Attractions Expert Q&A: Brad Merriman shares a birthday with Disneyland, but 15 years apart

As partner and president of  ProFun for almost 29 years, Brad Merriman leads a team that has been involved in opening dozens of theme parks, water parks, museums, and aquariums either as an advisor or as the management team.

What theme park souvenir might we be surprised to find on your shelf, and what’s its story?

I have an affinity for Disney parks ever since I was a kid. I was born on July 17, 1970, 15 years to the day after Disneyland opened, and I grew up in LA, so every year on my birthday, we went to Disneyland.

I am a big Disney fan, so the thing that I have and love the most is an invitation to the opening of Shanghai Disneyland. It’s the only Disney theme park opening I’ve ever been to.

My business partners and some of our staff were all at Shanghai Disneyland for the opening, and they’d never seen me behave the way I did because I was like a kid in a candy store. And my primary business partner, Mike Oswald, still makes fun of me about it.

What theme park have you always wanted to visit but have never been to?

Tokyo DisneySea. Believe it or not, I’ve never been there. I’ve just not made the time to go, and I’ve been kicking myself. I’ve heard that it’s amazing. I’ve seen pictures and videos, and I suspect it’s as good as everybody says. It’s just over the top in terms of theming, like no other park you’ve been in.

I don’t spend much time in Tokyo, and it’s not the easiest place to lay over and connect. But the next time I go to Seoul, I’ll go through Tokyo.

Was there a theme park or attraction that made you want to be in this industry?

Yes, Disneyland in Anaheim, for sure. I wasn’t born when it first opened, and I don’t remember the first time I went, but I was a toddler. I grew up in the western part of the San Fernando Valley, in Calabasas, about 70 miles from Disneyland, and the drive was an hour to five hours, depending on the traffic back then.

What was your favorite ride or attraction as a child, and why?

As a child, my favorite ride would have been the Haunted Mansion. I was little and I was terrified, but that was still my favorite ride when I was a kid.

After that, I became a roller coaster fanatic, but when Revolution opened at Six Flags Magic Mountain, I couldn’t ride it because I was too short. But I rode it several times as soon as I was tall enough.

I was on THEA Awards nominating committee for a dozen years. Back then, when a new attraction opened at Disney or Universal, they’d invite us to ride them backstage. Disney had completed a redo of Star Tours with multiple scenes so that every time you went on it, it had a different assembly of those scenes and other finishes. They sat a handful of us down on the attraction and said, “When it’s over, don’t get up. You can go as many times as you want.”

So, just when you’ve had enough, you can’t get off because there are a hundred different experiences. But I barely made it through two because I have trouble with simulator rides, although I definitely love roller coasters.

I can do the simulators, but riding in a motion-based simulator for an hour, for eight minutes, and then 30 seconds off and then eight more minutes—that’s too much. I could only ride Harry Potter once. I’d be in trouble if I had to do it multiple times, but if you put me in the front row of Tron, I’ll ride that thing for three days straight.

Was there a ride, attraction, or character that frightened you as a child?

Colossus at Magic Mountain. It’s tiny by today’s standards, but when it first opened, I was little, and it terrified me.

I did the Formula Rossa at Ferrari World, and I wasn’t scared at all. And that goes from zero to 150 miles an hour in three seconds. It’s the fastest roller coaster on the planet. It’s a launch coaster that launches inside the Ferrari World building and then goes outdoors and around. But the wildest part is that I did it in the summer, and the heat index was like 140 degrees. And so you launch from indoors, where it’s 65 degrees, and all of a sudden you’re flying, and you leave the building, and I compare it to getting hit in the face with a two-by-four. I’ve never felt anything like it. Between the heat and the G force—it was crazy!

So you have the G force of the launch, but it’s a high back seat, so you don’t have to worry because you could never do it if it weren’t a high back seat. But you’re flying out there and accelerating at some ridiculous rate. And then suddenly you go from 65 degrees to hot, thick air like that’s twice the temperature. That was pretty wild.

But I loved it. Did I do it again? No. But would I have done it again? Yeah, maybe. I’m going back to Abu Dhabi in a couple of weeks, and if it’s not that hot, I’ll probably go on it again.

What was the oddest or coolest job you’ve had in your career?

I haven’t had a lot of jobs. I’ve been at one place for almost 29 years. I will say that establishing companies in foreign countries is not really fun at all. Each one is different and each is more challenging than the last, so when we created our company in China in 2012, that was both the highlight and lowlight of my career.

The oddest would be becoming chairman of our Chinese company in Shanghai and being legally responsible for everything that happened to our staff and anything we did in China. I didn’t live there; I lived here. My brother was working for us, and he moved over there in 2010 to open the office and then stayed in China. We ran the China Mobile China Telecom Pavilion for the Shanghai World Expo in 2010. We were finally legally established a year later because it took quite a while. It was 2011, and we were having our office opening event. I came out for that and met our Western attorney because we had Chinese attorneys, too.

I looked at him and said, “Okay, you have one really important job: to make sure that when I get off the plane, I’m not going to get arrested for anything since I’m the legal representative. And just make sure that you keep all of our people out of trouble and that when I show up from time to time, I don’t pay the price.”

I was 40 years old and basically the owner of a Chinese company, and in China, the legal representative is literally the legal representative. I was joking when I said it, but I had companies in Europe before and smaller countries in Asia, but China was a whole different territory.

