What United Airline's Strategic Shift Signals for Theme Parks & Tourism

Travel patterns are changing. United Airlines' latest earnings reveal a strategic pivot as they prepare for two economic scenarios in 2025, cutting domestic flight capacity by 4% while seeing surges in both premium and budget travelers.
Travel patterns are changing. United Airlines' latest earnings reveal a strategic pivot as they prepare for two economic scenarios in 2025, cutting domestic flight capacity by 4% while seeing surges in both premium and budget travelers – but not the middle market. This "barbell demand" mirrors what's happening across the attractions industry, where guests increasingly choose either high-end experiences or budget options. This week, we examine whether regional parks should prioritize local audiences as flight routes decline. Additionally, Merlin confirms its partnership with RWS Global as their entertainment partner – is outsourcing creative talent the new economic reality for operators navigating uncertain waters?
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Philip Hernandez (00:00.835)
from our studios this week in Los Angeles and Jeddah. This is Green Tag Theme Park in 30. I'm Philip. I'm joined as always by my wonderful co-host, Scott Swenson of Scott Swenson Creative Development on Green Tag. We break down the top theme park news each week and try and explain why it matters to professionals. And this week we're gonna talk about the United Airlines latest earnings and what it tells us about global travel. And as I mentioned, Scott is joining us from Saudi Arabia. Hello.
Scott (00:29.614)
was just going say, isn't it unusual that we're talking about global travel and we're on opposite sides of the globe to do that? That's really interesting. Before we get started, Philip, I'm sorry. I'm to do something personal here. And that's because I did a great three-day session. I'm here teaching sessions for the General Entertainment Authority for GIA. And I just finished a three-day session in Riyadh. And I had some.
I had an amazing class of young professionals who are joining the entertainment industry. I just wanted to, I'm hoping some of them are listening and will become regular listeners. But I just want to say how exciting it is to be in this industry in this country, because there are people who are actually shifting careers to change from, I had one student who was shifting from financial analysis into the world of entertainment and theme park and.
I had several people who will be working in Kadia when Six Flags opens. One of them was a tour guide, like the tour guide we had. It was not our tour guide, but like the tour guide we had when we got the tour. So I just want to take just a hot second to say hello to my friends in Riyadh, and thank you so much if you are watching. And if you're not, well, maybe you'll see this sometime in the future. But this is a very vibrant place.
for the theme park industry. so it's interesting that we're talking about the global impact at this time while I'm seeing a market that is definitely, although it's government supported, is definitely on the rise. And we'll see how the show unravels when we start to talk about what's happening elsewhere.
Philip Hernandez (02:06.743)
It's almost like I planned it that way, I don't know.
Scott (02:08.684)
You are so smart. You're so smart. See, this is why Philip does all the heavy lifting and I just show up and talk.
Philip Hernandez (02:14.627)
But we love listening to you talk. That's that's fine. You're the sex appeal. OK. OK, all right.
Scott (02:21.953)
we're in trouble. We are in trouble.
Philip Hernandez (02:27.011)
All right, so let's get to our first story. Our first story, of course, as I mentioned, is United and their recent earnings. United is rerouting amid economic uncertainty and the new direction offers valuable insight for the global tourism industry. In a rare move during its last earnings call, United offered two earning scenarios for 2025. Basically a steady economy and a recession. In the stable scenario, they're forecasting 11.5 to 13.5 per share.
but that drops to seven to nine per share in a recession scenario. United's approach is kind of setting expectations for investors. I think that's primarily why they did it, but it also reveals the carrier intends to see profit either way. And I think that's where this gets interesting is how, if they're gonna see profit in a stable or a recession, how are they able to do that? I think the answer is diversification, which is gonna allow them to ideally or hopefully make a profit despite softening US demand. So.
