The Surprising Way Disneyland Solves Its Two Biggest Problems

friends if you watch this channel you have heard me rattle off this term a thousand times but today I would like to break down exactly what this term means what exactly is creative problem solving and how has it taught Disney how to make their problems go away being a professional Problem Solver as a designer for nearly three decades this is something that I do all the time with work it was one of the first things that I noticed about Disneyland that made me instantly fall all in love with it I could detect that everywhere around me was nothing but beautiful perfect creative problem solving and as always on hey bricky let's start off with the easiest part of this concept to understand and we'll work our way up to the most difficult part of this concept but along the way you will learn the art of creative problem solving and how it's changed our beloved Disneyland forever so our easiest concept is to identify the problems in problem solving because everybody can clearly see what a problem is and Disney's biggest problem with Disneyland not enough Land one take away from Disneyland's opening is that you never end up having as much space as you need and the most convenient locations those are the ones that disappear the fastest and as we all know space is at an all-time premium inside of Anaheim which is a problem that they corrected big time when they created Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom out in Orlando but physical space is only one one of the main problems at Disneyland the other problem is you also me too but it's us we're the problem problem number two too popular Disneyland learned that they had to stay vigilant on how they use the land and how guests use the land they couldn't just go with how they intended for people to use Disneyland they had to actually pay attention to guest Trends and figure out what is the best way to take what we have and service Our Guest in the way that they interpret Disneyland once they get out there on their own cuz people were feral let's use Frontier land's original design to look at how Disneyland learned a lot about the art of capacity Disneyland quickly figured out that stage coaches and mule rides were not going to cut it as the popularity of Disneyland took off they needed to get away from these easy to build but low capacity attractions and think of a new way to rework frontierland where it could service the popularity that Disneyland was gaining month after month and that is the main two problems that need to be solved at Disneyland over and over again not enough land too many people so now that we have addressed the problem in Creative problem solving let's move over to the next concept creative and this is where Walt Disney imagineering comes into the process originally referred to as wed wed as in Walter Elias Disney and now known globally as wdi Walt Disney imagineering these are the folks who bring the creative into creative problem solving but they don't always get it right you see Walt Disney inspir them to create immersive environments which in park is referred to as a good show and we've all come to learn that Walt Disney imagineering better than anyone has figured out how to induce comedy storytelling Adventure into attraction that are transformations and an experience that takes us from inside of Disneyland to wherever they want to take us inside of our imaginations however there is another part of imagineering that is the solving part that happens at a park level they create it but the folks at Disneyland are the ones that solve it because sometimes they create unbelievable experiences however it doesn't necessarily mean that those will work in the real world everything can look so good on paper and and even pass the test in a controlled environment but the rubber hits the road when guests actually get into the park and experience these designs that's when everything becomes where it needs that last part of this the solving and creative problem solving and it's simply uh just a matter of everybody is working on the part that they do best imagineers Can Dream better than anybody but they are simply not operators inside of the park that's an entirely different skill set one that often gets overlooked if imagineering designs an attraction that creates a long weight time or a bottleneck that congests the park these little imperfections can diminish customer satisfaction and and have a negativity that clouds that experience that they were trying to originally create it takes a huge amount of collaboration between Walt Disney imagineering and the park operators to find that perfect balance of how their imaginative experience can work in the real world take Haunted Mansion for example the original idea from imagineering was to be a walkthr but management suggested that's not going to work we need to put a vehicle in there the park operators are the folks that figure out how to get guested through the experience in a way that makes sense not in the way that it makes sense at a drafting table but at the way that it makes sense in the real world here at the park when the guests come in and consume it Al natural and this is where the solving part of our equation comes in and it's really kind of the part that nobody looks at imagineering gets all the praise but it does take boots on the ground to actually figure out how to funnel all of us through a new attraction and how to keep plusy the park which is a big part of Walt Disney's philosophy that still holds true today just because we made an amazing adventure how can we plus it how can we make it more efficient for the guest experience because ultimately if it doesn't pass the test between you and I it's a complete failure and this test and adjust phase this is where all three components of creative problem solving all snapped together to figure out how to make the attraction a true success it's an ideation that comes from Walt Disney I have an entire video about it that I'll link below where you can see how Walt was determined to never give up always make the best product possible and how testing and just Embraces the whole notion that Disneyland will never be completed but now hopefully I have explained to you the creative problem solving as a philosophy but let's look at two amazing examples of creative problem solving that exists exclusively here at Disneyland showcasing how Disneyland has much different restraints than all the other Disney parks and how the solutions make it even better friends I interrupt today's video to thank you for helping me get to 40,000 subscribers on hey bricky it's been a grind and I don't mind all the hard work and it's good to see it pay off for so many more of you joining me on my adventure if you want to support the channel go to the link below and maybe pick up our Walt 1901 hoodie the perfect item to keep you cozy when you're ripping the theme parks now back to today's video thank you so much this concept of creative problem solving comes from Walt Disney himself as when fans got inside of Disneyland there were some things missing that Walt didn't want to put inside the park Walt wasn't crazy about thrill rides but the audience needed one you see by 1959 Disneyland had already began its adaptation and had added over a half a dozen smaller attractions they needed that big new thing that would excite people but also