Wizarding World of Harry Potter - Ministry of Magic - General Discussion Thread

[DOOMBOT]

I don't have any connections with the Ministry team, but I have heard about some very roughs days land-wide for Potter in the past week. Cirque, Wand Magic, Ministry having major downtime or operational issues around and after peak season, effectively shuttering the land outside of dining and walk-around entertainment. Very similar to what happened around SNW when Yoshi went down for maintenance.

Hoping that this new Broom ride is successful in attracting guests, offering sufficient capacity, and limiting downtimes. This land and SNW need all three desperately.

 

[DarkMetroid567]

I don't have any connections with the Ministry team, but I have heard about some very roughs days land-wide for Potter in the past week. Cirque, Wand Magic, Ministry having major downtime or operational issues around and after peak season, effectively shuttering the land outside of dining and walk-around entertainment. Very similar to what happened around SNW when Yoshi went down for maintenance.

Hoping that this new Broom ride is successful in attracting guests, offering sufficient capacity, and limiting downtimes. This land and SNW need all three desperately.

But probably no short-term solution, huh. Will this just be the MO for Epic for the next 2+ years?

 

[Parkscope Joe]

I don't have any connections with the Ministry team, but I have heard about some very roughs days land-wide for Potter in the past week. Cirque, Wand Magic, Ministry having major downtime or operational issues around and after peak season, effectively shuttering the land outside of dining and walk-around entertainment. Very similar to what happened around SNW when Yoshi went down for maintenance.

Hoping that this new Broom ride is successful in attracting guests, offering sufficient capacity, and limiting downtimes. This land and SNW need all three desperately.

My visit the show closed for the final performance, but damn it's been more? Also when Ministry does run it's likely running 1/2 to 3/4 capacity.

But probably no short-term solution, huh. Will this just be the MO for Epic for the next 2+ years?

2 years is a long time, the park hasn't been open for 8 months yet.

 

[Mad Dog]

My visit the show closed for the final performance, but damn it's been more? Also when Ministry does run it's likely running 1/2 to 3/4 capacity.



2 years is a long time, the park hasn't been open for 8 months yet.

The two days we were at Epic, the show was up and down numerous times. Looked like it missed about half the shows.
Same with the Dragons show. It's tough when even the shows are down so much. You'd think Dragons would be better
since it's a clone from Beijing. That's what gets me about all the Epic downtime. The clones are as bad as the new attractions.

 

[jwbitterman]

The actual Ministry ride (ignoring the draw dropping queue) is a huge disappointment and is absolutely not worth the innumerable times we left the line because of breakdowns.

I put this ride below Gringotts. Ministry is definitely not in my top 3 rides at epic.

 

[TheCodeMan95]

draw dropping queue

 

[DOOMBOT]

My visit the show closed for the final performance, but damn it's been more? Also when Ministry does run it's likely running 1/2 to 3/4 capacity.

The two days we were at Epic, the show was up and down numerous times. Looked like it missed about half the shows.
Same with the Dragons show. It's tough when even the shows are down so much. You'd think Dragons would be better
since it's a clone from Beijing. That's what gets me about all the Epic downtime. The clones are as bad as the new attractions.

The shows have lots and lots of moving parts and potential points of failure. Puppets, performers, costume changes, moving set pieces, rigging and lifts, screen tech integration, even the curtain can fault.

It's a new park and kinks are still being worked out. Show ops is nowhere near where internal projections were. There were some incredibly bold projections for how many shows Ministry could pull off in a day, utilizing the preshow and show space simultaneously. The current show runs at about 1/4th of that initial hope.

IMO given the show and stage they built, that was a ridiculous estimate to begin with and entirely unrealistic; but I think there was a lot of that kind of overestimating park-wide, which is why they're in this capacity rut in the first place.

 

[Clive]

The shows have lots and lots of moving parts and potential points of failure. Puppets, performers, costume changes, moving set pieces, rigging and lifts, screen tech integration, even the curtain can fault.

