Saw the festival of the lion king today at disneyworld.

[Elton John]

The acrobatics were amazing, the singers were very good, I was right next to the animatronic Simba and it was a lot of fun.

I also got a pic with rafiki today

[Stormy]

5 year bump!

Unfortunately, tonight the entire cast and crew of Festival of the Lion King were laid off, (https://twitter.com/wdwnt/status/1321247411180896257?s=21) one of the many casualties of the Disney parks layoffs that are over 28,000+ at this time, all of these taking place AFTER all their parks worldwide reopened besides 1. It’s complete greed, as the executives already restored their salaries to Pre covid amounts.

It’s so.. so sad as these performers are so talented and full of life. Some of them just thrown off even as they’ve been there since the beginning in 1998 when Disney’s Animal Kingdom first opened. There’s no word if this means the show is completely axed, as many other shows have been axed post covid, so it’s just a waiting game. I just hope if it does come back, that the CMs who lost their jobs are able to come back if they want to.

[Elton John]

what

i mean i understand that parks and movies are disneys real moneymakers and that they are now relying heavily on disney+ for revenue due to covid reducing park numbers at dw, theaters are practically a ghost town and disneyland is closed but...

this is the best damned live show at disneyworld. what the hell is going on?

[Stormy]

Don’t know. No show has returned at WDW resort besides some Frozen show at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Really weird considering how Festival always had the best ratings out of any show... would’ve thought they would bring it back first instead of giving it the axe. The specific park in general has been taking heavy hits, as not only did it lose Festival, but lost a ride, Finding Nemo show, as well as completely giving the axe to its nighttime show, which will now sit vacant for years to come. The cuts are big. Park now closes at 5PM on weekdays. 6PM on weekends most of the time. Even though they’ve been fairly busy even with their new guidelines.

[nathalie]

Things are extremely tough. Disneyland Resort has been closed since March, but in the meantime they have kept paying the CM's, for as long as they could.
Disneyland Paris was closed for 4-5 months, and is now closed again 3-4 months, and while open running on 25% capacity, only 1 or 2 hotels open during that time.
(I don't know much about the Asian parks, they are franchised or not fully owned by Disney, so they aren't getting "much" from that anyways).

As with any company, less money is coming in then the amount going out. Tough decisions need to be made to keep above.
This whole situation in 2020 is so extremely sad.

Thing is, since it's Disney, it's all over the news/internet, other companies are having to do the same, but isn't covered in the news/internet.

[Elton John]

I think what worries me more about the animal kingdom park, like zoos at this time, is how the real animals are faring.

They can always re hire the festival of the lion king cast members when things return to normal but what about the real animals?

[Stormy]

I’ve been to the parks a few times since reopening - done Disney’s Animal Kingdom twice in those times, once in August and once just yesterday. From what I can tell from a guest standpoint, not much has changed with the animals. There is no shortage - seems like the same amount and none of them look like they’re in bad shape.

Again though, this is from a guest standpoint. But did see keepers going into the habitats doing their normal stuff still.

[nathalie]

I think it maybe is more important (right now) to keep the animals welfare up and keeping on zookeepers to look after them.

A decision has to be made somewhere, I'm not saying that letting all those CM's go was a good thing.
If I were the boss there, I wouldn't know what to do or where to start

[Timon the great]

I saw a report last week that Disney is furloughing (not actually laying off) 32,000+ employees now. They have a "first option" clause for entertainment employees until the end of 2021 from what I was reading. So those employees can be brought back at least till then (or unless they refuse to come back).

I'm pretty sure DW has the ability to keep they're animals like in animal kingdom in good condition. Disney is a VERY well-established company and will be nearing its 100th Anniversary in just the next 3 years (which few companies can exist for that long on their own). And since something like animal kingdom has been around for a long time now, I'm sure they know how to hold the ropes for economic crises like this "pandemic" has created.

[MeerkatOnTheMoon]

This applies to any major company, really. New strategies are always needed in response to the global pandemic. Nathalie, Disney owns the parks in Asia (not wholly but Disney still has creative control), and having been to Tokyo Disneyland (and Disneysea) three times, the parks do make a lot of money. The market is huge over there, and their seasonal merchandises keep selling out within days of being launched, the latest being the new Beauty and Beast Fantasyland that has just opened a couple months back - there are plenty of orders as well from overseas Disney collectors. With what is going on in 2020 there are financial losses like you mentioned, which is sad. Hopefully the pandemic will end soon. In regards to the animals, I agree that animal welfare should be top priority. It is definitely important that they are properly taken care of.