What ride or attraction do you think everyone needs to experience and why?

Challenge Trails in Camp Discovery at Shanghai Disney. It was really surprising, and I talked it up for a THEA Award. It’s like they built a canyoneering experience, and it was absolutely amazing. It’s like nothing I’d ever done in a theme park, and it was over the top. And I thought to myself, I would love to have this in the U.S. But you will never see it—it would just be too difficult.

I also like the original Pirates of the Caribbean more than the redo, even though the one in Shanghai is an amazing attraction. I like the novelty of the original. I prefer it. But if you’d never been to either of them, you’d go to the one in Shanghai and be like, whoa, this is crazy!

I liked the Haunted Mansion when I was a kid, but if I look back on 30 years of going to parks all over the world, the original Pirates encapsulates our business better than any attraction anywhere in the history of our industry.

In terms of theming, the most amazing theme park zone I’ve ever been in would be the Wizarding World at Islands of Adventure. I remember going to that right after it opened, and I thought it was incredible. Then, what they did later by connecting Islands to Universal Studios with the Hogwarts Express was absolutely brilliant.

We did tons of work on the Making of Harry Potter Studio Tour in Leavesden, north of London, which is super awesome too, but as far as taking our business to a whole new level, that was unquestionably a giant leap forward and probably the most important theme park event for our industry-wide.

If you were tasked with creating a new theme park food, what would it be?

I do the carnivore diet, so it’s got to be something with meat. I would like filet mignon on a stick so that you can carry it and eat it while you walk around.

You’re a walk-around character for a day; who do you choose?

How about Goofy? I tend to be calm and reserved in my normal life, so if I put on a costume, I could act goofy and not care. That would be fun. Or maybe Elvis because who doesn’t want to be the King?

What types of attractions would you like to see more of and why?

I think we’ll see more integration of AV, like dark rides with roller coaster technology. I think that would be cool. There’s been a lot of work on trackless systems and all that, but I still kind of like the roller coaster. So, I’d like to see if there’s a way to integrate more roller coaster-type experiences with a show component that takes it beyond.

Headsets have a place. But we’ve worked on parks where there’s eight different attractions where you have to put on goggles—and that’s just way too many. A couple in each park is great—maybe a couple with goggles and then a couple with 3D glasses. But beyond that, I think asking people to put on and take off things is just too much for an operator. There are some experiences where you wear goggles the whole time, which is okay as long as it’s still a social experience. Because to me, a theme park is much less about the rides. It’s a social experience, and that’s what’s going to guarantee our long-term viability as a business. More than anything else, at the end of the day, the entertainment was an experience where you shared unique moments with the people you love. And whether that’s your family or friends or all the above, that’s what out-of-home entertainment is. That’s why its success is guaranteed in the long term.

Was there any challenge or surprise in your career?

I was super surprised that Disney is going into the UAE. I mean, honestly, nothing has shocked me like that did. I’ve seen a lot of versions of the Yas Island Master Plan, and Disney has never been on any of the ones I’ve seen.

The climate for an outdoor theme park is very tough. The first thing I said when we routed the news around our team was that I couldn’t wait to see the master plan. I couldn’t picture in my mind what this would be because when I read the first article, I thought, okay, this says they’re going to do a Disney experience, a Disney park, and that could be anything. It could be a Blizzard Beach or a DisneyQuest indoor experience. But Bob Iger specifically said an Abu Dhabi Disneyland, so that would suggest that there will be a Sleeping Beauty castle in the middle. So I’ll be interested to see if it’s indoor.

What I’m most interested in is its scale because you’re talking about 100 acres for a small Disney park. I don’t know how they build anything smaller, and I don’t know how you put that under a roof.

If you look at what they’ve done, Ferrari World Yas Island is all indoors except for the two roller coasters you load and exit inside, but ride outside. Warner Bros. World is all indoors. SeaWorld is virtually all indoors. They built Yas Waterworld, which we had a big hand in (my partner opened it and ran it). It’s outdoors, but it’s a water park. I’m anxious to see what they do.

Can you talk about what you are working on these days?

Virtually every one of our contracts for new projects (even if the projects have been announced) says specifically that I can’t talk about them or put them in print without prior approval. But I will tell you that we’re doing a major IP-based theme park project in South Korea with Paramount.

We’re also heavily involved in many projects in Saudi Arabia. We’re growing rapidly through our office in Riyadh, then continuing to expand in the broader GCC. We’re on a dozen different projects right now. It’s working out so far, but we’ll see. My partner Mike is handling most of that. This is really his vision, and he’s done a remarkable job with it.

We do the planning, advisory, implementation, and management. We plan lots of new facilities. We do the operational planning and design input, budgets, labor plans, and all that sort of stuff for the early stages. We tell the designers how much throughput we need, how big spaces should be, what kind of ride systems we’d like to see, and how big the food areas should be, and then we review lots of drawings. Then, we do implementation. So we put teams on the ground to open projects and we’ve opened many all over the world. It’s a unique thing that we do, being involved in opening dozens of theme parks, water parks, museums, aquariums, etc., in one capacity or another, either as an advisor or as the management team. And I mean literally, dozens.

You are going to your favorite theme park; who (dead or alive) are you taking with you?

That would be my wife and six kids. It’s a blended family. We’re like the Brady Bunch. We have three boys and three girls. And we’ve done a lot of theme park trips together as a family.