Disney needed something that would not only add capacity to the park Thrills to the park but also do a little bit of that sweet creative problem solving the thing that they needed was a mat horn you see before 1959 this plot a land behind me this was just a massive mound of dirt that was referred to as Holiday Hill it was just kind of a a park disguise around all of the dirt that have been excavated from Sleeping Beauty castle and some of the dirt from rivers of America so the idea was what can we put in this most valuable plot of land that will go on to be a Disney icon but solve some of our other problems at the same time put something in between fantasy land and tomorrow land that would create breathtaking views and not just be a mound of dirt but there was one major obstacle in putting something in this spot and that major obstacle this time around was Walt Disney who was very very resistant to the idea of thrill rides and to put it honestly he was being stubborn like us creatives can be you see early on Walt Disney was informed by other people in the amusement park industry but if he didn't have thrill rides his Park would not survive But as time went on Walt became more receptive to this idea as long as Disney could put their own stamp on a Thrill Ride and I think it's easy to see that Walt figured that putting a stamp on a Thrill Ride thing completely out brings us to another part of this whole process where do good ideas come from cuz every idea that you see comes from another piece of existing art Walt Disney Studios had just recently filmed Third Man On The Mountain at the base of the real matah horn giving Walt a lot of inspiration that uh we need to build one of these back home at Disneyland the idea of building a matorn back home in Anaheim became real but it also set up a lot of different problems that needed to be solved so the problem was Disney needed to use a space of sacred land and put something Monumental on the seam of fantasy land and tomorrow land the other problem was they needed to create something that would bring in a lot of capacity and something that would get people's attention to sort of reboot the park for its big second opening in 1959 but the creative challenge in here is to take all of these problems and Stitch them around an idea that could uniquely only ever be done at Disneyland it had to have Walt stamp on it it had to feel authentically original to Disney so Disney had the idea but this opened up a can of technical worms that they'd have to solve so the idea was to use tubular steel traditionally roller coasters had been done with wood framing and steel that could be bent in a pretty much like straight to slight curve track pupular steel would give Arrow development the ability to bend and curve not one but two different tracks inside the tight confines of a small Mountain but from an engineering standpoint the matal horn did so many things that no one had ever done before but it's one one example of creative problem solving here at Disneyland where they work countlessly to figure out what's the Disney difference what's the Disney way to make this problem simply go away when you're first in line the bad thing is is you have no one to follow now it's time to get into the solving and who was part of the solving back in 1959 well wal Disney allowing Walt Disney to expand his already impressive resume as a dreamer a doer and now a stunt man one of my favorite stories proving that Walt Disney was just a big kid and Disneyland was his playground Walt Disney wanted to be one of the very first people to test out the matorn which in the testing phase the breakes were a bail of hay at the end of the ride and that's after you went to the pool of water that's still there today I love how that story simply just illustrates how different 1959 was from today could you imagine a CE or a president or a top level creative being one of the first to go down a roller coaster inside of a mountain where your brakes were a huge bail of hay at the end and you complain how rough the mat horn is today on your sore back imagine what Walt Disney's first rip down the mountain was like oh man what I wouldn't give to be riding behind him life was just so cool before all the rules showed up but probably my favorite example of Disney problem solving is the nightly transformation of rivers of America into Fantasmic what a unbelievable feat in Creative problem solving let's break this one down now that you have an idea how this works let's start with our problem Disney needs another night time show and here's the creative solution let's design Fantasmic but where it gets extra magical is the solving on this one let's turn the rivers of America into an Amphitheater nightly they are having a great [Laughter] [Music] time that's awesome I mean it seems so obvious to us now because we've all seen it happen you know hundreds thousands of times or at least once or twice but think about the creative problem solving of what if we turn the island in into a stage what if we use the river as a distraction as we're setting up our big key moments on the stage and what if we use the shoreline to hide all of our projection equipment and what if we use the walkways of New Orleans Square in the edge of Frontier land as the stair stepping Amphitheater style solution for getting lots of guests in here every night twice to see a nighttime show the transformation of all of this into an Amphitheater is absolutely amazing if you go to Disney's Hollywood Studios and you see Fantasmic in captivity you have to keep in mind everything that has happened in that Amphitheater is organically happening here from the control center being up in a crow's nest in top of New Orleans Square to all day long guests walking over trap doors where all of the projection and sound equipment EX this it is the absolute best example of what makes Disneyland special and you know the riddle now not enough land and too many people so things like Fantasmic come into existence all based on that creative problem solving friends if you've never really thought about how magical the transformation to Fantasmic is when it comes back later this spring look around you and just think someone had to pitch this idea and and what makes Disney special is everyone was receptive to it and they let somebody build their wild idea because uh it is not easy nor cheap to make this transformation happen twice a night when the show's running the rivers of America transforming into Fantasmic and the matorn are two great examples of what makes Disneyland a truly unique theme park if you want to learn more about how matorn was designed watch this video right here where I go so into the details on how they constructed the first ever Thrill Ride and mountain in a Disney park Ricky here from the edge of rivers of America I appreciate you

Channel: Hey Brickey!

Views: 27,002

Keywords: disneyland, imagineering, brickey, disneyland construction, themed entertainment, disney vlogger, imagineering finishing technologies, disney imagineering, walt disney imagineering, imagineering walt disney, imagineer, imagineers, brickey disneyland, brickey talks disney, hey brickey, brickey disney, disneyland resort, disneyland park, disneyland expansion, disneyland secrets, disneyland california, disneyland secrets in the park, disneyland history

Id: 5PNZG1VwLXA

Length: 15min 39sec (939 seconds)

Published: Wed May 01 2024