3. Intellectual Property boom

Image: Disney 

Quick: What’s the highest grossing film of all time? Anyone? That’s right – it’s James Cameron’s Avatar, which Disney has announced plans to bring to Animal Kingdom in the form of a themed land. The Avengers is third on that list, and Disney currently owns Marvel. Frozen, a film created and distributed entirely by Disney, is fifth. Adjusting for inflation, Star Wars: A New Hope comes in at third all-time as well – thankfully for Disney, since it bought Lucasfilm just last year.

Of course, Universal’s not out of the fight either – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 2 is fourth all-time. Even Transformers and Jurassic Park, both with a strong presence at Universal Orlando, made the top 15 as well.

The point is that there’s a ton of intellectual property out there. The Walt Disney Company may not have been building tons and tons of theme park rides over the past 10 years (not in America, at least), but what they have been doing is amassing property that can be used to create those theme park rides.

On the other hand, Universal’s agreement with J.K. Rowling to quickly bring Harry Potter to their parks was a stroke of genius. While Disney has long been successful at creating attractions untied to existing IP (Space Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, etc), those attractions don’t have the same immediate resonance as something tied to a beloved franchise.

And we’re about to see the ultimate test of that theory, as all signs point to a massive announcement from Disney about the future of Star Wars in its parks. And, naturally, Universal has already begun surveying guests about its next big media acquisition.

The future of theme parks is, according to these two companies, in leveraging existing properties into themed experiences. Thankfully, there’s so much intellectual property out there, Disney and Universal will have an awful lot to fight over for years to come.

Of course, once you have the property, you still have to develop it. Thankfully, there’s tons and tons of …

4. New technology

MagicBandsDisney's new RFID wristbands are pushing the envelope for theme park technology.

The last Orlando theme park boom came at the dawn of the internet era. When Islands of Adventure opened in 1999, Google was less than one year old, Mark Zuckerberg was 15, and the iPod was still two years away from launch.

Obviously, some things have changed since then, but the Orlando parks have remained much the same.

Not for long.

Let’s look just at My Disney Experience and Fastpass +, because those programs are going to completely revolutionize themed attractions. Seriously.

One of the rumors we’ve heard is that, eventually, Disney’s MagicBands will be able to be scanned by character attendants in order to create a more personalized experience for the guests. For example, a young child meeting Cinderella for the first time might be surprised when the princess calls her by her first name and asks about her pet dog.

But let your imagination run with that idea, and it’s impossible not to see it showing up elsewhere. Imagine an updated end to Spaceship Earth based on actual information about you gleaned from your MagicBand. Or imagine an attraction that seats all guests individually, and uses MagicBands to keep those individual seats grouped together by family. That’s just scratching the surface of what these things can do.

Meanwhile, look at what Universal has uncovered for its two Harry Potter attractions: one is a moving robot arm that truly created a thrilling dark ride of the future, and the other is a roller-coaster hybrid completely redefining an entire ride genre.

There’s so much information available, and so many creative people involved, that the next generation of attractions will be able to do amazing things and make them feel just as personal and intimate as these parks have made them for years.

And so, when thinking about where we are, it’s hard not to feel optimistic about the future of the Orlando theme parks. We’re living in a time of unparalleled technological progress, filled with iconoclastic artists, aggressive businesspeople and a growing economy. Ultimately, what these companies are doing is fighting over you – the consumer. And when businesses go to war with one another, the winner is always us, for what we get in return is great value, creativity, and innovation.

And, hopefully, a Star Wars theme park.