The Disney MagicBand is perhaps the most widely deployed commercial application of wearable tech, although its development and application did not come without considerable internal controversy. Disney's newly named chief operating officer, Tom Staggs, told Reuters recently that he expects the MagicBands will expand beyond DisneyWorld to other of the company's parks. Said … [Read more...]
A Long-Form Inside Look at Disney’s MagicBand Project
Disney, like any company that adapts and rebuilds reality, is a famously controlling place with a frequently difficult culture. So the high-stakes project to re-engineer theme parks with the wearable MagicBand was even more full of internally corporate competition than it might have been at a "normal" company. FastCompany has an exhaustive and exhausting blow-by-blow of how … [Read more...]
Wired’s Deep Dive on the Disney MagicBands
If all there was to Disney's experiment with wearable tech was a wristband, it might have been just OK. But, as Wired beautifully reported in a post that went live this weekend, the MagicBand isn't just a piece of technology; it's a gateway into rethinking the theme park experience from long before arrival to long after departure. No one at Disney thought, "Hey! Let's build … [Read more...]
Wearable Tech to Replace Cash at Lollapalooza Music Festival
The idea of using a wristband as an identity token in the hospitality industry is not quite new; Disney's using it quite effectively as MagicBands at Walt Disney World. Now, the folks putting on the Lollapalooza music festival this summer in Chicago are doing something similar: giving attendees wristbands that can be linked to credit cards. Wearers can tap the bands to vendors' … [Read more...]