NOTE: This Special Feature was written in February 2020, just before Walt Disney World’s theme parks closed due to COVID-19 and the parks’ capacities were heavily altered. Park capacities as well as the throughput of Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance will have changed, but as a defense of Disney’s batched virtual queue (“Boarding Groups”) and its potential continued use on “high demand + low capacity + low reliability” rides, this Special Feature will remain unedited.
Imagine you lead Walt Disney World’s operations team.
You preside over the operations of the world’s most talked-about theme park experience – Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance… a single attraction so sought-after, families are willing to set 4AM alarms on their vacation to rouse kids from their peaceful slumber just to get a chance to see what’s inside; a ride unanimously called the world’s most ambitious; the attraction that’s literally redefining the capabilities of a theme park experience before our very eyes; the ride everyone wants to ride.
Now all you need to do is figure out how to get people on board.
We’ve all seen it on Facebook, Twitter, or Disney Parks discussion boards: “Just open the line!” “Make it FastPass only!” Would it really be that easy? Well, next time you see those comments, send them this article… Because today, we’re going to tackle this problem once and for all. With some detective work, we’ll see exactly what the future may hold for the queue of Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance.
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The case…
If you and I are going to untangle the best way to get guests into Rise of the Resistance, first we need to know what we’re dealing with, and it comes down to three factors that are all in a delicate balance: CAPACITY, DEMAND, and RELIABILITY.
Capacity
By early 2020 – when Disney’s capacity was unrestrained by the COVID-19 pandemic – STAR WARS: Rise of the Resistance was reportedly averaging 700 – 1,400 people per hour (gradually working its way toward a reported ideal capacity of 2,400 people per hour).
That means that on a typical 12-hour day, the currently-possible best operations of the ride could get through about 17,000 guests (even though, once it’s running efficiently and continuously, it’ll be closer to 28,000 people per day). Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is reportedly maxing out at 17,000 guests per day. 17,000 slots to be filled; 17,000 seats available; 17,000 guests who can realistically experience the world’s most sought-after attraction on any given day. 17,000, period. And 17,000 guests seems like a lot…
Demand
… Except, it isn’t. In 2018, Disney’s Hollywood Studios attendance was estimated at over 11 million guests. In other words before Galaxy’s Edge opened, Disney’s Hollywood Studios reportedly averaged 30,000 guests per day. (Disneyland’s attendance is even higher at an average of 50,000 guests per day, making its version of Rise even more of a hot ticket.)
To recap: more than 30,000 guests; 17,000 slots. There’s no two ways around it. That means that for right now, only half of guests visiting Disney’s Hollywood Studios on any given day can even potentially get on the world’s hottest attraction. And sure, some guests don’t want to ride Rise of the Resistance; some aren’t interested; some don’t know it requires a unique process to get on board; a good chunk aren’t tall enough even if they wanted to! Once the ride is operating fully, efficiently, and continuously, its 28,000 people per day capacity should be enough to handle the demand; but for now, demand for this ultra-E-Ticket outweighs supply. Period.
And this is important: for now, there’s nothing you do can make more “slots.” The “slots” are the “slots.” Period. 17,000. Sure, some days you may only end up to 12,000; some days, you may hit 19,000! But for the purposes of planning, you should count on 17,000 available slots per day.
Reliability
Let’s make the situation a little bit more complex. It’s not just that your headlining new ride is only regularly handling 60% of the capacity it’s designed for; it’s also prone to frequent downtime. Made of three separate but deeply interconnected ride systems, it occasionally sputters to a halt. Some fixes are fast, merely interrupting the movement of guests through queues and carefully-coordinated pre-shows that rely on precision timing and guest flow. Sometimes, downtime means a system shut-down, emptying not only the ride, but queuing guests who’ve earned a coveted spot in line.
And speaking of those guests, if you think you’re upset that your headlining attraction is operating with only 17,000 slots even realistically possible, imagine the frustration of the 30,000+ daily guests who are all counting on this ride to be the capstone of their once-in-a-lifetime trip.
Rise of the Resistance isn’t just a landmark attraction; it’s a perfect storm: LOW CAPACITY, HIGH DEMAND, and LOW RELIABILITY. Today, you are in charge of the world’s best trackless dark ride and by far one of the best rides of the century, featuring arguably one of the most amazing Audio-Animatronics on Earth… and twice as many people want to ride it as can physically fit on it on given day. You’ve got the pieces of a really complex problem… so let’s run some solutions.
Solution 1: “Just open the line!”
A common refrain heard by frustrated guests today is simple: just open the line! And it sounds like it makes sense, right? Just open the line. Let people into the ride’s queue. If I choose to wait in a twelve hour line, I should be able to. (It worked for Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure… kinda.)
But hold on… Remember those 17,000 slots? Remember those 30,000 eager guests? So if Disney simply “opened the line” and let guests walk into the queue, what would happen?
The worst case scenario – albeit, a hypothetical one – is that at the park’s opening, every one of Rise of the Resistance’s 17,000 slots would fill immediately, except that now instead of being “virtual,” that would be a 17,000-person queue wrapping through the park, with the last people in line facing a 12-hour wait. The apocolyptic promise of a virtual queue that fills in seconds translating to a physical queue that fills in seconds isn’t exactly right though, thanks to a little bit of psychology.
“Just opening the line” wouldn’t be quite as cataclysmic as all that, primarily because it introduces an opportunity cost: waiting in a long line. Faced with a multi-hour queue, many guests – even those who really, really want to ride Rise of the Resistance – would opt out, deciding that their day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios or Disneyland is better spent elsewhere. That “cost” would actually reduce the ride’s demand.
(In comparison, attempting to join a Boarding Group has practically no “cost” other than an early morning wake-up. So for example, if I’ve already been on the ride a handful of times, I’ll still try for a Boarding Group, because why not? I would not wait in a six hour line, though, eliminating myseld from the ride’s demand. The “cost” of a physical queue would help weed out would-be riders.)
We can’t be sure what would happen if Rise of the Resistance “just opened the line.” Would its wait be four hours, or twelve? Would 4,000 people take on the “cost,” or 17,000? Could it be contained in Rise’s physical queue structure at all, or would it wind through the land and park? In the end, it doesn’t really matter. Disney has not (and to our thinking, will not) “just open the line” for Rise of the Resistance because even if the cost would bring its demand closer to its capacity, there’s that other wildcard factor: reliability.
No matter how many people physically took on the “cost” of waiting in a multi-hour line, Rise’s reliability issues ensure that Disney can’t really calculate a wait time at all. It’s not just that the ride is low capacity and high demand, it’s that its operation is sporadic; its interruptions are multi-faceted, and can last from a few minutes to full days. The last people in that line, for example, may wait (literally) all day, and still not make it aboard.
So even though some fans rally that Disney should “just open the line,” don’t cross your fingers. Though the opportunity cost of physically waiting in a queue would certainly reduce the ride’s demand, it’s its relatively low reliability that would be killer. Guests waiting in that line would face at least multi-hour waits, miserably trapped standing in the sun.
But hey, Disney has a built-in system designed to keep people from being trapped in queues, right? What if Rise of the Resistance went full-on “FastPass only”… Hmm… Could this often-repeated line really solve Rise of the Resistance’s operational limitations? Read on…