Disneyland popcorn buckets8/21/2023 ![]() Several EBay sellers listing the Figment popcorn bucket at double or triple the original price did not respond to email requests from The Times.Ĭisco, the fan who stood in the six-hour line, is no stranger to long queues. Ardent fans say they try to avoid the resellers, but if they spot memorabilia they can’t live without, they will pay the markup. The resale of Disney merchandise is such a big market that EBay has an entire category on its website dubbed “Disneyana.” It lists more than 1.3 million items, including paintings, pins and Walt Disney autographs selling for as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars. “That gets Disney a lot more publicity and a lot more buzz.” “It’s better to underproduce for this niche group and get the publicity value of all of these fans really paying top dollar,” he said. Disney also spreads the offerings across several locations within the park to minimize the hours-long queues.ĭisney probably spends a great deal of time and research to determine what new items will resonate with fans, said John Gerner, a theme park consultant and managing director of Leisure Business Advisors.įlooding the market with Disney merchandise might generate big revenue in the short run, but Gerner said Disney makes the smarter move of offering limited-time items on a regular basis, which keeps fans coming back for more. Most special merchandise is sold in the park to encourage return visits by fans, she said. “We believe that our products connect guests to stories and characters they want to remember with tangible memories and a sense of nostalgia,” Disney spokesperson Liz Jaeger said. The video has been “liked” by nearly 80,000 viewers. 6, a person wearing Mickey ears sings teasingly, “I know something you don’t, I know something you will never know,” while gesturing toward a picture of the Figment popcorn bucket in the backdrop. In the TikTok video posted by Disney Parks on Jan. Merchandise releases have become bigger - and more effective - productions in recent years thanks to social media, through which the theme parks or Disney influencers with tens of thousands of followers preview and promote products. That surges when parks offer new souvenirs, clothes and hats that are tied to the opening of a new attraction, an anniversary, the launch of new characters or a holiday celebration. Merchandise sales typically generate about 20% of theme park revenue, industry experts said. Every few years, crowds form to buy limited-edition tiki-style mugs from Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar at Disneyland in Anaheim and Walt Disney World. ![]() They’re still selling on the online bidding site EBay for as much as $145.īusiness Disneyland ticket prices go up as much as 8%, with parking rising 20%ĭisneyland admission prices are going up 3% to 8%, plus extra for the highest demand days.Īnd then there was the fascination last year over pins marking the 50th anniversary of Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla. The buckets went on sale at Epcot’s International Festival of the Arts, which opened Jan. So when the company posted a vague teaser ad featuring the dragon on its TikTok channel, which has more than 4.3 million followers, it kicked off the kind of fan frenzy that erupts occasionally over Disney memorabilia. “Combine the two and it’s a perfect chaotic cocktail for capitalism.”ĭisney has rarely produced merchandise featuring Figment, a character from an Epcot attraction called Journey Into Imagination that opened in the 1980s. Figment merchandise is rare,” said Jay Cisco, a solutions architect from Winter Garden, Fla., who stood in line with hundreds of people on a Friday in January. The buckets sold for $25 for a limited time - limit two per person - and were soon spotted for sale online for as much as $270. The wait time in the queue at Walt Disney World’s Epcot theme park was more than six hours, the kind of line that forms for the debut of a high-end attraction.Īwaiting the hundreds of extremely determined fans at the other end: a purple plastic popcorn bucket in the shape of a dragon named Figment.
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