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merlinjones
06-21-2001, 10:43 PM
Yesterday, at an antique mall in Pomona, I ran across an original Disneyland newspaper from September 1955 (as sold at the park at that time).

The headline read that over one million people had already visited Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom... in less than three months!

DCA apologists have repeatedly said that DL got off to a similar slow start. As we have all known... this is not reality.

DL was a hit with the paying public from day one.

Alex S.
06-21-2001, 11:33 PM
To be fair, DCA probably came close to do doing the same thing. 1,000,000 people in 90 days is only 11,000 people per day.

By current standards, 1 million in three months is not good. Disneyland averages about 37,000 people per day, or 13.7 million per year. Considering the crowds we now know Disneyland can handle on a daily basis, DL did get off to a slow start. That doesn't mean it wasn't better than expected at the time, though.

Not that this means that DCA isn't underperforming, but I think it is silly for either side to compare attendence numbers in 1955 with 2000 (just as I consider it silly to compare startings lineups between DCA and 1955 DL).

merlinjones
06-22-2001, 05:31 AM
>>By current standards, 1 million in three months is not good. Disneyland averages about 37,000 people per day, or 13.7 million per year. Considering the crowds we now know Disneyland can handle on a daily basis, DL did get off to a slow start. That doesn't mean it wasn't better than expected at the time, though. <<

Obviously, the park's expectation and capacity in 1955, as well as the total local or regional population of the time and total tourism of the time were not in any way comparable to today's numbers. But FOR ITS TIME those numbers were a mark of incredible success. DCA's are not by any measure.

80S ERA
06-22-2001, 06:16 AM
Originally posted by Alex Stroup
To be fair, DCA probably came close to do doing the same thing. 1,000,000 people in 90 days is only 11,000 people per day.

.... Considering the crowds we now know Disneyland can handle on a daily basis, DL did get off to a slow start.


Actually Alex, if Im correct, your calc is based off the assumption that Disneyland was open 7 days a week.

Disneyland didn't switch over to operating the entire week until sometime in the 80's, when it was open for all 365 days of the year...(Source: Disneyland Pictoral Sovunier Book, 1997)

So, on the contrary, it wasn't a "slow" start for a park in 1955. Then again, I'm not 100% sure if it was closed 2-3 days a week for maintenance during the opening months in 1955. I am 100% sure however, that Disneyland was not open 365 days a year during the first decades.

Napsto
06-24-2001, 09:58 AM
i think dca's numbers are similar.

EandCDad
06-26-2001, 05:19 AM
I think if you take Alex's numbers and multiply them by a five day week and then divide by the cosign of the coefficient tanget and plot that on the x axis, then multiply it by the average ticket price which has extupled since 1955 and then divide it by Walt Disney's age when DL opened, its clear that DL did better than DCA.:confused:

3894
06-26-2001, 07:49 AM
Okay, yes, EandCDad EXCEPT you're forgetting to factor in the number of full moons divided by leap years. Also, remember this formula only holds on alternate Tuesdays (so it would be next Tuesday).