Bryan Wittman
Disneyland
What He Plans: About 100 large events at Disneyland Resort and at other venues around the world per year. In 2005, his responsibilities included planning, with his full-time staff of 50, the theme park’s 50th anniversary events, the majority of which were held at Disneyland and ranged from celebrations in front of the castle to nationwide parade appearances to private, more media-driven events. “The celebration started at the Tournament of Roses parade in 2005, with a castle float. Plus, we created an opening show for the parade, and Mickey was the grand marshal. And this past January, we did another float, which was the largest in the parade—more than 150 feet long, showcasing the five Disney castles around the world. We were also part of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in New York and at the Hollywood Bowl for several shows. A really large event for the company was the opening of our new theme park in Hong Kong, which also tied into the 50th anniversary. We’ve also done several smaller private events promoting the anniversary throughout the country for media, key decision makers, and influencers in various markets.”
Budget: “Depends on the year and what we’re doing.
Some events are small, and some are multimillion-dollar projects.”
Career Path: His special events career started at New York State’s Erie County Fair in 1976—the largest county fair in the United States at the time—doing entertainment, special events, and marketing. He holds a degree in communications from Ohio’s Ashland University. He’s been with Disney for more than 20 years.
Age: “A young 47.”
Where He Lives: Newport Beach
Where He Grew Up: Outside Buffalo, New York
Where He Goes For Ideas: “Good ideas come from everywhere. I think you have to be in touch with the world around you. We really follow the record and music industries, the motion picture industry, Hollywood, entertainment. Basic awareness of the world is important.”
Biggest Challenge: Short planning cycles. “We do a lot of large-scale, high-profile events back to back, without a lot of time in between them. We’ve gotten accustomed to that and we’re OK with it but it leaves us very little time to plan, execute, and produce events.”
Favorite Venue: “At Disneyland, in front of our castle. It’s such a famous location and very magical.”
Favorite Movie: Animal House
Favorite Magazine: Wine Spectator
Favorite Musician: Jimmy BuffettWhat was the main event of Disneyland’s 50th anniversary?
We launched on May 5, 2005—05-05-05. Backwards, it’s 50-50-50. We needed to launch around that time frame anyway, and that just had an extra little twist to it. On that day, Disneyland and Walt Disney World hosted a global “Simulcastle”—they held simultaneous events in front of both castles, and patched in video from all the other parks around the world on Jumbotrons. The event at Disneyland in Anaheim was hosted by Julie Andrews and attended by [Disney’s then president and C.O.O.] Bob Iger and [then C.E.O.] Michael Eisner. Wayne Brady hosted the event at Disney World. In the days prior, media from all over the world had been invited to preview the new attractions at both parks.
July 17 was the anniversary of the park’s actual opening. We gave all of our guests who came to the park that day a pair of gold ears. And we had a spectacular ceremony in front of the castle with Eisner, Iger, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. And we also brought in Diane Disney-Miller from the Disney family.
How do you build the excitement and keep things fresh?
It’s all about being creative. If you look at this year where we had to launch the 50th anniversary and then maintain the momentum of it, you’ve got to come up with lots of events—and not just large ones. You need to have clever events spread throughout the year to keep the momentum going so that you remain fresh to the news media world that we’re in, to the entertainment world that we’re in, and also to the corporate world we’re in.
How does dealing with such a recognizable brand affect your planning?
Whether it’s our guests who come to the park, or anyone that’s got an affinity for Disney—they’ve got very high expectations of everything we do, so we really know we have an obligation to all of our fans and to our company to deliver.
What were the challenges of planning the 50th anniversary events?
When we started the creative process a couple years back of looking at what we wanted to do for the anniversary, we had so many ideas that in a normal course of business you would eliminate 50 to 60 percent of them and just focus on a few key ideas. But our company is built on the creative process and great storytelling—and we needed a lot of ideas. So we did them all. It was a lot of work, there was an event every couple of weeks and they were very high profile, but we decided to do them all, and we did.
What have you learned from this process that you will take with you in future events?
I think the one thing that I really learned from this year is that you really can do anything. We had great creative, we had great ideas, and we let nothing get in the way. The team here and our partners around the world really helped us pull off all these events and we got them all done. You can’t get bogged down in timing or budgets or how to get them done. You’ve got to just have the ideas and go for it.
What is the most unusual venue you have used outside of the Disney resorts?
One was Fred Segal. It’s a very hip, cool place, and it was a very hip, cool event we did to launch a whole new line of [anniversary-related] merchandise for the department store. We also did a ceremony at the Smithsonian Institution in D.C. where we donated a piece of one of Disneyland’s most recognizable rides, a teacup.
How are events outside of the park different?
We take a pretty large infrastructure wherever we go that ranges from characters, costumers, and makeup personnel to operations, transportation, and catering. We do enough events so we know what’s needed, so whether we go to Pasadena, New York, Washington, or Hollywood, we take a pretty self-contained group of all of those elements to ensure that the quality of the show we deliver exceeds all expectations. Each venue is totally different, but the expectations of what we’re showcasing and providing and producing do not change.
—Kim Serafin
Disneyland
What He Plans: About 100 large events at Disneyland Resort and at other venues around the world per year. In 2005, his responsibilities included planning, with his full-time staff of 50, the theme park’s 50th anniversary events, the majority of which were held at Disneyland and ranged from celebrations in front of the castle to nationwide parade appearances to private, more media-driven events. “The celebration started at the Tournament of Roses parade in 2005, with a castle float. Plus, we created an opening show for the parade, and Mickey was the grand marshal. And this past January, we did another float, which was the largest in the parade—more than 150 feet long, showcasing the five Disney castles around the world. We were also part of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade in New York and at the Hollywood Bowl for several shows. A really large event for the company was the opening of our new theme park in Hong Kong, which also tied into the 50th anniversary. We’ve also done several smaller private events promoting the anniversary throughout the country for media, key decision makers, and influencers in various markets.”
Budget: “Depends on the year and what we’re doing.
Some events are small, and some are multimillion-dollar projects.”
Career Path: His special events career started at New York State’s Erie County Fair in 1976—the largest county fair in the United States at the time—doing entertainment, special events, and marketing. He holds a degree in communications from Ohio’s Ashland University. He’s been with Disney for more than 20 years.
Age: “A young 47.”
Where He Lives: Newport Beach
Where He Grew Up: Outside Buffalo, New York
Where He Goes For Ideas: “Good ideas come from everywhere. I think you have to be in touch with the world around you. We really follow the record and music industries, the motion picture industry, Hollywood, entertainment. Basic awareness of the world is important.”
Biggest Challenge: Short planning cycles. “We do a lot of large-scale, high-profile events back to back, without a lot of time in between them. We’ve gotten accustomed to that and we’re OK with it but it leaves us very little time to plan, execute, and produce events.”
Favorite Venue: “At Disneyland, in front of our castle. It’s such a famous location and very magical.”
Favorite Movie: Animal House
Favorite Magazine: Wine Spectator
Favorite Musician: Jimmy BuffettWhat was the main event of Disneyland’s 50th anniversary?
We launched on May 5, 2005—05-05-05. Backwards, it’s 50-50-50. We needed to launch around that time frame anyway, and that just had an extra little twist to it. On that day, Disneyland and Walt Disney World hosted a global “Simulcastle”—they held simultaneous events in front of both castles, and patched in video from all the other parks around the world on Jumbotrons. The event at Disneyland in Anaheim was hosted by Julie Andrews and attended by [Disney’s then president and C.O.O.] Bob Iger and [then C.E.O.] Michael Eisner. Wayne Brady hosted the event at Disney World. In the days prior, media from all over the world had been invited to preview the new attractions at both parks.
July 17 was the anniversary of the park’s actual opening. We gave all of our guests who came to the park that day a pair of gold ears. And we had a spectacular ceremony in front of the castle with Eisner, Iger, and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. And we also brought in Diane Disney-Miller from the Disney family.
How do you build the excitement and keep things fresh?
It’s all about being creative. If you look at this year where we had to launch the 50th anniversary and then maintain the momentum of it, you’ve got to come up with lots of events—and not just large ones. You need to have clever events spread throughout the year to keep the momentum going so that you remain fresh to the news media world that we’re in, to the entertainment world that we’re in, and also to the corporate world we’re in.
How does dealing with such a recognizable brand affect your planning?
Whether it’s our guests who come to the park, or anyone that’s got an affinity for Disney—they’ve got very high expectations of everything we do, so we really know we have an obligation to all of our fans and to our company to deliver.
What were the challenges of planning the 50th anniversary events?
When we started the creative process a couple years back of looking at what we wanted to do for the anniversary, we had so many ideas that in a normal course of business you would eliminate 50 to 60 percent of them and just focus on a few key ideas. But our company is built on the creative process and great storytelling—and we needed a lot of ideas. So we did them all. It was a lot of work, there was an event every couple of weeks and they were very high profile, but we decided to do them all, and we did.
What have you learned from this process that you will take with you in future events?
I think the one thing that I really learned from this year is that you really can do anything. We had great creative, we had great ideas, and we let nothing get in the way. The team here and our partners around the world really helped us pull off all these events and we got them all done. You can’t get bogged down in timing or budgets or how to get them done. You’ve got to just have the ideas and go for it.
What is the most unusual venue you have used outside of the Disney resorts?
One was Fred Segal. It’s a very hip, cool place, and it was a very hip, cool event we did to launch a whole new line of [anniversary-related] merchandise for the department store. We also did a ceremony at the Smithsonian Institution in D.C. where we donated a piece of one of Disneyland’s most recognizable rides, a teacup.
How are events outside of the park different?
We take a pretty large infrastructure wherever we go that ranges from characters, costumers, and makeup personnel to operations, transportation, and catering. We do enough events so we know what’s needed, so whether we go to Pasadena, New York, Washington, or Hollywood, we take a pretty self-contained group of all of those elements to ensure that the quality of the show we deliver exceeds all expectations. Each venue is totally different, but the expectations of what we’re showcasing and providing and producing do not change.
—Kim Serafin