Management there, United, argued that the Carriers International Network, their premium upsell and their tech investments like Starlink and Upgraded Cabins give it a durable cost and revenue edge even as domestic demand cools down. And this is kind of backed up, you their Q1 2025 release backed that up because they had the best first quarter in five years. But despite all of that, United is still pulling four points of domestic capacity in Q3 to stay ahead of soft spots while pausing.
most of their up gauging. Up gauging is when they take old carriers and kind of like upgrade them into new gauging. So they're pausing up gauging and they're reducing their capacity domestically. in regards to the upgrades, management is blaming OEM production delays, which of course is still has to do with supply chains that we've been talking about for years. But in some US outbound leisure and premium travel carry momentum. So like
out that people leaving the US outbound travel and then premium travel is what's kind of carrying them to be able to still sustain some profitability. However, inbound visitor numbers and domestic trips are wobbly. So that's the big view. We can go through each point and kind of talk about what it means for our industry and extrapolate that. There's also some very interesting travel trends when you look at how
Philip Hernandez (04:47.607)
their numbers are evolving and where they're cutting and removing lines, which we can talk about after this. first, I think domestic slowdown, I mean, that's the biggest thing, right? It's 4 % domestic capacity they're reducing from Q23, Q3 onward. So I think the question here is, should regional parks brace for that softer resettation or, know, because essentially that's trips around the US, right?
Scott (05:12.684)
Well, and here's the thing that I think is interesting to me, because I mean, talk about how can they show a profit, whether it's a strong market or a recession. Well, it's because it's an airline. Airlines can change quickly. They can reroute, they can cancel flights. Trust me, I've been on several. They can cancel flights, they can reroute flights, they can change itineraries, really at a moment's notice.
Philip Hernandez (05:35.031)
Yeah.
Scott (05:42.7)
This is one of the things that has been very, common in some of the smaller airlines, things like, sorry, the more budget friendly airlines, things like Allegiant, things like Spirit. I mean, I have one client where I have to take Allegiant simply because it's the only direct flight I can get from Tampa to their airport. And...
both times I've traveled, the last two times I've traveled, the flight has been canceled and rescheduled and I had to change my plans and did-da-da-da. So basically what they're doing is when they don't have a full flight, they cancel it. The same is true here. And I'm not saying that's exactly what United is planning on doing, but they certainly can readjust their schedule quickly. And they're very fluid. They're very fluid.
Philip Hernandez (06:22.573)
Well, yeah, I think between both, I think to your point, they're, again, I mean, they're never going to admit, you know, on a call that they're going to, you be canceling whatever cancel rates or delay rates. But they are actually think again, they're setting expectations, I think, for the consumers and for the stockholders by saying, look, we're reducing our domestic capacity. That means that they're like, telling you ahead of time, we're going to be reducing the amount of flights that we're doing in the US due to softening demand or whatever. But to your point, that means that, again,
especially for regional parks, think, or regional locations, this impacts more because there's always going to be a flight to Orlando and Vegas and Los Angeles, but there's going to be less of those regional ones. know, again, airlines fight over regional routes. And if they're trimming regional routes, that means it's going to be harder to get around. And then it's going to also be harder to put it back up. Like, basically they're retooling. They're they're saying we're doing less domestic travel and we're going to shift.
Scott (06:59.042)
Hmm? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Philip Hernandez (07:20.045)
to more outbound US travel because US people wanna go outbound. It's like people want to leave the US and vacation elsewhere if they can afford it and those are the people that can go. It's the ones that are less affected by any economic downturn. So higher income brackets, they wanna go to Europe or they wanna go to Latin America, they wanna go to Asia and then they have World Expo Asia. they, people wanna leave here and do less domestic travel. So I think they're already saying that they're just shifting.
all of their trips. But that is again, going to have trickle down effects for the regional attractions that kind of rely on that.
