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Walt's Revolution!: By the Numbers
Book by Harrison "Buzz" Price
336 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2004
4 people are currently reading
118 people want to read
About the author
Harrison Price
2 booksHarrison "Buzz" Price was a research economist specializing in how people spend their leisure time and resources. In 1978 he established his own company, the Harrison Price Company. Through his company he advised many developers on their potential projects. Some of these companies include: Busch Gardens, Knott's Berry Farm, SeaWorld, Six Flags, Disneyland and Disney World. Buzz is also one of the co-founders of the California Institute of the Arts.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 10, 2025
Very interesting book that not only covers themed attraction history throughout the author’s lifetime, but focuses on the economic planning that made it all possible. Humorous at times as well; his personality comes through in the writing.
November 20, 2022
Fantastic book, inspiring and yet grounded in reality.
Harrison Buzz Price, the business consultant that Walt commissioned to analyze and recommend the optimal site for Disneyland and later Disney World, was ahead of his time. He tracked all the numbers and maintained records of all his projects, allowing him to write this thoroughly informative and remarkably precise memoir of his time as a consultant. His records span not just Walt Disney's theme parks but also over 300 other consultation projects, from Sea World and Six Flags to international World Fairs, Kishiwada Port Development Authority in Japan, and Dolfinarium in the Netherlands.
He describes clients in picture-perfect detail, often sharing leadership principles and quirks that set certain clients apart. For example, about Leo Harvey, he wrote, "He conserved his strength, lived simply, ate simply and worked all the time... Leo was no bureaucrat. He was not into corporate status trappings, layered hierarchies or long meetings in search of consensus... He approved every invoice over $5. His genius was involvement; it kept him young."
About Harcourt Bruce Jovanovich, who ended up acquiring Sea World and running it into the ground: "Mr. Willian Jovanovich would tell them to paint the fences orange and would direct other hands on attentions, many of them capricious and authoritarian."
About CV Wood, the man Disney hired to build Disneyland, sell sponsorships... and later fired: "Woody lived on the edge. No doubt he was associated with, and perhaps instigated, some shady deals. He had the chutzpah to get away with it... Walt was the world's greatest fantasy storyteller. Wood was the quickest numbers fun in the business and an irrepressible showman... Wood was the best closer in selling sponsorships ever... He had a mafia captain's perception of loyalty and it could become inflexible. He would frequently turn on old friends and wipe them out of his life over imagined crossings."
Besides sharing the personalities and stories of his many clients in theme park business, Buzz Price also includes several graphs and statistics tables showing how the industry measures risk, computes reinvestment, and estimates return on investment (ROI) of ventures that have yet to been built. He spins this past data into advice for entrepreneurs and those looking to build a theme park -- or consult on one. The book ends with a number of powerful reflections and takeaway messages:
"I have been free to savor the memory of an endless stream of experiences, a kaleidoscope of associations. Most of them come back. I can ponder what we were trying to do, what we meant to each other, what we did right, what we did wrong.
Each memory begets another in a succession of recoveries. It is like looking at life on earth from outer space. Rising ever higher, the past takes a smaller but more encompassing shape. Details find a place in the whole. I see the broad outline of the whole damn 29,200 days and 700,800 hours of my life to date.
In the end, it comes down to a bottom line, which turns out, not to be the numbers but people: Collaborators, clients, and, most of all, family.
All of this contemplation and analysis enriches an older age like 80. Now I can better adjust to the reality of passing time and diminished recall. With the help of the numbers, I can size up the experience and measure its fit."
"It was a great, unexpected, unplanned adventure. We succeeded. We failed. It is a fact that we often fail to recognize the difference."
"...life, its brevity, its pell-mell pace, seems something like a long ride on a roller coaster. Its defining numbers need blending with the arts if their application is to have heart and resonance. The ride can be made smoother and more productive if the passenger will work out of the negative indicative 'no because' and into the positive conditional 'yes if'.
"So much for looking back. Kirkegaard had it right. Life must be lived forward."
Highly recommended! Read immediately.
Harrison Buzz Price, the business consultant that Walt commissioned to analyze and recommend the optimal site for Disneyland and later Disney World, was ahead of his time. He tracked all the numbers and maintained records of all his projects, allowing him to write this thoroughly informative and remarkably precise memoir of his time as a consultant. His records span not just Walt Disney's theme parks but also over 300 other consultation projects, from Sea World and Six Flags to international World Fairs, Kishiwada Port Development Authority in Japan, and Dolfinarium in the Netherlands.
He describes clients in picture-perfect detail, often sharing leadership principles and quirks that set certain clients apart. For example, about Leo Harvey, he wrote, "He conserved his strength, lived simply, ate simply and worked all the time... Leo was no bureaucrat. He was not into corporate status trappings, layered hierarchies or long meetings in search of consensus... He approved every invoice over $5. His genius was involvement; it kept him young."
About Harcourt Bruce Jovanovich, who ended up acquiring Sea World and running it into the ground: "Mr. Willian Jovanovich would tell them to paint the fences orange and would direct other hands on attentions, many of them capricious and authoritarian."
About CV Wood, the man Disney hired to build Disneyland, sell sponsorships... and later fired: "Woody lived on the edge. No doubt he was associated with, and perhaps instigated, some shady deals. He had the chutzpah to get away with it... Walt was the world's greatest fantasy storyteller. Wood was the quickest numbers fun in the business and an irrepressible showman... Wood was the best closer in selling sponsorships ever... He had a mafia captain's perception of loyalty and it could become inflexible. He would frequently turn on old friends and wipe them out of his life over imagined crossings."
