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Disney's FastPass: A Complicated History

Defunctland · 27.3M views · 2021-11-21 · 1:43:00

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Overview

A feature-length Defunctland documentary on the history of Disney's FastPass and FastPass+ expedited queue systems. It covers how the systems evolved and how they were designed, with simulation of their effects on park lines.

On Hacker News

HN recommends it as an accessible, engrossing lesson in queueing theory and systems design, even for people with no interest in Disney.

Recommended by 7 HN people across 4 months · HN mentions 2021–2024

Topics

Documentaries & storytellingTech company stories & documentariesAlgorithms & data structures
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disney fastpassqueueing theorytheme parkssystems designdefunctland

What people said

eterm · 2024-10 · Strong recommendation

It was made a couple of years ago, but Defuncland's "Disney's FastPass: A complicated history" is an incredible documentary that I watched this year. You don't need to know too much about Disney for it to absorb you in. [Defunctland]: [VIDEO]

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kmeisthax · 2022-07 · Strong recommendation

People who do not understand the role of balking and price information act at their own peril. This economic backpressure is something that executives hate - it keeps line from going up - but people who actually do the work love, because it keeps workloads manageable. If you ever wanted a feature-length explanation of queueing theory and how ignoring it makes everything worse, well... here you go: [VIDEO] . The context is Disney parks and Fastpass, but the lessons are applicable to basically any business. Everything is a queue.

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alborzb · 2021-11 · Strong recommendation

For anyone interested in the Fast App discussion from this article, I highly recommend this video from Defunct Land -- [VIDEO] The video not only does a deep dive into fast pass, but also does a statistical model break down to reveal that the modern implementation of fast pass is actually not what you might expect and serves to increase wait times for rides!

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Sources

Video by Defunctland, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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