Plugging Away

It’s Monday night at Disneyland in that lull between spring break and summer vacation.

Normally, guests would have the run of the place, but tonight they are packed elbow to eyeball to see the hot attraction.

Indiana Jones? Better get plugged in.

It’s the farewell run of the Main Street Electrical Parade, the venerable light show that will flicker to a finale come Oct. 15. In a year when other parks have bet the farm on megabucks attractions to lure the summer crowds, Disneyland is packing ‘em in to see its faithful workhorse plod its farewell trek down Main Street after 25 seasons. Among the enthusiastic viewers this night is Maria Rojas, who has come to watch the lights fantastic at the urging of her cousins in Santa Ana.

“They said it’s the last year so we had to come,” said Rojas, an animated young woman dressed for the occasion in a Disneyland sweatshirt. “We didn’t want to miss it.”

It’s a marketing coup worthy of P.T. Barnum that has industry watchers shaking their heads in admiration.

“It is brilliant,” said pun-loving Karen Yoshikawa, a retail consultant and former executive with Knott’s Berry Farm. “Disney has taken an old product and created a sense of urgency among the public to see it. . . . I’ll probably go myself.”

Oddly enough, Disneyland has never been all that good at goodbyes. Through the years the park has unceremoniously snuffed shopworn rides such as the People Mover in favor of fresh attractions. The current parade will be replaced in 1997 with an all-new nighttime spectacular that promises to upstage the Blue Fairy and friends.

This time, however, park officials have pulled out all the stops to send the Electrical Parade out with a bang, not the customary whimper.

“So many people loved this parade that we wanted to give them one last chance to see it,” Disneyland spokesman Tom Brocato explained. Not to mention that Disneyland is angling for one last chance to cash in on it.

The company has launched a barrage of billboard, radio and print ads aimed straight at the heartstrings of aging Disneyphiles, urging them to catch the parade one last time before it “glows away.” Disneyland is peddling parade-related merchandise inside the park, and courting the press with newfangled musical press kits and blinking, battery-operated baseball caps to generate enthusiasm for an attraction unveiled when Richard Nixon still occupied the White House.

Industry watchers point out that theme parks must keep reinventing themselves to attract the crowds. Opened in 1995, Disneyland’s Indiana Jones Adventure ride still has plenty of drawing power, but faces stiff competition heading into the critical summer season.

Universal Studios Hollywood is unleashing its prehistoric blockbuster Jurassic Park, while Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia is taking the wraps off Superman the Escape, billed as the tallest, fastest, most technically advanced roller coaster on the planet.

“Parks have to create that excitement every year,” said Steve Balgrosky, a Los Angeles-based theme park consultant. “Unfortunately, they don’t have $50 million or $100 million to spend every year.”

Which makes Disney’s early success at plugging the Electrical Parade all the more impressive, says Balgrosky. For little more than the cost of a few lightbulbs and a savvy marketing campaign, Disneyland has manufactured the farewell phenomenon practically out of thin air.

Disney officials “have to be chuckling to themselves, considering what competitors like Universal are spending this year” he said.

Indeed, Disneyland officials are positively glowing about early attendance figures at the park. Although Disney doesn’t make its turnstile figures public, more than 14 million people are estimated to have visited the Anaheim park in 1995, which Disney acknowledges was a record year.

Brocato said 1996 attendance is on pace to shatter last year’s mark, thanks to the general health of the economy, continued popularity of Indy and renewed interest in the Electrical Parade.

“It’s helping the overall effort,” Brocato said. “We have a lot of people returning to the park just to see the parade.”

Industry analysts credit Disney’s shrewd marketing for drawing the mobs back to Main Street for the grand finale, but they attribute the parade’s longevity to quality, not hype. Introduced in 1972 with half a million lights packed onto a dozen floats, the Main Street Electrical Parade set the standard by which all nighttime parades have been measured, according to Dennis Speigel, a theme park consultant in Cincinnati.

The parade has since grown to include more than 40 floats and has been viewed by an estimated 75 million people. It has become such an institution, in fact, that parts of it could be enshrined in another. Disney officials are negotiating with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington to develop a Disney exhibit that could include one of the parade floats.

