagineers are smarter than me.
00:34:15.510 --> 00:34:18.770
<v Marc>I'm sure they're thinking about those sorts of things, but.
00:34:19.070 --> 00:34:21.690
<v Renee>The ghost sitting in my car behind me looks like my grandmother,
00:34:21.890 --> 00:34:23.770
<v Renee>like that kind of thing. Like that would be cool.
00:34:24.570 --> 00:34:29.270
<v Marc>Yeah. Yeah. That would be, no, that wouldn't be cool. It's gravel. Yeah.
00:34:29.820 --> 00:34:31.340
<v Marc>Oh, look, look, it's.
00:34:31.400 --> 00:34:34.780
<v Renee>He's here. Yeah.
00:34:35.260 --> 00:34:41.020
<v Marc>Yeah. Well, and then, and then the question becomes what happens when the ride
00:34:41.020 --> 00:34:45.960
<v Marc>changes, the experience changes just enough, right.
00:34:46.219 --> 00:34:51.540
<v Marc>That it puts it near or over some safety protocol, right.
00:34:51.739 --> 00:34:54.620
<v Marc>How do you keep, how do you keep things safe?
00:34:54.920 --> 00:35:00.580
<v Marc>If the experience changes in real time? Um, does that, is that,
00:35:00.800 --> 00:35:04.560
<v Marc>you know, what kinds of boundaries or guidelines do you have to have in place
00:35:04.560 --> 00:35:07.600
<v Marc>in order for that to, to work, right?
00:35:07.780 --> 00:35:11.800
<v Marc>Is that a set of override systems or human oversight?
00:35:13.080 --> 00:35:17.440
<v Marc>You can't, you can't just shut off the ride mid loop, right?
00:35:17.560 --> 00:35:19.920
<v Marc>That's not, that's not going to work. That's not going to work.
00:35:20.060 --> 00:35:22.760
<v Renee>People will be mad and all their blood would rush to their head.
00:35:22.940 --> 00:35:26.280
<v Renee>And most people, when they're hanging upside down in a ride, don't look happy.
00:35:26.460 --> 00:35:30.500
<v Renee>It happens every once in a while. And I'll say that they just don't look happy. I'll say that.
00:35:30.699 --> 00:35:35.239
<v Marc>Yeah. Well, and that particular use case, right, hanging upside down,
00:35:35.400 --> 00:35:43.120
<v Marc>is pretty rare because the fail safe on those rides is essentially the blocking system.
00:35:43.120 --> 00:35:49.920
<v Marc>And if you fail inside of a loop, it's not usual or typical to fail inside the
00:35:49.920 --> 00:35:52.300
<v Marc>loop because they're quite open systems.
00:35:53.020 --> 00:35:59.520
<v Marc>And what happens is that there's a block on the next section and they can't
00:35:59.520 --> 00:36:00.800
<v Marc>proceed into the next section.
00:36:00.920 --> 00:36:05.880
<v Marc>But normally it would complete the loop and then stop right at the next open block.
00:36:06.020 --> 00:36:11.719
<v Marc>But it's rare that those happen upside down. And I would argue that a ride that
00:36:11.719 --> 00:36:18.540
<v Marc>allows for that, for people to be blocked upside down is a pretty poor design of a ride.
00:36:19.739 --> 00:36:25.680
<v Renee>Yeah, you know, I usually see it in like those like fairs where it's that round
00:36:25.680 --> 00:36:28.980
<v Renee>circle thing and that thing just goes around and around and then it has no blocks
00:36:28.980 --> 00:36:31.000
<v Renee>and it does get stuck and it's ridiculous.
00:36:31.719 --> 00:36:37.100
<v Renee>So, okay, so, but I'm, okay, okay. In the end, in the end, I'm rooting for physical
00:36:37.100 --> 00:36:42.520
<v Renee>parks, right? I definitely am a low-tech girl in that regard.
00:36:42.520 --> 00:36:45.800
<v Renee>I love the wooden roller coasters. I love the smell of funnel cake.
00:36:45.960 --> 00:36:49.940
<v Renee>I love the potato patch where I can get my french fries fresh made.
00:36:50.739 --> 00:36:54.540
<v Renee>I love that experience. I love the slow.
00:36:54.739 --> 00:36:59.420
<v Renee>I love a good merry-go-round. Can I just be fair? Like a really good carousel, I'm all in it.
