The MyMagic+ program is one of the most controversial ideas in the history of Imagineering. The Walt Disney Company built a bridge toward Tomorrowland. In the process, they took bold steps to secure the future of the world’s most popular theme park, Walt Disney World. There were many goals in their ambitious stratagem: they wanted to correct the flaws with the existing FastPass system, they preferred to ease the purchase process for Disney guests, and they desired total integration of all Walt Disney World functionality in a single device.
The results have revolutionized not only the theme park industry but also many other fields. However, building a system this revolutionary didn’t come without substantial struggles, though. Here are five hurdles Disney overcame in introducing MyMagic+.
1. Who’s the boss?
You might believe that Disney’s Imagineers controlled the entirety of the developmental process, but that’s actually a common misconception. The Walt Disney Company embodies forward-thinking innovation as a rule, and Parks division of the company demonstrates such loyalty to the ideals of the man himself, Walt Disney, that they are notoriously conservative with regards to the theme parks.
That’s why Bob Iger chose to outsource a part of the project. Along with a team of special advisors, he evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of Disney’s vaunted Imagineers. Appreciating that their loyalty to the ideas of Walt Disney himself were thoughtful yet occasionally problematic, the company’s decision makers brought in outsiders. The plan was to allow people with fresh eyes and no connection to Disney play in the theme park sandbox for a while.
Suffice to say that internal politics became an issue. A San Francisco business appropriately named Frog started on the ground floor of what was then referenced as NGE, Next Generation Experience. From 2009 until the debut of the Magic Band in 2013, several other companies came onboard. HP and Synapse were two of the most famous of them. Every group enjoyed the lucrative contract they signed with Disney, but a core issue persisted. No one definitive entity controlled the final MyMagic+ product. Infighting became the law of the land as everyone had their own distinct idea about how 21st century Disney theme parks should evolve.
2. What could MyMagic+ do?
In the face of several adjoining developers, Disney’s Imagineers were resistant to change. It’s this passionate dedication to the original ideals of Walt Disney World that caused problems with MyMagic+. Rather than include all of the suggested ideas, some of which would prove revolutionary, the technology behind the MagicBand became a series of compromises and half-measures. It speaks volumes about the daring and bravado of the ideas that even a reductive version of the Magic Band is still a jaw-dropping piece of technology.
In a moment we’ll discuss the included ideas, but some of the ones that didn’t make the cut are symbolic of the overall innovation of the project. One of the most famous is the pre-booking of meals. In this version of the Next Generation Experience, guests would not only pick a restaurant ahead of their visit but also decide their entire menu ahead of time.
Originally intended as a launch product, the technological hurdles and divisiveness of its utility prevented its inclusion. Instead, Imagineers famously tested the idea at Be Our Guest. Originally, Disney selected random guests to participate in the program, and I speak from experience when I say that the results were disappointing. Cast members informed me that they lost my reservation, and they bluntly stated it happened more often than not. Disney expects total accuracy with their services, not coin flips.
Despite the lackluster early performance, Disney opened their Be Our Guest trial to the general public, which Theme Park Tourist chronicled earlier this year. Suffice to say that it too could have gone better. Perhaps this example is the best one to show that Imagineers are on to something when they hold true to Disney standards in the face of hallmark technological change. Not all brilliant ideas are practical, at least not in their first iteration.
3. What must MyMagic+ include?
One of the primary reasons that Disney executives demanded a new style of interactive guest experience grew from park feedback. A shocking percentage of people surveyed indicated that they didn’t understand the hub-and-spoke design of Magic Kingdom, which forced them to circle back to Cinderella Castle to get their bearings. Employees experienced shock and horror in learning that people got that lost in their theme park.
To address this concern, Disney emphatically determined that GPS would become an integral part of the software. They integrated RFID technology to provide seamless communications from wearable devices to installed communication hubs added throughout the park. These bands also provide the ancillary benefit of peace of mind for parents; the technology allows them to locate their children quickly if the kids ever get lost while wearing a MagicBand.
There are other inclusions Disney considered a must. One of them is that the devices be waterproof. That’s a no-brainer at a theme park where wet rides are popular and water parks are a key component of some ticket packages.
Imagineers and other designers also prioritized picture tracking functionality to tie together several memorable aspects of the theme park experience. The current iteration of Memory Maker wouldn’t be possible without the RFID tracking data that notes when a person’s pictures are available after rides and during photographer sessions.
4. How should the MagicBands look?
Amazingly, this was the bridge too far for most Disney Imagineers. Frog and other designers believed that the most seamless process to hide Magic Bands in plain sight would be to make them all look the same. By removing any uniqueness, they’d become glorified wrist accessories that people would forget about after a short time wearing them.
Imagineers were livid about this plan. They considered Magic Bands as a portable delivery device that connected customer demands with onsite service locations. The design of the Magic Bands and the accompanying kiosks should not override basic Disney standards.
They feared that FastPass kiosks employing the same generic design would violate one of Uncle Walt’s cardinal rules. They would remove the illusion of a Disney park visit. When people arrived at the kiosks, they’d notice that these locations look nothing like the surrounding areas, the ones that Imagineers work so diligently to craft into a believably escapist environment.
Eventually, the parties involved reached a compromise. The FastPass kiosks would appear in their originally intended locations with one big change. The Imagineers could design and paint them however they wanted in order to fit the theme of the attraction in question. In this manner, Disney could integrate the new technology at all of their most popular rides without violating the integrity of Walt Disney’s core concept. This negotiation explains why kiosks are so seamless relative to their Walt Disney World backdrops.
5. What’s the best way to tie everything together?
MyDisneyExperience probably would have existed in some form whether the MyMagic+ design had come to fruition or not. Multi-purpose site aggregation is all the rage in web design anyway. Still, the distinct version we have now is unmistakably due to the NGE project.
Disney desired a one-stop shopping location for all their grand plans. The grand purpose of MyDisneyExperience is for people to plan an entire vacation using a single bookmark. Consider the inner workings of this site to appreciate the daring of the strategy. At MDE, you can book your reservation, reserve your meals, book your FastPass+ selections, order your Magic Bands, and buy then eventually view all your Memory Maker pictures.
Also, this process has to work from Walt Disney World itself. After all, you might lose some of the information above. In that eventuality, you’ll have to look up your information online. That issue by itself proved especially problematic for Disney. They had to upgrade the entire internet backbone of Walt Disney World and its surrounding area. Since they were now expecting customers to look up data on their cellphones, they had to have the internet framework to sustain that sort of bandwidth, an issue that Disneyland in Anaheim, California, still hasn’t addressed.
As you can see, virtually every decision involving MyMagic+ proved divisive. Each one also created additional issues that the company had to overcome. The next time you receive a new Magic Band, take a moment to appreciate what a marvel of engineering it is.
