As rivals embrace the metaverse, Disney is banking on its brick-and-mortar parks

When the theme park universe was turned on its head in 2020 due to covid-19, some wondered if the in-person entertainment segment of Disney might ever recover. Now, more than a year later, with vaccines widespread and cases on the downswing in the US, Disney’s parks are rebounding nicely, with revenue up nearly 400% (pdf) from a year ago. 

In fact, they’re doing so well the company raised entry prices this week from 3% to 8% across the board to account for the renewed activity. Also, a newly created “tier 6” one-day pass is now $164 for an adult, which covers the most popular visitor days of the year, such as holidays and weekends. The cadence of the new price announcements aren’t a shock to long-time Disney parks visitors, but since the parks already raised prices in February 2020, just before they were forced to shut down, the new pricing seems to reflect an aggressive outlook from Disney about the demand for in-person entertainment in the coming months.  

That bullish approach may accurately reflect a gradual shift in the US back to location-based entertainment, but it nevertheless flies in the face of the recent trend among entertainment and media companies toward metaverse strategies that focus on virtual, location-agnostic experiences. For example, Facebook’s growing VR enterprise, which just added the Resident Evil franchise to the menu, and Google, which is using augmented reality to enhance its search and maps products.

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