Scott (07:55.97)
Right. And the very first thing I would suggest for those regional attractions is kind of what Busch Gardens did years and years ago. And that is make sure that you do have a strong local base. And one of the things that you can do for that particular to to to elevate that particular market is something that Philip and I are both very, very passionate about is continue to do seasonal events, continue to do multiple reasons for locals to visit your park. So it's not just, we'll go to to fun park world once this summer.
or we'll go four times in the year because we've got four different reasons to go. So the very first thing I would say is really shore up, it's again, it's just like 9-11, shore up your locals, shore up your local market so that when your, even your domestic but still tourist market starts to drop off, you'll still be strong enough to keep your parks going. One of the things that is happening just in general is
The parks don't know what to do right now, and they're holding off on making decisions to change. The only one is really moving forward is universal. And I think that's because they've already pulled the trigger and they can't catch the bullet again. So, but the, the, the smaller parks, the, the parks with not quite so deep pockets have great ideas. And I know that because I've got quite a few RFPs out there that are just sort of dangling and hanging because they're not quite sure they're comfortable to move forward with them.
Philip Hernandez (09:23.767)
Yep. Yep.
Scott (09:24.43)
And I think this is exactly the reason why, or one of the reasons, one of the contributing factors. Yes, the economy is probably a larger factor, but tourism is air travel to get there. You can build the greatest thing in the world, and if people can't get there to see it, you can't earn your money back. So build up that local, even your past member base.
Philip Hernandez (09:38.903)
Right. Well, yeah.
Scott (09:47.338)
build up as much of that local market as you possibly can and give your locals multiple reasons to visit your park so it's not just I'm going to go once this year make it that I give them reasons to go multiple times.
Philip Hernandez (10:01.047)
Going off exactly what you said about the locals, I think we talked about that last time when we talked about diversification. And essentially, if you're looking at softening demand at all, you need to look at more appealing to your locals. And on exactly what you just said about that, there's more in here that we can take away as well. It's the whole barbell demand they mentioned in the earnings call. So.
the premium cabin revenue was up 9%, but basic economy was also up 7%, meaning that there's like a barbell, right? So like, essentially it's like, there's an increase in the cheapest ticket, the like basic, basic, you know, economy. There's also though an increase in people wanting to fly premium. So we have this barbell effect happening. I think that's exactly also something that you could take and extrapolate into serving local people. There's going to be, again, the family, what you talked about with Disney.
good, better, best. There's gonna be the family that just needs the fries and chicken nuggets because they don't wanna pay a higher price and their kids don't care. And then there's gonna be, again, the premium or adult only or whatever stuff that you've mentioned over the years that falls into that camp. And I think looking at your offerings as well and making sure that you're hitting the good, better, best or the barbell model would also be good for this.
Scott (11:17.934)
Yeah, and that actually makes total sense because in an uncertain economy or even a waning economy, it's not going to impact the premium. They're still going to go for the premium experience. What's going to happen is the lower end is going to not do the mid-range because that is extravagant for them. So what they will do is they will do the lowest possible pricing for food or whatever.
Philip Hernandez (11:37.463)
Yep, exactly.
Scott (11:47.098)
And it's one of those things actually, the session that I taught in Riyadh was all about customer experience and customer service. And one of the things we talked about was offering multiple levels of experiences. They wanted to talk a lot about VIP experiences, which is huge here in the Saudi market. And so I made it very clear that you have to have a multi-tiered.
experience or offer make multi-tiered offerings. And I think this is a perfect example of why that will work and how that will benefit parks if they're not getting the the tourism, the tourism, even the domestic tourism. And look at those things. If international tourism is up, make certain that you're doing things that international tourists understand. You know, one of the things that if you don't travel much out of the country, especially if you don't travel to countries where the written language is different,
Philip Hernandez (12:24.983)
Yep.
Scott (12:41.602)
There are times where I, and I'm not dumb and I'm not, I don't try to be forceful about it, but there are times that I just simply don't understand what's going on. So make certain that if you want to capture that international market, that you make the international guests feel welcome and things that they can understand. And I'm not saying you have to translate everything into every single language that you can think of, but even down to your signage, even down to your menus,
make sure that they are as visual as possible. And most parks do that anyway, but I just want to make sure that if we're going to get, if incoming international tourism is on the rise, make certain.
