10 Ways to Avoid Chapter 11 in the Attractions Business

A whole long while ago, I wrote an article with my mentor and favorite octogenarian, Buzz Price, about the many failures of certain themed restaurants and attractions.  I looked it over and was very surprised to see that it still has relevance today for development of new attractions, something that will be happening soon enough.  Thus, here are 10 pitfalls to avoid when planning an attraction.

1. When planning, balance revenue generation in major categories: attractions, food service and merchandise.
2. Spend time computing capacity.  Indoor attractions are hard to justify because of constrained capacity.
3. Attractions are driven by opportune locations, preferably in the path of major attendance generators.  Stadium crowds at sporting events may not provide the required flow.
4. High front-end R&D costs incurred in anticipation of a fast rollout are a plague.
5. Study the market and understand the nuances of its preferences.  Pick your niches carefully and stick to them throughout planning and operation.  Don’t try to change consumer behavior.  The devil is in the details.
6. Keeps your eyes wide open and try to be objective about your pet project.  You may think you have invented the next internet, but your market may not.  On the other hand, be passionate about the project and its greatest cheerleader.  Keep a balance between your passion and market-driven objectivity.
7. Narrowly concepted attractions won’t find a broad-based market.  Along those lines, clear and concise branding is key.  Make sure your brand measure is clear to your customer.
8. Assure that you have a critical mass of attractions to generate visitor interest for the required length of stay.  Create enough capacity for your maximum design day on-site crowd.
9. Use realistic assumptions when looking to the future.  Respect comparative and competitive performance.  If you do better than projected, you can fix the problem (in most, but not all cases).
10. The attraction must start up fully formed.  Phase I needs to be a complete show. Undercapitalized projects have a high failure rate.  Create realistic models for development cost, revenue and expense.