00:36:59.840 --> 00:37:03.520
<v Renee>If I can grab a brass ring, I'm even happier. Can I tell you the first carousels,
00:37:03.580 --> 00:37:08.219
<v Renee>though, in the 1900s went so fast, people flung off them and got hurt.
00:37:08.480 --> 00:37:12.620
<v Renee>They had to slow them down a lot. They were pretty dangerous at the beginning.
00:37:12.780 --> 00:37:16.780
<v Renee>But I love a good carousel. So I want low tech.
00:37:17.120 --> 00:37:25.219
<v Renee>I want physical parks. I can do away with the BR and the 360 movies and the,
00:37:25.500 --> 00:37:28.160
<v Renee>you know, just put me on a wooden roller coaster and let it go clank,
00:37:28.280 --> 00:37:29.500
<v Renee>clank, clank, clank, clank, clank, clank.
00:37:30.640 --> 00:37:33.199
<v Renee>Like, that's it for me. That's it. Clank, clank, clank, clank.
00:37:34.380 --> 00:37:38.320
<v Marc>I, you know, sure. I think that's okay. Right.
00:37:39.640 --> 00:37:45.940
<v Marc>I, my guess is that we'll probably have some sort of hybrid situation where,
00:37:45.940 --> 00:37:51.620
<v Marc>you know, you're not going to have, you're not going to get a thrill ride in your house, right?
00:37:52.140 --> 00:37:56.219
<v Marc>You know, there's definitely going to be a physical component of a park.
00:37:56.400 --> 00:37:59.320
<v Marc>You're definitely going to go someplace and have that experience.
00:37:59.320 --> 00:38:02.080
<v Marc>But I think that there'll be changes
00:38:02.080 --> 00:38:07.760
<v Marc>in the way that those experiences are tailored to you in real time.
00:38:08.000 --> 00:38:10.580
<v Marc>And, you know, you start to see
00:38:10.580 --> 00:38:17.880
<v Marc>storylines, so not necessarily changing of rides, but storylines change.
00:38:18.040 --> 00:38:21.580
<v Marc>And Disney experimented with this with their Galaxy's Edge concept,
00:38:21.940 --> 00:38:27.760
<v Marc>which I think they abandoned, frankly, which doesn't surprise me because I haven't quite got there.
00:38:27.760 --> 00:38:31.739
<v Marc>But I think that they'll have some, you know, there's definitely going to be
00:38:31.739 --> 00:38:36.420
<v Marc>some sort of hybrid scenario where there's a digital experience that sits on
00:38:36.420 --> 00:38:39.380
<v Marc>top of a physical, physical sets of rides.
00:38:39.760 --> 00:38:44.920
<v Marc>But at the end of the day, right, you know, the resilience is the backbone.
00:38:44.940 --> 00:38:52.940
<v Marc>It's going to be the thing that is consistent regardless of analog, wooden coaster or.
00:38:54.110 --> 00:38:59.610
<v Marc>The latest and greatest VR, you know, motion, whatever thing.
00:38:59.989 --> 00:39:05.370
<v Marc>So what, you know, if you're, if you're up for wooden coasters and physical
00:39:05.370 --> 00:39:09.390
<v Marc>rides and click, click, click, and, you know, smacking your around and.
00:39:10.670 --> 00:39:13.690
<v Marc>You know, you get whiplash and stuff, what would, what would be the,
00:39:13.890 --> 00:39:15.570
<v Marc>what would go the other way for you?
00:39:15.690 --> 00:39:18.150
<v Marc>Like what would your dream future ride be?
00:39:18.310 --> 00:39:21.969
<v Marc>Like what would be the thing that you'd be like, Oh, I'd, I'd be up for that. I'd be up for that.
00:39:22.890 --> 00:39:27.949
<v Renee>I, you know, it, I think it already exists and I haven't ridden it yet.
00:39:28.130 --> 00:39:33.250
<v Renee>And I think it's the beast. Like it is the end all be all of wooden coasters.
00:39:33.530 --> 00:39:38.850
<v Renee>It is long. It is rough. It's got a lot of zero G in it.
00:39:38.969 --> 00:39:44.350
<v Renee>It's been around forever. When I first went to Kings Island in Cincinnati,
00:39:44.590 --> 00:39:45.690
<v Renee>Ohio, because we could drive to it.
00:39:45.830 --> 00:39:50.010
<v Renee>I was too young to ride it. I wasn't tall enough because it's fast and it's rough.
