Today at Destination D Bob Chapek announced that Disney will overhaul EPCOT. Bob Chapek Confirms Disney Will Overhaul Epcot - WDW News Today
Obviously the details are incredibly vague, but I'm cautiously optimistic for this. Epcot has needed a real sense of direction for a long time now, so hopefully this will help give it some consistency again. I just hope that the direction it takes is more in line with the park's original mission than the recent additions. We shall see!
This statement gives me hope that Marvel stays out of the park, but the rumours are pretty strong so I guess that's just wishful thinking.
I was in Epcot a few weeks ago, and it looked pretty good. That said, a clearer direction in Future World and perhaps a few more countries in World Showcase would be welcome. The park looked great, although jam-packed with the Wins & Food Festival people, and it's still my favorite park at WDW.
The park really relies on the festivals to get people in the door and give it some life. During non-festival times, it becomes pretty easy to see all the park's flaws and dated "hip and edgy" attraction; the lack of people in the park does little to hide any of this. Management realizes that this is a great way to turn a profit in the short-term, but the park's underlying issues are not being addressed by the band aid fixes that the festivals provide Case in point: Disney has just announced the new Festival of the Arts to run in January and February of next year Epcot International Festival of the Arts News Assuming the other festivals keep their 2016 lengths and the new Festival of the Arts runs daily (the description is unclear if it's weekends only), we're now at 62% of the year that is occupied by festivals at Epcot (not counting runDisney events that use the park as home base, adding another 13 days annually) Flower & Garden: 90 Food & Wine: 62 Holidays Around the World: 36 Festival of the Arts: 39 Total: 227 days Seasonal events do a lot to draw guests during otherwise-slow periods of the year. Just look at the great success that the Disneyland Resort has had with HalloweenTime since it debuted in 2006; it's now one of the busiest times of the year. But when you have to rely on heavy-handed seasonal events (largely featuring lots of extra food and drink sales) for nearly 2/3 of the year, something is fundamentally wrong with the park EDIT: I should clarify that I see a big difference in Epcot's festivals that prominently feature extra cost seminars, dining, and merchandise without changing much from year to year, compared with TDR's constant events that largely focus on an endless stream of new entertainment with very few direct tie-ins to the profit centers. TDR's constant promotions are a reflection of the heavy local attendance, rather than lackluster parks
We love Epcot, it's our favourite park besides DLP and DCA. It definitely need huge improvements, but I really like the more adult oriented atmosphere. The park has such a relaxing atmosphere and of course the different alcoholic drinks around WS are great too ;-) I just hope Disney isn't ruining that with making it more Disney, like Chapek said. But I guess that's basically going to happen.
This is what worries and confuses me. From my perspective, vintage EPCOT Center was incredibly "Disney": it was a bold new approach to family entertainment, done in a way that only Disney could do. It was full of cutting edge technology and construction techniques, and they even worked with the US government to develop a special category of visas for foreign workers at the park. It wasn't chock-full of Disney characters, but it was the sort of experience that used to epitomize Disney and made me fall in love with the company. Sadly it seems that the powers that be only see something as being "Disney" if it can be branded with characters and IP, which really cheapens the whole theme park experience for me. It certainly sounds like more IP is on the way for Epcot, but I'm going to be cautiously optimistic that it will be thoughtfully located and used with moderation, like the Lion King characters in The Land, not Frozen in Norway
Personally, I would say that the Food & Wine Festival has kind of degenerated into a Food and Wino festival. And I'm apparently not the only one to think that.
Seems to me that's a reaction to the market. The fans want characters. The original vision for Epcot wasn't a rousing success. Unfortunately.
Fans don't know what they want. If you had a focus group of Disneyland park guests in 1965 and asked them "you want a flat bottom boat through a Pirate grotto or a roller coaster?" they'd more than likely have picked a roller coaster. And we probably wouldn't have "Pirates of the Caribbean' today. While market research can be valuable, it can't be the only thing that drives what is Imagineered in the Parks.
The ultimate market research is whether guests will pay for what you offer. The original vision of Epcot didn't seem to pass that test.
Just to play Devil's Advocate for a moment, I don't recall reports that the park struggled to draw a crowd in the early years. Yes, they made some changes to better connect with audiences (like including walk around Disney characters instead of the people of the world, and adding more pavilions), but overall the park was considered to be a success from the very start. One could argue that the decline in popularity only began after the park abandoned its original vision
In a few years Future World will look like this: Source: Disney Tourist Blog In my opinion this looks great. They are opening up the park by removing those ugly buildings in the centre of Future World. However there are also some bad news, because judging from the concept art, I would say that the Spaceship Earth attraction will also be completely removed and they just keep the "ball".
This is one of the things that I'm looking forward to the most, but also one of the ones that I understand the least. From a fundamental infrastructure perspective, most of Future World still works really well, but the particular attractions, shops, and restaurants all need updates and reconsideration. The visual style of this looks promising, but it also seems like a big change of infrastructure, whether it's really necessary or not It will be interesting to see how much of this art is "artistic license" and how much of it is based in reality
