Welcome To Tomorrowland
“Hold your breath, make a wish / Count to three / Come with me and you’ll be / In a world of pure imagination / Take a look and you’ll see into your imagination.” — Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
“Write a book on whatever you want,” he had said.
I’d paused before responding. “Anything? Like really anything?”
“The best books reveal your true passions, so anything so long as it’s something you’d love to spend the next year on.”
Theme Parks.
That’s the anything I most wanted to write on and share with the world. It’s something that has delighted me since I was a little girl and even as a grown woman it elicits childlike feelings to this day.
And this book was written to share why the future of these places from our youth is only going to get better.
Tomorrowland wasn’t just Walt Disney’s land that showed us the future… it’s the zeitgeist of theme parks in general and each and every year they continue to inspire, showcase and push us to dream.
It’s been a crazy nine to 10 months of writing this book! I’m super excited to share it with everyone. As a college student, you’re probably thinking, how is Madison qualified enough to write a book? What has she possibly done that gives her enough knowledge to write a full book? Well, honestly, I didn’t think it was possible when I first started, and I even questioned it a couple of times during this journey, but here we are.
When I started this process months ago, I had no idea what I wanted to do in life. As a senior in college, it was a very scary thought. And post-grad plans aside, I definitely wasn’t sure what I would write a book about. But the one thing I did know was that my love for theme parks is not just a hobby. My book, Tomorrowland: The Future of Theme Parks, is about exactly what the title suggests: the future of theme parks. My book is a crystal ball of sorts into the future of theme parks in regards to how technology will enhance the theme park experience.
Many skeptics believe that the rise of technology, like virtual and augmented reality, will lead to the decline of theme parks. Why, when you can just strap on your goggles at home and ride a coaster, would you actually travel to one? Well, in 2016, 148 million Americans visited the top 20 theme parks. In 2013, it was 135 million Americans. Even between 2015 and 2016, overall attendance went up 1.5 percent! This statistic busts the myth that technology will be the death of theme parks, not to mention that younger generations are searching for off-screen activities where they can be together, face-to-face. Even one former Imagineer (Imagineers are the engineers and creative team that make Disney’s theme parks), remarked, “people believed that technology wouldn’t be able to help us because it would end up as virtual visits only, but applied in the right ways, technology could make theme parks more amazing.” Check out this quick video that showcases some aspects of the future of theme parks!
Months of research and expert interviews led me to this conclusion. Basically, technology will not be the end of theme parks, but its renaissance. In this blog series, I will reveal snippets of the research I uncovered in writing my book as well as my own experiences as a theme park aficionado. In the next 10 blog posts you will learn about:
- My favorite theme park experience.
- If lines will ever stop being a thing in theme parks.
- What kind of technology we can expect in the future of theme parks.
- The difference between VR and AR, and which is better.
- How social media affects theme parks.
- The most important factor that makes up theme parks.
- Why people go to theme parks
- The coolest upcoming AR attractions.
- What the Star Wars hotel is going to be like.
- The best part of Harry Potter world in Florida.
I have been itching to show the world this project that I’ve been working on. It’s one thing to drone on about the book over the holidays to family and friends, but it’s an entirely other thing to hand someone your work and say, “I did that.” So, I hope you enjoy reading these posts half as much as I enjoyed writing them!
And please do buy the book at Amazon.com and if you’d like a signed copy, simply message me at mkelley2@wellesley.edu and I’d be happy to sign and mail the first fifty people who ask a signed copy.
