What Did Disney Get Right and Wrong with MyMagic+?
In 2008, The Walt Disney Company gambled $1 billion on the future of its theme parks.
At the time, Disney went all-in on digital services, which seems like an obvious move with the benefit of hindsight.
Photo:visitorlando.com
However, the media coverage at the time suggested that Disney had recklessly thrown away $1 billion on lousy tech.
Notably, those criticisms proved at least somewhat valid. So, what did Disney get right and wrong with MyMagic+?
About MyMagic+
Disney
When I say MyMagic+, the words likely mean little to you. So, I’ll liberally substitute in a couple of more familiar phrases as well.
Technically, I’m being a bit sloppy with the lexicon to describe this project as MagicBands and My Disney Experience.
Disney
Realistically, those are the primary achievements of MyMagic+, at least from a user perspective.
For Disney’s theme park operators, MyMagic+ opened a whole new world of in-park innovations.
Disney
Even better from a financial perspective, the profound tracking abilities uncovered a treasure trove of big data for Disney officials to mine.
In 2008, Disney had anticipated the ascension of big data as well as the prevalence of wireless networking in society.
Disney
In addition, these executives knew a simple truth about theme park guest behavior.
Happier guests spend more money at the parks. And user satisfaction increases when friendly technologies streamline the experience.
Photo: Walt Disney Imagineering
While you can debate all you want about whether the Disney of 2025 falls under this umbrella, the company committed to it in 2008.
Disney did so in divisive fashion as well. The company didn’t assign this gambit to Walt Disney Imagineering.
Photo: Disney
To the frustration of many Imagineers, Disney outsourced part of the MyMagic+ project to a design firm named Frog.
This group and others liaised with Disney in planning the theme park planning and vacationing tools of the future.
Cinderella Castle in Magic Kingdom
A core group of Disney workers, internally known as The Fab Five, brainstormed ideas for improving the theme park experience for guests.
Their primary goal was reinventing a Disney visit for the next generation of fans, and from that perspective, the initiative proved wildly successful.
Photo: Disney
That’s how we got the aforementioned My Disney Experience and MagicBands. From a business perspective, the answer is murkier, though.
What Disney Got Right about MyMagic+
Cinderella Castle after Hurricane Milton
Wired covered this story extensively a decade ago. Here’s a 2013 article about the basics of MyMagic+ and a more extensive one the following year.
In 2015, Wired also posted a seminal story regarding the process, with Harvard researchers adding a postmortem the following year.
Disney
By 2016, we could already tell everything great about the new theme park technology, as well as Disney’s glaring miscalculation.
First, let’s focus on the positives. Disney’s Fab Five hoped to tie all theme park necessities together in a single app.
Photo: Disney
We’re talking about things like proving theme park admission, ordering food, paying for in-park purchases, and entering hotel rooms.
In addition, Disney shared some aspirational goals as well. One of the most pressing issues involved location-based technology.
By knowing this information, park officials could anticipate in-park congestion issues before they unfolded.
Once identified, Disney could provide temporary offerings to entice guests to go elsewhere instead.
So, we can review some aspects and immediately recognize that Disney achieved its goals.
Most notably, MagicBands employ RFID technology, allowing Disney to track the location of the guests anywhere on the Disney campus.
Cosmic Rewind
This service has proven invaluable to Disney as it evaluates theme park trends and behavior.
Plus, those RFID chips have aided countless parents in locating a lost child at the parks, a functionality of incalculable value.
More Disney Got Right about MyMagic+
Disney
From a business perspective, Disney identified the reliance on FastPass, which (unfortunately) led to its monetization with Lightning Lane.
Meanwhile, the implementation of Mobile Ordering, which wouldn’t have been possible without MyMagic+, has been a staggering success.
Frozen Ever After
That aspect alone justifies the project from a guest perspective, although it ties into the next section’s criticism as well. A phone app would have worked, too.
Similarly, MagicBands streamline the convenience of holding multiple admission tickets and ones for after-hours events.
MagicBands
So, MyMagic+ achieved its primary goal. It reduced the complexity of a Disney theme park vacation.
Then, we have the financial aspects of the decision. They’re plentiful and fairly stunning.
MagicBands
Disney’s per capita spending has consistently increased since the introduction of MyMagic+.
Believe me when I say that ANY theme park business would kill to experience more than a decade of steady growth in this category.
Walt Disney Company
Technically, Disney’s growth wasn’t linear, but that was only because of the pandemic.
Other than that, operating income in the theme park division has become the backbone of The Walt Disney Company.
Photo: Disney
None of that would have been possible without a successful launch of MyMagic+.
Therefore, the process sounds like it went perfectly. But that’s not the case. There’s one huge asterisk.
What Disney Got Wrong about MyMagic+
(Photo Illustration by Sheldon Cooper/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Simply stated, Disney missed the forest for the trees. Executives failed to anticipate the rise of smartphones.
I guess I can understand the why of it when I look back at historical smartphone sales data.
Photo: verdemedia.com
In 2007 and 2008, an average of 131 million smartphones were sold. So, the technology was surging in popularity, but it wasn’t ubiquitous yet.
By 2013, the year when MyMagic+ went online, that total had soared to nearly one billion smartphones sold.
Photo: Disney
From 2013 through 2018, smartphone sales roughly equaled the population of the entire world at eight billion.
Suddenly, Disney was selling wearables to people who could already do most of the same stuff on their phones.
Photo: Orlando Fun Tickets
To Disney’s credit, the company has adapted over the years. Features like MagicMobile and My Disney Experience’s door-opening functionality came later.
Disney introduced those features to accommodate a society overly reliant on our phones.
Photo: Disney
Still, at this point, the market for wearables is mercurial at best and in sharp decline at worst.
Not coincidentally, I recently posed the question about whether you even use MagicBands now. It’s a valid debate.
Image: Disney
Virtually every feature of the MagicBand is available on a smartphone, and odds are VERY good that you already have one of those.
So, why would you pay $30+ for a MagicBand? The answer is because they have the faces of Disney characters on them, but you get the point.
Image Credit: Disney
Disney bet big on the wearables market, but we know with the benefit of hindsight that the company could have a billion dollars by just making a smartphone app.
Thanks for visiting MickeyBlog.com! Want to go to Disney? For a FREE quote on your next Disney vacation, please fill out the form below, and one of the agents from MickeyTravels, a Diamond Level Authorized Disney Vacation Planner, will be in touch soon!
Feature Photo: Disney
