A Message from LW Ghost Regarding Epcot's Communicore

Communicore at Epcot has been widely panned. Now, it's closed as Disney prepares to use it for a festival space. Lew has some thoughts:

Ah brilliant Disney PR strikes again! Y'know folks, there really, really ARE some VERY expert, VERY savvy, VERY professional folks in the profession of Public Relations out there, and you would think that a major corporation with billions on the line would pay to get at least one if not several working on their team and REVIEWING their proposed actions BEFORE they do them. Or maybe not. Consider this latest blunder:

• You tout a major revision of one of your major theme parks--you know, those money machines that drive the profits of your international enterprises and are the most constant  "public face" of your whole company.

• You then, in what has become a disturbing and commented-on trend in recent years, cut things back, scale things down, take forever to accomplish less and less but finally get to the end of the stunted process and are ready to unveil your less-than-exciting effort to the world.

• You do it. You get exactly the reaction you should have expected, and exactly the negative press and attention a skilled PR pro would have anticipated and told you to avoid somehow.

• THEN the "Somehow" turns out to be already in your hands but, again, you didn't ask a pro or consider how doing it slightly differently might have made a huge difference!

In THIS case what do I mean? "CommuniCore Hall" of course--that go-away-green bad jr. college campus study hall/smalltown convention center HALLWAY with the cheap seats and bland decor that was rightly SCORCHED by all who experienced its "premiere!!!" when you opened it a couple of weeks ago.....and it turns out did so KNOWING YOU WERE ABOUT TO CLOSE IT TO REVAMP, DECORATE, AND ENHANCE IT for your latest upcoming food festival event! Yep. They did it again. Imagine if they'd just left the "coming soon" signs up, the doors locked, and done the redecorating for the festival BEFORE EVER exposing the venue and themselves to the justifiably negative attention?

JUST WAIT A FEW WEEKS and (a) eliminate a lot of the negative, which (b) was a COMPOUNDING of the ongoing disaster roll call of Tiana, Country Bears, Sewage, Moana, River Ripout, and the rest! Kinda reminds me of (a) trying to pull a legal sharpie move to cut off a suit about wrongful death and then (b) saying Oh Wait and rescinding that move while informing everyone in the world of your sneaky practices and inspiring them to read the fine print and NOT join up for your already-failing streamer. WHY DON'T THEY HAVE ANYONE TO LOOK AT THESE THINGS F I R S T and say with the voice of professionalism, "Hey wait, guys. Let's rethink this. What if we didn't do it that way?" They don't because He Who Must Be Obeyed In The Shower Suite can do no wrong, of course, so actually hiring pro's who might suggest something else is NOT happening.

And it keeps on showing and showing and showing.