It's a new park and kinks are still being worked out. Show ops is nowhere near where internal projections were. There were some incredibly bold projections for how many shows Ministry could pull off in a day, utilizing the preshow and show space simultaneously. The current show runs at about 1/4th of that initial hope.

IMO given the show and stage they built, that was a ridiculous estimate to begin with and entirely unrealistic; but I think there was a lot of that kind of overestimating park-wide, which is why they're in this capacity rut in the first place.

I believe the director of the production lets slip the number of performances they originally intended to happen - something like 30 daily - in the first episode of the Epic Ride documentary. Obviously, they’re lucky to do 8-10.

My guess is this was meant to run continuously, hence the traditional queue setup.

 

[Mad Dog]

I believe the director of the production lets slip the number of performances they originally intended to happen - something like 30 daily - in the first episode of the Epic Ride documentary. Obviously, they’re lucky to do 8-10.

My guess is this was meant to run continuously, hence the traditional queue setup.

8 to 10 scheduled....but 2 to 5 that get skipped....so way way under projections....and Dragons was down so often we were only
able to catch one show over the two days. The one show we did catch, the dragon broke down on stage for the last 5 minutes
of the show. As we were leaving, about 20 people in suits rushed onto the stage, not just a couple. That amazed me more than
the show. All of this downtime, shows and attractions, have to be multiples beyond what was expected. Even the clones are having issues.
Something has gone wrong behind the scenes big time.

 

[Eckert]

8 to 10 scheduled....but 2 to 5 that get skipped....so way way under projections....and Dragons was down so often we were only
able to catch one show over the two days. The one show we did catch, the dragon broke down on stage for the last 5 minutes
of the show. As we were leaving, about 20 people in suits rushed onto the stage, not just a couple. That amazed me more than
the show. All of this downtime, shows and attractions, have to be multiples beyond what was expected. Even the clones are having issues.
Something has gone wrong behind the scenes big time.

Different work ethic in USA parks compared to Asian ones. You can see that in the difference between USJ Nintendo and Epic.

 

[Mad Dog]

Different work ethic in USA parks compared to Asian ones. You can see that in the difference between USJ Nintendo and Epic.

Good point....Might be something to that....Plus, perhaps the engineers and tech personnel at Epic
are just not good enough at what they do to handle this mess.

 

[Alicia]

My guess is this was meant to run continuously, hence the traditional queue setup.

T2:3D was able to pull it off back in the day. Always impressive when that ran continuously AND garnered a full queue of people in line.

 

[OLSinFLA]

T2:3D was able to pull it off back in the day. Always impressive when that ran continuously AND garnered a full queue of people in line.

reminds me of when I worked ad Disaster! We'd run shows every 10 minutes at peak and scrambled. I was shocked when they told me they used to do one every 8 minutes but the train couldn't take it. I can't imagine what doing 8s would be like having struggled with 10s

 

[Alicia]

reminds me of when I worked ad Disaster! We'd run shows every 10 minutes at peak and scrambled. I was shocked when they told me they used to do one every 8 minutes but the train couldn't take it. I can't imagine what doing 8s would be like having struggled with 10s

The mid nineties were an incredible time at USF

 

[Clive]

T2:3D was able to pull it off back in the day. Always impressive when that ran continuously AND garnered a full queue of people in line.

Yeah, I remember that. And I remember (at the time) being surprised when they quietly switched to set showtimes, like how Bourne has always operated. Evidently, demand waned, as I never had to wait at that point.

My guess is having the performers doing double duty as both dancers/barkers and puppeteers is really hard on their bodies, to the point where they simply can't do back-to-back shows without hiring significantly more people. Given Epic's capacity concerns, though, hiring more performers and getting Cirque to a "continuous" stage would be one of the most theoretically practical ways to give the park some relief before new attractions can be built. That, however, assumes the show tech itself stays reliable -- and it currently isn't.