Disney's FastPass: A Complicated History

Defunctland
11 HN recommenders · recommended in 6 months, 2021–2025
YouTube
27.3M views · 4 years ago · documentary · evergreen

A Defunctland documentary on the history of Disney's FastPass system and its successors, covering how Disney tried to manage lines in its parks. It also uses a statistical model to show how the modern versions work out for park guests.

HN people recommend it as a feature-length lesson in queueing theory and systems engineering that applies well beyond theme parks.

“a feature-length explanation of queueing theory and how ignoring it makes everything worse”
Service designSystems thinking & complexity
#fastpass#disney#queueingtheory#themeparks#defunctland#systems

13 comments from Hacker News

e
@eterm2024 · in “Ask HN: What's the best documentary you've watched this year?”
It was made a couple of years ago, but Defuncland's "Disney's FastPass: A complicated history" is an incredible documentary that I watched this year. You don't need to know too much about Disney for it to absorb you in. [Defunctland]: ▶ this video
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d
@dleeftink2025 · in “Dice and Queues”
You may have seen it already, but the queueing saga by Defunctland remains fascinating [0]. [0]: ▶ this video
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d
@duped2024 · in “Elevator Expert on How to Move 10k People Up a 118-Floor Skyscraper [video]”
> Concentrated harm and distributed benefit is a recipe to have a few vociferous complainers and many silent beneficiaries A fascinating example of this with queuing humans is the Disney Fastpass system (1). I think the real design goal to avoid "complainers" is to try and optimize the wait time for your resource to avoid a bimodal distribution and try and spread it out for the average rider, rather than make wait times worse for the majority of people but better for the people who game the system. (1) ▶ this video yes this is an 1:45 long video on the history and a simulation of Disney parks, but its worth the payoff.
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d
@dralley2022 · in “Disney's FastPass: A Complicated History (2021)”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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k
@kmeisthax2022 · in “DoorDash and pizza arbitrage (2020)”
People who do not understand the role of balking and price information act at their own peril. This economic backpressure is something that executives hate - it keeps line from going up - but people who actually do the work love, because it keeps workloads manageable. If you ever wanted a feature-length explanation of queueing theory and how ignoring it makes everything worse, well... here you go: ▶ this video . The context is Disney parks and Fastpass, but the lessons are applicable to basically any business. Everything is a queue.
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j
@jdmichal2022 · in “America’s favorite family outings are increasingly out of reach”
Uh, so... That's basically Disney World right now. You must reserve your visit to the park, and there's a paid system (Genie+) to compete for ride times without waiting in line. And there's a really good video someone did on the evolution and systems engineering behind the Genie+ / FastPass system: ▶ this video
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e
@ekhaliul2021 · in “Today’s Disneyland is a price gouge, not a magical experience”
After I took my kids day after thanksgiving for the first time last Friday, I was wondering why this problem simply exists. And how is it possible to pay such big amount of money for outdated experiences that we had. There is a nice analysis of everything that Disney tried as far as controlling lines: ▶ this video As a person that came from USSR, I see that many of the issues are created by removing money as a control mechanism of supply and demand. If you pay entrance fee and then remove fine tuning for each ride, the result is long lines. My personal opinion is that pay-per-ride is a much better model although I can see how many may disagree. From my childhood in a country where money did not have much meaning, I learned that all-you-can eat mode for a price of entry will be filled with schemes, long lines, and tricks to game the system.
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a
@alborzb2021 · in “Today’s Disneyland is a price gouge, not a magical experience”
For anyone interested in the Fast App discussion from this article, I highly recommend this video from Defunct Land -- ▶ this video The video not only does a deep dive into fast pass, but also does a statistical model break down to reveal that the modern implementation of fast pass is actually not what you might expect and serves to increase wait times for rides!
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K
@Krontab2021 · in “Disney's FastPass: A Complicated History”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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r
@rawgabbit2021 · in “Video: Disney's FastPass: A Complicated History”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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r
@robbiet4802021 · in “Disney’s FastPass: A Complicated History – Defunctland”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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J
@JoelEinbinder2024 · in “Queues don't fix overload (2014)”
Real life queues can be scary too. I think of how complicated Disney's fast pass system got ▶ this video Luckily with software it is way easier to get more servers than it is to build more theme park rides.
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