Will Our Insta-Face-Snap-Tweets Change Our Experiences of Tomorrowland?
Why we can’t forget the power of social media in the future of the park
With the rise of data mining and cookies, we’re used to having our information used against us.
I clicked ONCE on Saks Fifth Avenues’ website and now my Facebook is flooded with outfits that I might like to buy and Instagram suggests profiles that I might like to follow.
As much as we might hate these pesky advertisements, at the end of the day, we expect things to be tailored to us now. Everything from our iPhones to our Bitmojis are customizable. The Entrepreneur notes how the most effective way to market to millennials is to do so by making them feel like their business can apply to their personal needs and likes.
Because the coming generations will increasingly desire more tailored experiences, it makes sense to apply this thought process to the theme park experience. Imagine if you could personalize your entire experience, ranging from rides to food, to merchandise, to the shows. When I would go to Disneyland in high school, I would do something similar, just without technology to aid me! Every time I went, I learned something from the previous experience and would apply it to my next one, just like how cookies learn from our experiences on a website. Each time after a trip to Disneyland, I would look at the order of rides I chose, the food I ate, the merchandise I had just bought and make conclusions like to avoid main street during the parade because it’s a madhouse trying to get anywhere around that time. If I had access to better technology, I would have been able to do my experience right the first time!
Imagine you have just purchased your hotel and parking tickets online to stay at the new theme park Technoland! You click on your email confirmation and open the PDF that details your reservation; what kind of room, what kind of park tickets, what amenities your hotel provides, etc. Once you’ve confirmed everything is in order, you click on the next PDF that looks like a survey of some kind. On this page are questions like what kind of food you like, what your favorite junk food is, and what rides you would like to check out, coupled with pictures and videos of the rides themselves. You click and type in the appropriate areas, detailing your preferences for your experience.
A few weeks go by and it’s finally time to head to Technoland! When you arrive, you head straight to the check-in desk and get your wristband, which acts as your room key, express pass, and credit card all over the parks. Along with your band they show you an itinerary of sorts on your Technoland app, telling you which rides to ride, where to grab food and snacks in between, and where to get your face painted, all while avoiding the lines and crowds!
At the security and ticket check at the new Technoland you are given Google-esque glasses. You and about twenty others are escorted to another room where you are given a brief on how to work your new technology. After you’ve synced up your phone to your glasses and synced up to your friends and family, you head out into the park.
I’ve decided to be Princess Leia for the day, and my best friend is Luke Skywalker. Once we enter the park, we are no longer on planet earth. We are on the planet Tatooine, stopping for fuel for the Millennium Falcon. My little sister is in the same physical park as me, but what she is seeing is completely different. My little sister just stepped into Wonderland. She is dressed in her blue dress which she can see when she looks down at her shoes. She is Alice and she is in the garden of the Red Queen.
The above example details technology that does not yet exist but I believe will in the next five to ten years. Some parks have been implementing the customizable experience via the VIP package but, if you’re a regular Joe like me, you’ve had to customize your experience the old fashioned way, through multiple visits.
Okay, back to 2018. Is this technology feasible? I’ve talked to expert in theme park technology Jason Rauhoff about the possibility of the experience above, and he said that this could be feasible in the “next five years solid.” He projects this technology to come quickly because the “backbone is already developed.” By that he means that the baby steps of the virtual and augmented reality experiences are already made. For example, mobile augmented reality, which is the overlaying of digital information viewed through your camera phone — things like Pokemon Go — is already developed, and even on a more basic level with 3-D and 4-D rides. Check out this article that details why Pokemon Go was so successful!
My idea for the future just expands the idea to make a more immersive and less obstructed experience. So, instead of having to hold your iPhone in front of you or wearing a heavy headset and portable computer, you get a smaller, lighter pair of glasses or even no headset at all. This creates a more comfortable experience, larger in scale, and more immersive. Jason Rauhoff agreed that the early models of the experience that I hope to see in the next five years will probably a Google glass-type of experience since new models come out regularly.
Check out this silly video of Dewayne Bevil breaking down the selfie stick craze in theme parks!!
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.