Besides sharing the personalities and stories of his many clients in theme park business, Buzz Price also includes several graphs and statistics tables showing how the industry measures risk, computes reinvestment, and estimates return on investment (ROI) of ventures that have yet to been built. He spins this past data into advice for entrepreneurs and those looking to build a theme park -- or consult on one. The book ends with a number of powerful reflections and takeaway messages:
"I have been free to savor the memory of an endless stream of experiences, a kaleidoscope of associations. Most of them come back. I can ponder what we were trying to do, what we meant to each other, what we did right, what we did wrong.
Each memory begets another in a succession of recoveries. It is like looking at life on earth from outer space. Rising ever higher, the past takes a smaller but more encompassing shape. Details find a place in the whole. I see the broad outline of the whole damn 29,200 days and 700,800 hours of my life to date.
In the end, it comes down to a bottom line, which turns out, not to be the numbers but people: Collaborators, clients, and, most of all, family.
All of this contemplation and analysis enriches an older age like 80. Now I can better adjust to the reality of passing time and diminished recall. With the help of the numbers, I can size up the experience and measure its fit."
"It was a great, unexpected, unplanned adventure. We succeeded. We failed. It is a fact that we often fail to recognize the difference."
"...life, its brevity, its pell-mell pace, seems something like a long ride on a roller coaster. Its defining numbers need blending with the arts if their application is to have heart and resonance. The ride can be made smoother and more productive if the passenger will work out of the negative indicative 'no because' and into the positive conditional 'yes if'.
"So much for looking back. Kirkegaard had it right. Life must be lived forward."
Highly recommended! Read immediately.
April 13, 2022
I'm the type of Disneyland fan who is less interested in the creative content in the park than the actual making of the magic, so this book was a no-brainer for me. In order for Disneyland to justify investment and succeed originally, someone had to run the numbers and do the homework. Anyone would assume that Walt and his brother had plenty of people within their organization to put that data together--but sometimes a neutral consultant is necessary to help with validation and planning.
That's where Buzz Price entered the picture back when Disneyland was still just an orange grove. While the strategy and logistics involved in selecting real estate and developing the park plans don't interest the average park Guest, there's a really neat amount of success that had to happen before any of that was possible. And Buzz is the best source of that information. This book is well written and well cited, but could also be a business case study for anyone who is working on a business or marketing degree in college.
That's where Buzz Price entered the picture back when Disneyland was still just an orange grove. While the strategy and logistics involved in selecting real estate and developing the park plans don't interest the average park Guest, there's a really neat amount of success that had to happen before any of that was possible. And Buzz is the best source of that information. This book is well written and well cited, but could also be a business case study for anyone who is working on a business or marketing degree in college.
March 9, 2022
This was an interesting book because it shed light on an aspect of Disneyland (and other parks) that most fans don't know about. The Stanford Research Institute was the company that selected site for Disneyland, Disney World, and other parks. And Harrison Price was economist at SRI before he started his own consulting firm working in the theme park business. One big takeaway from me was his lesson about working with Walt Disney. If Walt had an idea and he ran it by you, you should never say: "No, because..." You were much better off saying, "Yes, if..." Fun read on the economics of theme parks that's not written about much.
January 14, 2024
Took an effort to finish. The book is not the usual business book and is way too specific. The author has a dry yester year American humour(he is 80+), which is difficult to absorb at times. Would be a very useful book for a researcher whose topic is ' The economics of entertainment industry between 1950 to 1980' . Those who aren't attempting such a thesis can give this book a pass....
December 26, 2020
Perhaps, it was my lack of interest in theme parks. I read the book for research on the topic, but I found it tedious. It read like a history lesson, but a rather boring history lesson.
August 1, 2014
Harrison (Buzz) Price found the sites for Disneyland and Walt Disney World, but he did more: he crunched the numbers that created the theme park industry, both while he worked for SRI and then in his own firms. He quickly became a master at asking the questions that would shape both individual projects and the whole industry (as well as others, making a fortune in commercial real estate along the way). Price shows how Walt and Roy thought and how he helped them become successful in a business that hadn't existed before, and then goes on to talk about other developments in the theme park industry, revealing its importance as a factor in American culture. He shares his insight into using numbers (stats and projections) to assess business potential, but he also reveals both his own human qualities and the qualities that will make others successful in this much-more-quantified world. Price worked well into his 80s, and he recently received his posthumous window on Main Street at Disneyland, in recognition of his importance to Disney - the men and the company.
February 23, 2009
I have mixed emotions about this book. I'm sad that it wasn't edited better, I can't blame Harrison Price for his writing since he's a numbers guy. However, someone at Ripley Entertainment should have been a bit more thorough. The history that Price provides detail on (like HBJ and SeaWorld in Texas) is great. It would have also been nice for him to provide a bit more detail on some of the analysis, sort of a how to.
May 11, 2016
I wish with all my heart that I had read this book sooner, if only to have had the chance to write to Buzz and thank him for the profound inspiration and uplifting influence the story of his life has had on mine. I think we would be friends. Rollercoaster math, "Yes if," a window into the greatest American entrepreneur (perhaps objectively, because Walt won the survey), and tales of dozens of other pioneers and stars that transformed our world into a more magical place - these are a sampling. What I will most treasure is the heart and family love that triumphs through this book.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews