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In lugnet.lego, Marc Nelson, Jr. wrote:
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Wow, the new CEO is only
35 years old - he was 8 or 9 when Space came out!
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Yeah, he’s a sharp cat. As I understand, Kjeld is stepping down as planned (he
came back into the daily operations fold to help get things back on track). Now
that the Action Plan is in place and seems to be working, he’s turning over
daily operations his hand picked successor.
Jake
---
Jake McKee
Community Liaison
LEGO Community Development
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Yeah, he’s a sharp cat. As I understand, Kjeld is stepping down as planned
(he came back into the daily operations fold to help get things back on
track). Now that the Action Plan is in place and seems to be working, he’s
turning over daily operations his hand picked successor.
Jake
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I hope you’re right, but the two top guys in TLC now have a combined 5 years
experience with the company and it’s all on the financial side.
Spinning off the parks, or selling them outright, sounds ominous. It suggests a
level of distress calling for drastic measures. I cannot imagine TLC divesting
LL Billund because it’s so close, physically and emotionally, to the heart of
the company and its history. But I could see LLCA gone in a hearbeat -- it’s a
small kid theme park in very competitive market. Personally, that’s very sad. My
wife and I just bought Ambassador passes only a few weeks ago. We aren’t
interested in LLCA as a theme park, but as a link to TLC.
If I were taking LEGO back to basics (the recurring theme of the past 12 years),
I would still want to push the Brand Retail concept in areas were it could be
combined with multi-acre Minilands and special event centers. LEGO knows how to
build bricks better than anyone else, but competing to make the better
rollercoaster is a different ballgame.
-Ted
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In lugnet.lego, Ted Michon wrote:
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I hope you’re right, but the two top guys in TLC now have a combined 5 years
experience with the company and it’s all on the financial side.
Spinning off the parks, or selling them outright, sounds ominous. It suggests
a level of distress calling for drastic measures. I cannot imagine TLC
divesting LL Billund because it’s so close, physically and emotionally, to
the heart of the company and its history. But I could see LLCA gone in a
hearbeat -- it’s a small kid theme park in very competitive market.
Personally, that’s very sad. My wife and I just bought Ambassador passes only
a few weeks ago. We aren’t interested in LLCA as a theme park, but as a link
to TLC.
If I were taking LEGO back to basics (the recurring theme of the past 12
years), I would still want to push the Brand Retail concept in areas were it
could be combined with multi-acre Minilands and special event centers. LEGO
knows how to build bricks better than anyone else, but competing to make the
better rollercoaster is a different ballgame.
-Ted
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Interesting that you mention this, I was concidering an Ambasador Pass for
myself this year, but now I’m not so sure it’s worth it. I remember when Marine
World was sold to Six Flags. It lost most it’s charm and became a Magic Mtn
clone.
Mat
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In lugnet.lego, Ted Michon wrote:
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Spinning off the parks, or selling them outright, sounds ominous. It suggests
a level of distress calling for drastic measures. I cannot imagine TLC
divesting LL Billund because it’s so close, physically and emotionally, to
the heart of the company and its history. But I could see LLCA gone in a
hearbeat -- it’s a small kid theme park in very competitive market.
Personally, that’s very sad. My wife and I just bought Ambassador passes only
a few weeks ago. We aren’t interested in LLCA as a theme park, but as a link
to TLC.
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IMHO selling the LL parks to an outside company is just beyond stupid. I mean
HELLO - this is LEGOland. This is not some generic theme park where it does not
really matter who is running it - I don’t want to see LLCA run by some random
company. What happens to THE major thing that keeps me buying year passes - the
LL exclusive items, the S@H only sets at the parks - the things like the Classic
Space hat that only LLCA has? What happens to those?
I would not mind seeing a new division within Lego to just run the parks - I
think THAT is what the problem is they seem to be forgotten (noting the NUMEROUS
broken parts within the attractions) and a division that has the sole
responsibility of keeping the parks up would be the way to go. There may be one
of them now, I am not sure - but if there is they need to do a better job.
I go to Legoland to go to LEGOland, not Legoland brought to you by Pepsi.