00:39:50.070 --> 00:39:53.130
<v Renee>And so I wasn't old enough to ride it. And ever since then, it's been like,
00:39:53.250 --> 00:39:54.130
<v Renee>I got to get back to Cincinnati.
00:39:54.310 --> 00:39:56.730
<v Renee>I got to get back to Cincinnati. I got to ride that thing. I got to ride that thing. Right.
00:39:56.930 --> 00:40:00.390
<v Renee>And so for me, like the bucket list ride is the beast.
00:40:00.810 --> 00:40:01.750
<v Marc>The beast. Okay.
00:40:01.930 --> 00:40:05.170
<v Renee>And I would do it over and over and over again for a whole day.
00:40:05.170 --> 00:40:07.030
<v Renee>And then I think I would be okay with it.
00:40:07.130 --> 00:40:09.949
<v Renee>Right. But it is an unbelievable roller coaster.
00:40:10.170 --> 00:40:15.090
<v Renee>It's probably one of the best wooden coasters in the world. And I want it. I want to be on it.
00:40:15.210 --> 00:40:19.830
<v Renee>But that would be it for me. A giant wooden coaster that blocked the sun. Like there it is.
00:40:20.710 --> 00:40:23.810
<v Renee>I don't know what you call it. Giganticus. And like, it's got,
00:40:23.910 --> 00:40:26.930
<v Renee>it's got like, you know, crazy dinosaurs everywhere.
00:40:27.190 --> 00:40:31.190
<v Renee>As you go in and then, and then you ride this thing and it's unbelievable and
00:40:31.190 --> 00:40:34.870
<v Renee>it's long and it's rough and it's tall and it's fast.
00:40:34.969 --> 00:40:36.130
<v Renee>And like, that's what you want.
00:40:36.210 --> 00:40:40.150
<v Renee>And it's an open car and it makes a lot of noise and you swallow bugs.
00:40:40.270 --> 00:40:43.270
<v Marc>I'm in, I'm all in. I'm all in. Yeah.
00:40:43.910 --> 00:40:48.390
<v Marc>I don't, yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure about the wooden coaster thing.
00:40:48.530 --> 00:40:49.449
<v Renee>I love it. I love it.
00:40:50.350 --> 00:40:52.410
<v Marc>Yeah so.
00:40:52.410 --> 00:40:54.910
<v Renee>What kind of technology would you want to see if you could do any experiment
00:40:54.910 --> 00:40:59.030
<v Renee>if you could bring anything to an amusement park what would you do what would you bring
00:40:59.030 --> 00:41:04.989
<v Marc>You know to be honest is probably pretty boring stuff because i i like to experience
00:41:04.989 --> 00:41:11.310
<v Marc>the park through the eyes of the kids so i you know for me that's that's the
00:41:11.310 --> 00:41:16.290
<v Marc>most fun but so the tech that i would bring would probably be something like,
00:41:16.530 --> 00:41:22.390
<v Marc>I don't know, you download the app, you say, these are the rides that I want
00:41:22.390 --> 00:41:25.050
<v Marc>to go on, you know, chat GPT.
00:41:26.190 --> 00:41:31.750
<v Marc>Tell me how to do this, or actually pre-book my slots in every single one of
00:41:31.750 --> 00:41:33.150
<v Marc>these rides that we want to do.
00:41:33.290 --> 00:41:38.190
<v Marc>And we want to do this one three times, and we want a reservation at this restaurant,
00:41:38.190 --> 00:41:42.310
<v Marc>and, you know, we want to get there at 10 a.m., right?
00:41:42.449 --> 00:41:45.670
<v Marc>So that it's The day is planned, right?
00:41:45.750 --> 00:41:48.410
<v Marc>And I can skip out on things, but if I skip out on something,
00:41:48.550 --> 00:41:50.989
<v Marc>then I got to go to the next thing, you know, at the right time.
00:41:51.190 --> 00:41:56.630
<v Marc>I think that tech, that tech would be cool because, you know,
00:41:56.750 --> 00:42:01.230
<v Marc>it probably gives you a sense of, oh, I didn't miss out on something, you know?
00:42:02.010 --> 00:42:07.510
<v Marc>Because we tend to go to these types of places and spend multiple days and we'll
00:42:07.510 --> 00:42:10.810
<v Marc>do, you know, we'll do this park one day and then this park the other day.