Philip Hernandez (13:18.455)
It's not, just to clarify, it's the other way. It's outbound. Yeah. Yeah. But, but that would be for, if people were, I think your point still holds true for anybody that works in, you know, a multinational brand. mean, look at every time I go to Disney, that's what, so my, you know, my friends are always like, I have one friend is, you know, I'm looking to go to Iapa Asia coming up here in June. And, and of course I'm going to go to Disney because
Scott (13:21.718)
sorry, you're right. You're right. You're right. sorry. I misspoke.
Scott (13:35.117)
Yes.
Philip Hernandez (13:46.723)
haha, it's Philip, I'm gonna go to Disney when I'm in China. And of course my friends like, well, how are you gonna pay for anything without a WeChat wallet and how are you gonna navigate it and all this stuff? And I'm like, look, it's Disney. And even in the middle of Shanghai, I've been there before and it's the easiest place to traverse and everybody, if they can't speak English, Disney gives them little translation devices that they know how to use. I mean, like they have made it so that you can seamlessly get into Shanghai Disneyland and you can.
Scott (13:47.278)
Thank
Philip Hernandez (14:15.061)
experience and pay for everything. you know, it's actually more navigatable than the city itself, or even in many ways, the airport. And I think that's what you're saying is that Disney is like, look, we want to make sure we can wear open to any it doesn't have to be Americans, but any Europeans who speak English or any other country that speaks English, and can come in and enjoy the park.
Scott (14:37.05)
Yeah, you're absolutely right. I misspoke about the incoming transit. Sorry, I'm still on an eight hour difference and my brain hasn't caught up. But the same is true, as you say, the same is true for our international listeners. Make sure that you are as welcoming or as prepared to be as welcoming as possible to people who may not speak the language because that international tourism can benefit you coming from the US and especially the high end.
Philip Hernandez (15:05.219)
Well, and especially we talked about this last week as well when we talked about, I don't know when we talked about it, but at some point, you when we talked about the parks and we talked about Universal UK and all that, and this is again backing up that because what you're seeing is an increase in demand to leave the US and go other places, right? And so again, it's backing up why Universal is moving into that market because you're seeing people want to vacation more into these markets. And then to your point,
those markets are going to have to be able to deal with that. And we didn't, we didn't, didn't put this story in the show notes, but it, Hong Kong this week, it gave a conference and they went out actually to like, Hong Kong went out, Hong Kong Disneyland went to Singapore and they gave a conference about their, their 20th anniversary. And the whole pitch was how they are welcoming to everybody, people from all countries and from all languages and just really encouraging people from all the neighboring countries.
to visit and the Hong Kong travel authority talked about how half the world's population lived within a few hours plane of Hong Kong Disneyland and how they were really trying to make sure that just exactly what you just said, like we're gonna be able to multiple languages and make it seamless for people to arrive and to enjoy Disneyland in Hong Kong. And again, I think when people are reading the tea leaves here, they're like, well,
Scott (16:27.704)
Hmm.
Philip Hernandez (16:33.123)
people are fleeing the US effectively, they don't want to vacation as much in the US and they're going to vacation other places. They can account for that and start to prepare for that demand. But also,
Scott (16:42.828)
And, you know, and American tourists are probably the most difficult to prepare for because again, the U.S. being so large, many people are not used to traveling outside of the country. And when they do and they have to do things and they have to understand things differently, it is difficult for them. They get frustrated. And so it's...
Philip Hernandez (16:48.225)
Yep.
Philip Hernandez (16:56.567)
Yep. Yep.
Scott (17:06.574)
It's a situation where it's a great opportunity. If you can be the park, if you can be the international park outside of the US, especially if you're in a non-English speaking country and especially if you're in a country where, once again, it is not the same alphabet. It is amazing the difference. People here, you know, people here in Saudi, for example, the vast majority, almost everyone speaks enough English to communicate. All of the signage is done in both languages in Riyadh, but here in Jeddah, I would say maybe 50 % of the signage.
is in both languages. So it is a bit more difficult to make simple decisions when you're not exactly certain what's being offered. So if you can make sure that those people coming to your park can understand what you're offering, you'll sell more.
