Gulliver's Gate Bankruptcy

What a shame, rent so high the math will probably never work.  5.7M year rent divided by 365 days a year is over $15,000 a day, for rent alone.  They would have to have almost 800 people a day (everyday) at $20.00 a ticket just to pay the rent.  A pretty tall order.

Chris S.

Part of the problem was that their business plan was to appeal to tourists, not local residents.  So they barely advertised, having sponsored two of the double deck tourist buses, a couple of TV appearances, and a handful of magazine articles.  If you missed those, you'd have a hard knowing about the place.  Their entrance was barely noticeable, even if you were looking for it.  Ticket prices were considered by many potential visitors to be too high.  And they had problems with crowd control on those days that they were busy, had no provisions to buy or get food (you couldn't leave and be allowed to reenter).  And the gift shop had the wrong kinds of gifts (who's going to buy a Walthers HO trainset on vacation?).

Stuart

Stuart, Miniature Wunderland seems to do it right even though when I was there it seemed a little strict.  Specific times to enter to control overcrowding and food available on site.  Much, much cheaper rent, I'm sure and lot's of advertising.

Chris S. 

Gulliver's Gate is located in the theater district in NYC. with tons of tourist and local foot traffic.  I was interested in going there but at $36 for an adults and not much less for kids gave my pause.   Well, it's NYC in Times Square and everything is expensive.  As a one time purchase, one might pony up.  After all, $36 is cheap compared to a Broadway ticket for example.  I went to find it one day and I had to HUNT to find the sign: it's so small, not eye catching and if I remember correctly located up high.  No other advertising that I have ever seen.   The foot traffic doesn't even know it there.  It's NYC, you have to compete for the dollar.   One could start with LARGE animated signage and WINDOWS full of sample running train dioramas to let people know you're there and what you're selling.

I think people forget, it's still a business, you have to make money to stay in business.  I can't think of a better way to ruin ones hobby than to try to make it into a business.

Chris S.

I have walked by it (never went in it), and I have to agree it was pretty poor signage where  it is, and they don't advertise. I think they made assumptions that  because it is in Times Square and because it is so heavy with tourists especially (natives tend to stay away from there unless they are walking someplace else), they would simply get a ton of people coming in there and wouldn't require advertising on local markets, and that was a mistake. Among other things, with tourist related things in NYC, attractions often , in return for gaining foot traffic, will offer discount tickets to tour operators and hotels and the like, which is all fine and good, but that cuts into their revenue (they figure that full price tickets will come because word of mouth will make people willing to pay full price). Given how big the NYC region is and how many people come into the city, it was foolish not to advertise to people living in the area, too. 

The other factor is that it simply people weren't interested in it. To people into miniatures or model trains or whatnot this might be interesting, but maybe to other people it simply couldn't compete with theaters and museums and other  things in NYC they would rather do. I thought it was a great idea yet I never went. It would be kind of ironic if filing for bankruptcy brings it the attention it needs to survive. It looks like they are filing chapter 11, not 7, so it may survive yet. 

David, thanks for a great day out.  Yes, it was a shame they could not do 1:48 scale.  It would have been my honor to be placed on your layout in 1:48 scale.  Your mini review above is to the point.  This was a great way to spend the afternoon, being out with my son.  A great outing for the family, a little pricey maybe, but so is a Broadway Play, a movie dinner, or Disney World.  As my son did, look for coupons online to help with the price.

I had the chance to go with my brother a couple of years ago and we really enjoyed ourselves. Having also been to Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg there are some similarities, but also some differences.

The modelling in both is top notch, with MWL being constructed by the team members/employees and Gulliver's Gate, from what I read on site, being largely subbed out. The team in Hamburg is quite large and very technical.

MWL is located in the Speicherstadt area on the harbor front, beautiful old warehouse buildings, but again not super prime or super expensive in comparison to Times Square.

The Braun brothers, the force behind MWL are master marketers and have a background in the club business. They understand entertainment. If you go into any train or hobby store in Germany you can buy a DVD or magazine about MWL. They really are the life force of MWL in my opinion.

Finally, model railroading and model making are just more widespread and appeciated in Germany. I  read somewhere that one third of all German households had at least a small train layout 50 years ago. That number has come down, but there is still a love of trains deep in the society. Plus the brothers Braun knew that to have widespread appeal you just could not have a large train layout alone, but needed a true exhibit, a "Wunderland."

I think both are fantastic, but there are some major differences which I believe make one more financially successful than the other at this time.

Miketg