New Disneyland Hours Put Twist in Private Parties

Inconveniencing some corporate clients, Disneyland plans to stay open late Fridays this fall, forcing groups that book the park for private parties to share it with regular customers or take their revelries elsewhere.

The private parties, from 7 or 8 p.m. until 1 a.m., have been popular events in the theme park’s off-season, which begins after Labor Day. Typically, six to 10 groups a year book private parties, said spokesman Ray Gomez.

Disneyland extended its closing time on Fridays from 7 to 10 p.m. because “Friday night is an active night for people to go out and seek entertainment,” Gomez said. “And it’s a good night to come to Disneyland.”

The longer hours come late in a year of lower attendance at the Anaheim theme park. Disneyland has blamed the decline on El Nino rains early in the year, steaming summer weather and the Asian financial crisis. Park officials have not disclosed how much attendance has fallen.

The park irked some corporate clients in the 1980s by canceling Saturday night parties so it could stay open later for the public, said former Disneyland President Jack Lindquist.

This year, Disney tried to placate the private groups by offering an alternative. Groups can hold private parties Monday through Friday and can start earlier, typically at 6 p.m. But they must share the park with regular visitors, waiting until after 10 p.m. to take over some or all of the park exclusively.

Some longtime clients, including Southern California Gas Co., a customer since private parties began at the park in the 1960s, opted to go along with the new deal.

Others have opted out, like Odyssey Adventures Inc. of Santa Clarita, whose annual party had been known unofficially as Gay Night.

That in turn has prompted activists to promote Oct. 10 as Gay Day at Disneyland, modeled on the annual events at Disney World in Florida each June, when tens of thousands of gays and lesbians wearing red shirts visit the Disney theme parks.

Disney’s partially private party is unusual, said Bob Ochsner, a spokesman for rival Knott’s Berry Farm. Both parks traditionally have closed early on off-season Fridays to host private parties, and indeed have had many clients in common, including Boeing Co., the gas company and Bank of America.

Ochsner said Knott’s often hosts groups that mingle with the public, or lets large groups reserve the whole park at night, but hasn’t tried to mix the two concepts.

Universal Studios Hollywood also books “park buyouts” for groups of 4,000 and up any night outside the summer, Easter and Christmas seasons, and allows groups to mingle with regular customers during the day. But it has never tried to mix the two, said Madeline Kruzel, head of convention and event sales.

Lindquist, the former Disneyland president, said Disneyland’s first duty is to accommodate the public. “That’s your core business,” he said. As for the hybrid arrangement, he said, “It’s a little bit of trying to be everything to everybody.”

For longtime client Southern California Gas, Disney agreed to close the park earlier than the usual 10 p.m. on Oct. 16.

“They’ll close to the public at 8,” said Denise King, a spokeswoman for the utility. “Our employees will start getting there at 4 but they can stay until midnight.”

But the new arrangement seemed unworkable to Valerie Heekin, president of the company whose annual AIDS research fund-raiser was known as Gay Night. Heekin said Disneyland would have made the park available to her group exclusively only after 10 p.m. on Friday--too late to be workable.

She could have booked a night Monday through Thursday, with her group taking over after the 8 p.m. closing time. But she said on those nights it would have been impossible to achieve the 7,000 minimum visitors Disney demanded.

She also objected to Disney’s plan to usher the private party to a corner of Fantasyland from 8 to 9 p.m. while the regular visitors left the theme park.

“I just can’t imagine having 8,000 or 9,000 people being herded like a bunch of cattle over to Small World Plaza,” she said.

Odyssey is urging revelers from previous Disneyland parties to attend a Gay Night it sponsors annually at Knott’s. This year’s is on Nov. 13, and Heekin said that with Disneyland canceled she hopes to break the Knott’s Gay Night attendance record of 13,000, set in 1989. The event drew about 3,200 people last year, she said.