Philip Hernandez (17:56.215)
Well, the two other takeaways here that might be kind of parallel what we've been struggling with, the up gauging, which I talked about. So in 2025, they had planned on receiving 100 deliveries to up gauge there. that again, that means receiving like new plane bodies so they can upgrade flights on them. So that's been cut from 100 to 71 jets just because of hardware delays. And I think that again, is a parallel that we're seeing in the
attractions space, which we've talked about now. So before we started the show years back, we were talking about supply chain delays and those issues. And now it's more like tariff delays. And so what we're seeing even recently, this past few weeks is that people are just not importing because they're unsure about the tariff and bringing stuff in. So people are just leaving, not shipping or I don't know.
Our importer at Gantem has verified this, all the clients they work with are just leaving their stuff somewhere, whatever dock it's at. They're not even bothering to bring it to the US. And what does that do? If stuff isn't coming to the US, that means that there's less supply, which means that the prices generally go up. That also means that if there's less supply, then you're not able necessarily to get them as fast. so that's gonna, again, same thing with the airline, but you're seeing here, you see it in real time, like going from 100 to 71.
That's a lot. And if you can then trickle that down to the theme park space, maybe you're not going to be able to get enough steel or get enough parts to get this done in time or do that, which goes back to what you said, because something that we can control is the seasonal events, because we can staff them from people that live in the country.
Scott (19:45.048)
Yep. Yep.
Philip Hernandez (19:48.507)
also let's see, the tech thing here. That was also interesting. So they, you United has been talking about how they are expecting star link to roll out and 85 % of digital check-ins, cited as loyalty drivers. So essentially they're pointing at those two trends. So one is that they're trying to bring star link to most of their fleet for free to add the free wifi. And second, that most of the 85 % of their check-ins are loyalty drivers. So that is.
Another trend also we've seen, right? You the whole idea of connectivity. And when we talked about that with Freddie gave his talk at the Ioppa Expo about the line, you know, between offering connectivity at your park and not wanting them to be too distracted. But of course here at Disney, you have to do everything on your app, you know, at Disneyland and, and, but, you know, then the loyalty driver as well. I mean, look at the, you know, season pass holders and that kind of thing.
and how important those programs are. So I think there's also some learnings there, you trying to figure out your line for your connectivity at your park, but then also remembering to acknowledge and reward your reward program members.
Scott (21:00.494)
Yeah, anytime you can make the guest experience simpler for your target audience, and that's the important thing, simpler for your target audience, it's gonna be a win-win scenario.
Philip Hernandez (21:06.552)
dealy.
Philip Hernandez (21:15.533)
So looking at the kind of reading the tea leaves here for the overall travel, we look at domestic deceleration but not collapsing. I that's important is that households below the top quartile are pulling back and airlines are seeing weaker off peak yields and are trimming their flights, which we talked about that, but also understanding the international stuff. So high income US residents are driving record demand to Europe and Asia Pacific specifically.
And meanwhile, inbound foreign traffic is sputtering. So they're really trying to chase the money outbound. So you might see like, you know, increased prices on the, you know, tight seating and increased prices on the outbound stuff, but then potentially some deals coming in, but the demand isn't there for that. then domestic deceleration, but not collapse. still there. Interesting. do, they, they did cite an increase in interest to Latin America, which they're
I guess, extrapolating to be that traffic there is heavy for sun seekers and people that are less dollar sensitive than long haul Europe trips because it's closer, right? So, and in some cases it could be cheaper than, you know, going to, I even did, when I priced out that trip to Mexico City for IAPA, was cheaper actually than going to Orlando from where I'm at. So I think you're going to see that, which could be a theme that some people could work into it, but.
I think overall the bottom line for all this is that within the US the growth is cooling but it's not dead and outside the US travelers remain eager to roam while foreigners are visiting America less. So this is the big trends and all that. So yeah, that it.
Scott (22:55.95)
Sounds like we've covered it.
