Marty Sklar, former head of Imagineering, announces retirement

[Tomorrowland_1967]

The future of WDI looks extremely grim.

What's going to happen in the next 10-20 years?

[disneyfan07]

This message is for Marty and his family and friends: Marty, this is mixed feelings: I congratulate you on your retirement, and I say on behalf of all the fans, friends, shareholders, cast members, etc that we all of course will miss you. your contributions to the Disney Company were vast, very important, and priceless. God bless you and take care.

to dusty I ask this: when is the retirement ceremony and where?

[Mr Wiggins]

Originally Posted by Tomorrowland_1967

The future of WDI looks extremely grim.

To me its next 10 years look no grimmer than its last 15.

Which is grim indeed.

[BlueSkyDriveBy]

Originally Posted by Mr Wiggins

To me its next 10 years look no grimmer than its last 15.

Which is grim indeed.

I feel the entire theme park industry is facing a grim future. Theme park vacations, especially of the Disney/Uni variety, are very expensive, and financially out of reach of most families. With the deepening recession and worsening unemployment, I don't expect theme park resorts to return to profitability for several more years. The discounts will surely continue just so P&R can break even.

While there are bright spots on the WDI horizon regarding future projects, I believe WDI will continue its inevitable march towards job shop status, with the shrinking of permanent staff in favor of a more fluid labor force of consultants. It's only a matter of time before WDI becomes the next Uni Creative, with just a handful of permanent workers supervising hundreds of project contractors.

[Uncle Bob]

Originally Posted by BlueSkyDriveBy

I feel the entire theme park industry is facing a grim future. Theme park vacations, especially of the Disney/Uni variety, are very expensive, and financially out of reach of most families. With the deepening recession and worsening unemployment, I don't expect theme park resorts to return to profitability for several more years. The discounts will surely continue just so P&R can break even.

While there are bright spots on the WDI horizon regarding future projects, I believe WDI will continue its inevitable march towards job shop status, with the shrinking of permanent staff in favor of a more fluid labor force of consultants. It's only a matter of time before WDI becomes the next Uni Creative, with just a handful of permanent workers supervising hundreds of project contractors.

Honestly, if they've laid off all the most tallented people as you said in your previous post, then this is what they've created for themselves. They are going to try to be cheap and cost themselves more for a lesser product. If this is their long term plans you can pretty much kiss the Disney Parks that we all know and love goodbye. Consultants always cost way more than you think and controling the quality will become impossible. Not to mention they'll likely hire a bunch of people who know nothing about theme park design to administrate the projects. (Who likely will be hiring former Imagineers to do all their work anyway, but then ignore the advice that they are paying millions of dollars for, and do whatever they want, despite the fact that they are completely clueless.)