00:42:10.810 --> 00:42:15.469
<v Marc>And then we'll have a third day and be like, oh, well, that'll be the day where
00:42:15.469 --> 00:42:18.370
<v Marc>we kind of clean up, right? And we go to do the things that we missed.
00:42:18.650 --> 00:42:23.890
<v Marc>And then everybody has to list this as well. I did this. I did this. I did this.
00:42:24.250 --> 00:42:29.910
<v Marc>You know, what's the one thing that you want to go do?
00:42:30.110 --> 00:42:33.930
<v Marc>And I think in an app that would help you arrange all that stuff.
00:42:34.390 --> 00:42:36.090
<v Renee>That's what I would do. I mean, why not? We do it at conferences.
00:42:36.590 --> 00:42:39.530
<v Renee>Like, pick the stuff you want to do. And then AI can put it in order when it's
00:42:39.530 --> 00:42:43.210
<v Renee>the least busy so you can go around that park managing it. I think that's a good idea.
00:42:43.510 --> 00:42:46.890
<v Renee>That's actually a really good idea. Is anybody using AI today in parks?
00:42:47.010 --> 00:42:51.290
<v Renee>Are they using it for anything? Or are they still in the experimental mode with that stuff?
00:42:52.170 --> 00:42:56.930
<v Marc>I haven't seen any implementations just yet, so I don't know.
00:42:57.090 --> 00:43:02.830
<v Marc>I'm sure they're using it in lots of different ways behind the scenes,
00:43:02.890 --> 00:43:07.850
<v Marc>but I haven't seen it on the customer side yet. And I haven't seen any articles
00:43:07.850 --> 00:43:11.070
<v Marc>or data or anything like that that suggests that.
00:43:11.250 --> 00:43:13.310
<v Marc>But I'm sure that they are.
00:43:14.530 --> 00:43:22.890
<v Marc>Disney in particular spends a ton of money on robotics, special effects. these kinds of things.
00:43:23.810 --> 00:43:29.810
<v Marc>I'm sure there's AI applications in some of those areas, but I haven't seen that.
00:43:30.070 --> 00:43:38.390
<v Marc>My guess is that there's maybe not so much AI, but ML algorithms in some of the rides.
00:43:38.830 --> 00:43:43.590
<v Marc>There's the trackless rides. I've seen the trackless rides do this.
00:43:44.510 --> 00:43:47.050
<v Marc>There's actually two that I've been on that are really cool.
00:43:47.250 --> 00:43:49.830
<v Marc>One is in Paris. One is in Hong Kong.
00:43:50.330 --> 00:43:56.090
<v Marc>And, you know, you sit in the thing and it has a, a trans, you know,
00:43:56.570 --> 00:43:58.710
<v Marc>transmitter on it and there's no track.
00:43:58.890 --> 00:44:04.070
<v Marc>So, so the, the, the cars, the ride cars move around in the space that you're
00:44:04.070 --> 00:44:07.949
<v Marc>in and they don't bump on each other or smack each other or anything like that.
00:44:08.110 --> 00:44:15.430
<v Marc>So you get to kind of, you know, move around in the space without being on a track.
00:44:15.890 --> 00:44:21.850
<v Marc>And if one is, you know, and occupying a certain space, it won't move in those areas.
00:44:22.010 --> 00:44:25.770
<v Marc>So there's a bit of that. I don't know how advanced those are other than just
00:44:25.770 --> 00:44:29.770
<v Marc>kind of basic ML avoidance kinds of algorithms.
00:44:30.070 --> 00:44:35.550
<v Marc>So I don't know. I'm sure that a lot of the players in this space are experimenting.
00:44:36.510 --> 00:44:41.430
<v Marc>And, you know, probably within the next few years, we'll see some interesting applications.
00:44:42.370 --> 00:44:45.989
<v Marc>All right. All right. I think that takes us to the end.
00:44:46.670 --> 00:44:50.930
<v Marc>From steam-powered Ferris wheels to AI-driven coasters, amusement parks have
00:44:50.930 --> 00:44:55.230
<v Marc>always been showcases for technology and resilience of their time.
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<v Renee>And they remind us that tech isn't about productivity. It's also about joy.
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<v Renee>So what's your favorite ride and why? Hit us up on social media or send us an email.
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<v Renee>And maybe tell Marc why wooden coasters still deserve admiration and respect.
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<v Marc>All right, everybody. Thanks for riding.
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<v Music>