Philip Hernandez (22:58.645)
Okay, we need to get to this also this next story because I know that everybody will. So we finally heard this week. So United just showed how airlines can pivot capacity to hedge a downturn, which we just talked about. But remember back in February, we did an episode, I think it was February 2nd or 9th in that range where we wondered who was going to step in to build a talent void that.
after Merlin had laid off hundreds of performers. And we did the episode where we talked about how Merlin had laid off over 200 in Florida and then over a hundred in California. And then they were looking at cutting all over the world and were like, if they're gonna call this talent but they're still gonna maintain their live shows, which they said they were gonna do, how are they gonna do it? And back then we said, probably the only person that could do that is RWS. And this week they confirmed that yes, RWS is gonna do that.
Merlin just crowned RWS Global, its preferred entertainment partner, which is what they're calling it, for six flagship resorts, promising 100 plus new shows in 2025. And according to the press release, the partnership will complement Merlin's core in-house entertainment offering, allowing the resorts to scale up to deliver brand and guest experiences throughout the year, including during seasonal special events. RWS Global is developing more than 100 experiences.
at these Merlin Resorts in 2025 alone, building up on beloved shows with exciting new entertainment offerings for all to enjoy and experience. Guests can expect new, innovative productions, immersive storytelling, and exciting new shows all designed to bring even more magic to the guest experience. But is it really gonna be magic? Is this, is this, is this really gonna save money like they had alleged it was going to do?
or is this just kind of papering over it? I think the only argument you could make for this is that Merlin is outsourcing this expertise in order to reorient their team and focus on what they think they do well, which I guess is like, IP or running hotels or doing stuff that isn't entertainment and so they're trying to outsource it, but I don't know.
Scott (25:17.432)
So their internal entertainment team has been going through some pretty radical and major shifts as well. mean, what's getting the big news is RWS. And congratulations to RWS for getting this. Like I said, we said it before, they're the only company that's really large enough to be able to handle it. so it'll be very good for them. And again, full transparency, I have done work for RWS in the past.
I still continue to work with a lot of my colleagues and friends are RWS employees. So, but I, know, they're also restructuring the people that are internal. They're also shifting them around, moving them into higher positions, moving them into different positions, more global positions. It's a little bit of, and this is going to sound negative, but I don't mean it to, it's a little bit of a homogenization.
or a standardization across the board, which will result in some financial gain or some financial savings, maybe not gain, but savings. you heard me say many, many times, whenever any organization chooses to outsource in this regard, is a usually,
Based on my experience, it has been a temporary scenario where they will outsource for a while. They will do, you know, a few years later, the pendulum will swing back. They'll take everything back in house because they're like, why are we spending all this money out here when we could take it all inside? But I think that at this moment, I think it is Merlin saying, gosh, you know, Universal's exploding all over the, all over the world right now. And coming into, you know, the UK backyard and, and,
Gosh, what are we going to do to help offset some of our costs so that we can still remain competitive and yet still keep the product up? I think RWS, like I said, I think RWS is the only company, the only external entertainment provider that I know of that could actually handle something of this magnitude. Now, it savings on paper or is it savings in reality that I don't know? Does it mean that we're going to see the same five shows at all?
Scott (27:39.412)
know, a hundred new shows, but is that the same five shows in 20 different locations? That I don't know. But again, if that is the kind of standardization that's going to create savings for the park, you can't really fault that. You know, it's because let's be honest, there are very few people who are going to go to every single Lego Land Park in the world.
Philip Hernandez (27:43.807)
Exactly, exactly, exactly.
Philip Hernandez (28:01.933)
Correct. Correct. You know, well, that's kind what I was thinking. It's like, you could argue that basically, I mean, basically if they're like, we don't have the capacity to do this, which is what we talked about last time. But if, if, if Merlin is like, we don't have the capacity to do this and we need to focus on, you know, figuring out a way to remain competitive when we have all this stuff coming in. but they know that cutting live entertainment would upset people. So that could be.