Mark P
http://www.promobricks.com
x-fut this part to .legoland
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In lugnet.lego, Mark Papenfuss wrote:
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In lugnet.lego, Ted Michon wrote:
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Spinning off the parks, or selling them outright, sounds ominous. >
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I would not mind seeing a new division within Lego to just run the parks - I
think THAT is what the problem is they seem to be forgotten (noting the
NUMEROUS broken parts within the attractions) and a division that has the
sole responsibility of keeping the parks up would be the way to go. There may
be one of them now, I am not sure - but if there is they need to do a better
job.
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I have some strong negative feelings about Legoland CA. I drove my kids (15
hours) specifically to visit Legoland (CA) and we were all looking forward to
the experience. I have visited numerous parks in my 42 years and I must say
Legoland was the worst park/ and experience I have ever had.
As Mark mentioned above I found numerous items broken. I was appalled at the
number of displays that were broken and filthy. Handsel and Gretel had so many
cobwebs and spiders on them it scared my 4 year old. The park in general was
dirty, bordering on filthy. This includes building walls, rides, displays and
trash around the park. (we were there at the opening and it was a really slow
day for the park).
The employees were collectively the most appethetic uncaring group of employees
I have ever come across. Most (9 out of 10) employees acted bored, were ignorant
about their own park and basically did not appear to care about their job or
park. For instance I wanted to get a mosaic of each of my two boys. I had three
separate employees send me to three separate different parts of the park ( and I
mean ALL over the park) and they were ALL wrong. One employee had never heard of
the mosaic but he atleast called administration(?) on a park phone. They
insisted the mosaic was in the Technic ride area. I mentioned that the Technic
ride was closed and that it did not make sense that it was there, they (admin)
insisted they were correct. (they weren’t) I finally gave up trying to find the
mosaic.
I waited 5 minutes at a small shop in the Knights Kingdom area to pay for a
shield and sword for my son. The cashier was having an intense conversation with
her boyfriend about her personal life. Her boyfirend finally left and she then
waited on me. (I timed the gal and I was standing right in front of her, the
boyfriend was standing next to me)
The special fee charged for my 4 year old to brush dirt away in the dino dig
area was down right insulting!
I could go on and on, but I will stop with the negative.
Positive
I did manage to find a few good employees. They guys running the Fire Station
ride were enthusiastic and gave my boys and I a thoroughly enjoyable experience.
These guys were just as enthusiastic at 10 AM as the were at 4 PM.
Some of the rides were fun and different.
Miniland had some great models and we really enjoyed looking at the models,
however this is an area where many, many things were broken.
The most insulting experieince we had was an encounter with the park model
builders. There were two builders and boy and an older woman. The boy was fairly
new but he expressed extreme graditude for his job and he tried hard to talk
with us. The woman was sarcastic and actually had the gall to complain about her
job and how building the NASCAR signs was soooo hard and she didn’t like it. No
one should complain about a model building job!
Maybe new management would improve the park. The current management is doing a
poor job!
Rose
BTW I was just at the Park, September 24, 2004.
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In lugnet.lego, Jake McKee wrote:
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In lugnet.lego, Marc Nelson, Jr. wrote:
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Wow, the new CEO is only
35 years old - he was 8 or 9 when Space came out!
|
Yeah, he’s a sharp cat. As I understand, Kjeld is stepping down as planned
(he came back into the daily operations fold to help get things back on
track). Now that the Action Plan is in place and seems to be working, he’s
turning over daily operations his hand picked successor.
Jake
---
Jake McKee
Community Liaison
LEGO Community Development
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Jake,
Looking at the organizational chart, wouldn’t “stepping up” be a more
appropriate term, as he is leaving the CEO position but remaining Deputy
Chairman?
-Brian
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Maybe they’ll sell it to Disney. They would fix it.
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In lugnet.lego, Erik Olson wrote:
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Maybe they’ll sell it to Disney. They would fix it.
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Um, have you seen some of the Disney theme parks as of late? This would be a
poor idea. Outsourcing parks like Legoland isn’t a bad idea, if you pick the
right company to run them. Six Flags = Bad. However, all of Disney’s Tokyo parks
are actually owned by the Oriental Land Company, and they are considered some of
the best run theme parks on the planet. But more likely than not, Legoland will
get shafted.
