Welcome to the E-Ticket Report! Chris Wakefield has retired his popular Wakefield Report podcast . . . but never fear, Chris has returned with two co-hosts, Tim Grassey and Derek Burgan! This new show is theme park dynamite. Enjoy. – Dusty
Spring has sprung in America (except for here in Indiana where the temperature continues to find its way below freezing), and that means it is time for fresh beginnings and some spring cleaning. It’s the time of year you buy new seeds to start your vegetable garden, the time of year you clean out all the dust and other assorted gross things in your keyboard. It’s also the time of year you decide to take your moderately successful theme park podcast and turn its theme upside down and hope you didn’t alienate and tick off all of your listeners.
As winter approached and I began to settle in my new home in Indianapolis, I discovered that after five years away from my childhood home, people, things, and events came flooding back to me. There were relatives to have awkward brunches with, art gallery openings to attend, Pacer games, nephew’s musical recitals, and more. On top of this add the fact that I decided to go back to college to get my MBA. Consider all of this in the life of a theme park nerd, and something is going to have to give. Unfortunately, it was that mildly successful theme park radio show, the Wakefield Report. I was simply too busy to commit to a quality weekly radio program, and I didn’t want to cheat my listeners out of good program because I was too busy living my life.
One day as I was mourning the loss of my show, I got a message from Tim Grassey. About six months back, I threw Tim an idea about being a co host on the Wakefield Report. Flattered and uninterested, Tim politely declined and told me the format of the show was best suited for a solo host. Back to six months later and my couch, here is a note from Tim asking if I was still interested in doing a radio show with him. Now that I have successfully buried Wakefield Report, like HHH has done to so many young wrestlers (look it up), Tim was now proposing the idea of a brand new show, with a new format. Without hesitating, I agreed.
On this new show, Tim and I would be joined by long time theme park pundit Derek Burgan. Derek is well known for his snark and wit in the online theme park community. Derek is abrasive, painfully honest, and committed to coming up with original ideas in an already crowded arena of podcasts, bloggers, and other know-it-alls. With our powers combined, we could put together a new theme park radio show that was fresh, informative, unafraid, honest, and somewhat entertaining. After many, many weeks of tossing around names for the show, we landed on E Ticket Report. I figured it would be a nice homage to the now defunct Wakefield Report; something long time fans of WR cold hold on to, to know that the show may be dead, but not forgotten. I fully expect the origins of the Report section of the name of this show to be forgotten by all by episode 3.
So that is where we are today. Two episodes in, and the show already has a loyal following. On the first two episodes we have discussed some of the latest happenings in the theme park community. Here is a quick rundown.
Episode 1: On the first episode we lay out the format of the show and do some quick introductions. We get right into talk about Disney World price increases, changes to the Magic Kingdom Hub, Tim sneaks in some MyMagic + talk (even though he wasn’t supposed to), possible monorail problems, the arrival of the new Festival of Fantasy parade, PUSHgate, the upcoming 24 hour event at Magic Kingdom, the death of Hyperspace Hoolpa, a sneak peek into Diagon Alley, and more!
Episode 2: On this edition of the E Ticket Report we talk about some possible glitches with the Festival of Fantasy parade already, is the Disney Parks Blog overhyping things at Disney and getting fans expectations too high, Frozen taking over the world, new Soarin footage being filmed in California, Tim finally digs into My Magic + with talk of a survey that was sent out by Disney, new updates on the Hogwarts Express and Diagon Alley, more Universal Studios talk, and more!
You can follow along with us on twitter @ ETicketReport and join the Facebook fan group. And if you really like what you hear, you can go to iTunes and leave us an awesome review and rating! Thanks for listening and enjoy the show!
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