In that case, it could be a good idea where if you know you can't do it on your if you know if basically if you know you can't do it, and you know that you need to take the team you do have and put them on other projects like figuring out new IP stuff or figuring out like figuring out other strategic elements, and they can't worry about this, then in that vein, it would make sense to just offshore it. And like you said, no one's gonna go all the park. So they say 100 new shows, but like, that's
I don't think that's actually possible. That might be like a, that could be like semantics.
Scott (29:03.48)
But once again, a hundred new shows, but they can be the same script in 20 parks. And those are still the same script in 20 parks. That's, that's 20 new shows in essence. And the other thing too is if these scripts, and I think I'm guessing again, I don't have any insider information, but I'm guessing that RWS is smart enough because they've done this kind of, well, they've done this with other intellectual properties.
Philip Hernandez (29:08.173)
Yep. Yep.
Scott (29:32.962)
where they will install the same intellectual property in multiple locations or in multiple ways. And I think they're smart enough to recognize they do need to have a little bit of wiggle room so that it can be tweaked or polished for each different location. But it's still the same core script or the same core concept idea.
Philip Hernandez (29:36.791)
Yep.
Scott (29:55.19)
And that saves a huge amount of money. You know, I just recently did a project, as I've talked about on the show, for SeaWorld, where I wrote the Sea Lion and Otter presentation for the three US parks. And in writing and directing it, we had to do a lot of customization because with animal shows, you have different animals in each park, you have different animals that can do different behaviors in each park. But we still did the same basic...
script, same basic concept, but it is still a very unique experience in each of the three parks because they've got different animals, they've got different trainer strengths and weaknesses, they've got different theaters, they've got different technical aspects that are part of those theaters. you know, like I said, think think RWS is the right the right company for the job. Is it going to be really 100 brand new shows? I doubt that they're going to be 100.
unique individual shows, but they will be brand new for the parks and for the locations. So kudos to them and I'm hoping that they can make it all work and keep Merlin in its strength position or the position it currently has within the entertainment industry. I hope.
Philip Hernandez (31:04.845)
Hmm. Yeah. I, I, I, yeah. And we got to go, but I just also worry about the work, the labor optics, which we talked about in the last episode, but essentially it, went from having these as, you know, team members, and then you are basically firing all of them and then trying to rehire them all back as gig workers minus benefits under a different company. And like we talked about last time that.
that creates a friction and a bad will and effectively the only performers you're gonna get back are the ones you don't want because the good performers went somewhere else.
Scott (31:39.114)
That's not always true. That's not always true because I've been through this experiment and we will dig into this deeper in Unhinged because I really want to talk about this. So we'll talk about this in Unhinged, which by the way is our Patreon supported paywall where we throw all the gloves off and Philip and I fight and scream and swear and say all kinds of nasty things.
But that's not this show because this show's over. Guys, thank you again so much for joining us this week for Green Tank Theme Park in 30. My name is Scott Swenson, and as always, my wonderful co-host is Mr. Philip Hernandez. We'll see you all next week.
Philip Hernandez (32:04.184)
Thank

Scott Swenson, ICAE
For over 30 years, Scott Swenson has been bringing stories to life as a writer, director, producer, and performer. His work in theme parks, consumer events, live theatre, and television has given him a broad spectrum of experiences. In 2014, after 21 years with SeaWorld Parks and Entertainment, Scott formed Scott Swenson Creative Development. Since then he has been providing impactful experiences for clients around the world. Whether he is installing shows on cruise ships or creating seasonal festivals for theme parks, writing educational presentations for zoos and museums or training the next generation of attractions professionals, Scott is always finding new ways to tell stories that engage, educate and entertain.

Philip Hernandez, ICAE
CEO of Gantom, Publisher of Haunted Attraction Network
Philip is a journalist reporting on the Haunted House Industry, Horror events, Theme Parks, and Halloween. He is also the CEO of Gantom Lighting and Founder / Publisher of the Haunted Attraction Network, the haunted attraction industry's most prominent news media source. He is based in Los Angeles.