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In lugnet.lego, Ted Michon wrote:
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Spinning off the parks, or selling them outright, sounds ominous. It suggests
a level of distress calling for drastic measures. I cannot imagine TLC
divesting LL Billund because it’s so close, physically and emotionally, to
the heart of the company and its history. But I could see LLCA gone in a
hearbeat -- it’s a small kid theme park in very competitive market.
Personally, that’s very sad. My wife and I just bought Ambassador passes only
a few weeks ago. We aren’t interested in LLCA as a theme park, but as a link
to TLC.
If I were taking LEGO back to basics (the recurring theme of the past 12
years), I would still want to push the Brand Retail concept in areas were it
could be combined with multi-acre Minilands and special event centers. LEGO
knows how to build bricks better than anyone else, but competing to make the
better rollercoaster is a different ballgame.
|
I think they’d have better spent the money on LEGO stores throughought the US.
I think stores where you can “pick a brick” would do much to increase sales.
More widespread “pick a brick” sales could be part of an overall strategy to
make TLC more nimble and better able to respond to changes in demand. If demand
for new sets changes and they’re left with some pieces that won’t make it into
sets, just send them to all of the “pick a brick” stores and get rid of them.
Jeff
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In lugnet.lego, Jeff Findley wrote:
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I think they’d have better spent the money on LEGO stores throughought the
US. I think stores where you can “pick a brick” would do much to increase
sales.
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I don’t know. It would nice to have one closer to Detroit, but there’s also the
overhead of operating a bunch of physical stores. What are people’s impressions
as to the success of these new stores?
I do think that PAB is a nice low investment way of enhancing the in-store
shopping experience and for helping to motivate core sales, although I don’t
feel it’s there to directly generate sizable revenue. My experience with the PAB
wall has varied widely - from an almost madhouse free-for-all in Orlando to
practically listening to crickets chirp in Schaumburg.
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More widespread “pick a brick” sales could be part of an overall strategy to
make TLC more nimble and better able to respond to changes in demand. If
demand for new sets changes and they’re left with some pieces that won’t make
it into sets, just send them to all of the “pick a brick” stores and get rid
of them.
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How well that works might depend on the type of piece in question and the costs
of adding it to the mix, as PAB seems to run best with a core palette of
basic/highly versatile parts with a few specialized pieces thrown in. If the
demand for a set fell far short of projections, I’d imagine recouping left over
loose inventory wouldn’t do much to offset manufacturing, marketing, R&D, etc
losses.
There is always the K8 option too.
Spencer
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In lugnet.lego, Jeff Findley wrote:
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... I think stores where you can “pick a brick” would do much to increase
sales.
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I’ve spent a lot of time at Pick-A-Bricks (LLCA, DDT Anaheim, Glendale Galleria)
and my observations suggest they are great for us, but not the average customer.
My eperiences is that the average visitor says “wow” when they see all the
items, but in the end buys nothing. The next most common customer fills a bag at
a PAB by weight and has it weighed, realizes it’s way too expensive, and quietly
stashes the bag someplace to avoid having to sort it back into bins.
I recall one day at DDT where 4 of us spent 3 hours packing large cups. About 20
people came by with the “wows” and not one of them bought any bricks.
-Ted
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In lugnet.lego, Ted Michon wrote:
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In lugnet.lego, Jeff Findley wrote:
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... I think stores where you can “pick a brick” would do much to increase
sales.
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I’ve spent a lot of time at Pick-A-Bricks (LLCA, DDT Anaheim, Glendale
Galleria) and my observations suggest they are great for us, but not the
average customer. My eperiences is that the average visitor says “wow” when
they see all the items, but in the end buys nothing. The next most common
customer fills a bag at a PAB by weight and has it weighed, realizes it’s way
too expensive, and quietly stashes the bag someplace to avoid having to sort
it back into bins.
I recall one day at DDT where 4 of us spent 3 hours packing large cups. About
20 people came by with the “wows” and not one of them bought any bricks.
-Ted
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Although that may be your observations, in the time that I have been with LEGO
Brand Retail, PaB cups have been top sellers in many stores nearly every week.
I know that at Tyson’s Corner, there are some bins that we are always refilling.
While we have some amount of “Wow”s and abandoned cups, that is far outweighed
by the window shoppers who sudden declare it “the coolest thing ever” and
promptly fill a cup to purchase.
Pick A Brick is an absolutely wonderful thing for Brand Retail and LEGO as a
whole.
-Brian
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