“It’s one of the best attractions created in the history of our industry,” Speigel said. “No one has ever successfully copied it.”

Nor have competitors so thoroughly mastered the art of self-induced scarcity practiced by Disney to increase the perceived value of its products. Although Disney merchandise is ubiquitous and sold all over the globe, the company still manages to whip up periodic hysteria among fans with its limited edition collectibles and circumscribed releases of its films and videos.

Tustin theme park consultant Jim Benedick says Disney is simply applying that time-tested merchandising strategy to its Electrical Parade marketing.

“Limited editions are always popular,” Benedick said. “Disney knows that. Now they’ve got people rushing back to the park to take one last look.”

Although Universal and Magic Mountain have the power of brand-new attractions to lure patrons this summer, Yoshikawa says Disneyland could do just as well plugging nostalgia. She reckons that Jurassic Park and Superman will appeal mostly to thrill seekers and teens, while Disneyland is casting a wider net with its Electrical Parade.

“Grandparents, babies, teenagers--everybody loves a parade,” she said. “Disneyland is well-positioned to tap into that family market.”

Most of all, Disneyland is proving that sheer showmanship can sometimes accomplish what big capital budgets can’t, said Thor Degelmann, a Newport Beach theme park consultant.

“They have created an event, not a ride,” he said. “People don’t always want the biggest, fastest, most high-tech attraction. They want stories and tradition and emotion.

“Nobody does that better than Disney. . . . And all they had to do was change the lightbulbs.”

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Lights Out Before Long

Disneyland’s Main Street Electrical Parade stepped off in 1972 with 12 floats and half a million lights. After 24 years and more than 3,600 performances, the plug will be pulled in October and it will be replaced by another nighttime spectacle in 1997. Details on the parade’s debut and continuous evolution:

Then ...

Debut season: June 17-Sept. 9, 1972

Floats: 12

Length: 112 feet

Lights: 500,000

Performers: About 100

Originators: Disney entertainment experts Bob Jani and Jack Wagner, assisted by 20 designers and 60 craftsmen

Theme song: “Baroque Hoedown,” a 1967 synthesizer piece by Gershon Kingsley and Jean Jacques Perry. Disney melodies were superimposed using electronically combined calliope, harpsichord and glockenspiel sounds.

Performance breaks: 1975-1976 and 1983-1984

First additions: Floats depicting scenes from “Dumbo,” “Alice in Wonderland” and “Cinderella” with hundreds of dancers and a huge clock striking midnight added in 1973.

1977 additions: Blue fairy from “Pinocchio” waving a wand to signal start of parade; Elliot from “Pete’s Dragon” and Goofy in the Casey Jr. circus train from “Dumbo” pulling a colorful drum with Mickey and Minnie riding atop.

1980 addition: “To Honor America” a 108-foot red, white and blue tribute to America, which served as grand finale

1985 additions: Pleasure Island from “Pinocchio,” pirate ship from “Peter Pan” and diamond mine from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”

Retired floats: “It’s a Small World,” “Briny Deep,” in 1983 and “Birthday Cake,” in 1988

Floats: More than 40, some more than 23 feet high

Lights: About 750,000, but smaller

Farewell performance: Oct. 15, 1996

Performers: More than 100

Route: It’s a Small World in Fantasyland to Town Square on Main Street USA

Length: One-quarter mile

Duration: 30 minutes

Performance times: Varies nightly, but generally at 8:30 p.m. on evenings when the park closes at 9 p.m. (usually Monday through Thursday); 8:40 p.m. and 10:25 p.m. on evenings when the park is open longer (usually Friday through Sunday).

Behind the Electronic Pixie Dust

Floats: Wire-framed units equipped with lights, batteries, electric drive systems, radio receivers and audio speakers.

Power source: 680 batteries light the floats; an additional 50 light the 35 illuminated costumes.

On-board audio: Speakers on each float give each its own musical theme within melody of “Baroque Hoedown”

In-park audio: 73 fiber-optically linked speakers hidden in poles, building facades, planters and in the ground along the parade route

Show control: On second floor of Main Street Opera House. Technicians control sound and track parade’s progress with sensors and video monitors.

Source: Walt Disney Co.; Researched by JANICE L. JONES / Los Angeles Times