IzzyB
V.I.P. Member
If I was SeaWorld I would do away with the shows and use the stadium seating area to expand the tanks. As long as they give the guests awesome underwater viewing areas for the orcas I think that will be a good enough draw to get people to go. I would then have the trainers stationed throughout the exhibit to answer any questions the guests may have. To help recover some of the costs I would use some of the space to build a restaurant similar to Shark's Underwater Grill. I think that would be really popular. I think SeaWorlds goal going forward should be to become the Baltimore Aquarium with rides.
I just don't think this works in Orlando. The shows make Sea World. Those stadiums get packed and in busy times you have to get their early to get a seat. Without shows they lose a ton of capacity and they lose a large draw to their park along with a draw for special events like Christmas (where they have special Shamu show). Also, they do large corporate and charity events and they use the Shamu show for these events. The only other place they use is Pets Ahoy, but many corporate events use the Shamu one because it is a much better show. So getting rid of the show limits them to only the Pets Ahoy which will draw less bookings. Overall it won't happen in Orlando. Even what they are doing in CA will still allow for "shows" just different kind of show. But they are not losing their capacity.
Also, really there is not a need to. CA is only happening because of the lawmakers, there is no way Florida lawmakers ever consider doing something like this. It is a very conservative state at the state level. The Orlando local government is not conservative as much, but county/city people are not gonna piss any of these parks off as they bring too many jobs to the area. Most locals have no problem with Sea World because most of us know people who work for the park or have personal experiences with them enough to know blackfish is all made up bull crap. So if a county person got on their high horse and pissed Sea World off, they would probably get their ass voted out. So Sea World has no reason to remove shows from the Orlando Market.
Black fish hurt them, but less in the Orlando market. I imagine with their 5 year plan they end up with higher attendance at the end of these 5 years than they had prior to blackfish. People coming to Orlando love the new stuff and if Sea World markets itself properly (which I think they will with new management) they will have no problems grabbing some guests from the already growing guest market coming to Orlando.