Originally Posted By AutoPost This topic is for Discussion of <a href="http://www.LaughingPlace.com/Latest.asp?I1=ID&I2=73678" target="_blank"><b>Latest: D23 Expo announced for August 19-21, 2011</b></a> <p>At today's Annual Shareholder Meeting Disney CEO Bob Iger announced the next D23 Expo would be held August 19-21, 2011.</p>
Originally Posted By Ursu La La So, nothing for 2010? I think that is a splendid idea. It makes it a little bit better not having a huge shindig every year.
Originally Posted By Roger55 There is a mini 2-day event at Disneyland in September. <a href="http://d23.disney.go.com/expo/031010_EE_DestinationD.html" target="_blank">http://d23.disney.go.com/expo/...onD.html</a>
Originally Posted By Roger55 IMO, there are a lot of good reasons why the Expo will once again be in Anaheim. 1) Anaheim Convention Center is a large venue right across the street from DLR and all their resources. There is no venue of a similar size on or near the WDW property. 2) Anaheim is close to the headquarters of WDI, Walt Disney Studios, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, Disney Consumer Products, ABC televion, Disney Channel, Disney Interactive and the WDC headquarters. I'm pretty sure that it is a lot easier and cheaper to have all these D23 Expo participating organizations get their displays, resourses and people to Anaheim as opposed to shipping them cross country to WDW. 3) Anaheim is close to Hollywood and all the celebrities that live in the area. Granted all do not live in the LA area, but I would guess that a lot more of the Disney related celebrities live closer to LA than WDW. I do understand the frustrations of those who live in different parts of the country, especially those in or around FL who feel that WDW is one of the focal points of teh corporation. However, the fact is, as stated above, most all of the D23 Expo related organizations are based in CA. Maybe the corporation will decide to incurr the addtional cost of shipping out to WDW someday. That would be great if they did. I just don't think it is that easy to do logistically and cost wise.
Originally Posted By SuperDry Plus, although a large portion of D23 members may consider WDW to be their "home" park, probably a much smaller percentage of them live close enough to WDW such that they could commute daily to the Expo, and I think that locals are a huge component of Expo attendance.
Originally Posted By mousermerf I dunno - i think with sufficient marketing and such they could get it going quite nicely. I mean - how does Epcot support Food and Wine? How does MK support Not So Scary? I think a big factor would be convincing the Hollywood types to travel. That's a bigger part of the mess.
Originally Posted By TP2000 mousermerf, this topic was discussed quite extensively on some other boards, but what it boils down to is the D23 Expo will never go to WDW in its current format and scale because WDW does not have the facilities large enough to handle it. WDW has very wide walkways in the theme parks, but not enough space at the hotels. The Orlando Convention Center could handle it obviously, and you could host a scaled down D23 Expo spread across a half dozen WDW hotels, but you run into the logistical nightmare of then moving tens of thousands of people around the Orlando area and WDW property, and it pretty much rules the whole thing out. Did you go to D23 Expo? It was huge, and it used about 80% of the Anaheim Convention Center, with only a few smaller upstairs ballrooms and one exhibit hall unused. Even with 80% of the space used in the Anaheim Convention Center, it dwarfed anything that you could piece together on WDW property. The Anaheim Convention Center is the largest on the West Coast; bigger than the downtown convention centers in Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, Portland, or San Francisco. Anaheim is one of the biggest in the country, but not a true monster like the Las Vegas Convention Center. Anaheim Convention Center: 1.2 Million square foot total space 800,000 square foot exhibit hall 130,000 square feet of ballrooms 200,000 square feet of prefunction space 8,000 seat Anaheim Arena (many configuration options) Compare that to the piecemeal options of trying to combine every single exhibit hall, ballroom, conference room and hotel lobby of the major WDW conference properties, and it pales in comparison. And don't forget the buses needed for tens of thousands of attendees cramming into the following locations: Coronado Springs Convention Center: 220,000 square foot total space 80,000 square foot exhibit hall Contemporary Convention Center: 115,000 square foot total space 40,000 square foot exhibit hall Yacht & Beach Club Conference Facility: 73,000 square feet total space Grand Floridian Conference Facility: 40,000 square feet total space Boardwalk Conference Facility: 20,000 square feet total space Add up all five of the WDW convention/conference facilities and you've pieced together 470,000 square feet of total space, with just 120,000 square feet of large-scale exhibit floor. That's a fraction of the space used by D23 Expo in the 1.2 Million square foot Anaheim Convention Center, including the 600,000 square feet of large-scale exhibit floor used by D23 last September. (The 200,000 square foot Exhibit Hall D was left unused by D23 Expo) WDW can host a small industry trade show or a modest conference series, but there's just no way you could cram a D23 Expo that was even half the size of the 2009 event into the WDW properties. And even if you slashed the size by half, you've still got events and exhibits spread all over WDW property and you've lost that buzz and vibe. Not to mention the convenience of having thousands of hotel rooms within walking distance of the Anaheim Convention Center, and direct tram service to Disneyland and DCA right across Katella. In short, D23 Expo as we know it wont' happen at WDW. Now, one of these smaller Destination D events that is coming to the Disneyland Hotel this summer could be pulled off at a WDW property. Maybe in 2012 to help celebrate the Fantasyland expansion opening? But again, the Disneyland Resort hotels are just as big as many of the WDW properties and will be a very good host for whatever Destination D throws their way in 2010. Disneyland Hotel Convention Center: 135,000 square feet total space 30,000 square foot exhibit hall Grand Californian Conference Facility: 35,000 square feet total space Paradise Pier Conference Facility: 27,000 square feet of total space
Originally Posted By mousermerf Umm.. What about the Millenium tent and the Wonders of Life and the Convention Center at the Swolphin?
Originally Posted By TP2000 Okay, there's some space. But now you've got spaces inside operating theme parks and more hotels. That could get tricky getting the theme parks involved. Millenium Tent is 65,000 square feet. You could maybe use that for the Parks & Resorts Pavilion like they had in Exhibit Hall C. Wonders of Life has 50,000 square feet inside the dome. Maybe the Disney Home and interior furnishings divisions could go in there? Swan and Dolphin has 100,000 square feet of exhibit space, and lots of conference space. Plenty of room for a couple DisCo divisions there, maybe broadcast networks and Animation? But you see the dilemna here. You've got stuff spread all over WDW property, it hotels and theme parks and tents and such. Come up with a transport plant to move 40,000 people in and around all of those facilities in the midst of operating resorts and theme parks. And, you would need to block out every piece of rentable space at every major facility on property. Ever conference, every wedding reception, every bar mitsvah would need to be blocked from property for a week. The whole thing would be a logistical planning nightmare when it comes to transport, scheduling, staffing and hospitality. And still you've split everything up and splintered the event and lost any chance of creating that vibe and energy these things feed off of. There's obviously a reason why no one from Disney has ever hinted that D23 Expo might ever go to WDW property. Anaheim Convention Center it is!
Originally Posted By mousermerf You can turn off Energy and show films on temporary stages built over the vehicles - they've done it before. They did it for the Great American Teacher awards (and actually damaged one of the original screens in the process.) So, that's another space. You can build venues in the open spaces in the park itself - like they do for every food and wine festival. Epcot could indeed host this event.
Originally Posted By mousermerf Oh, you said 40,000? Ok, that's fine. Epcot operates around 25-30k guests a day. Remember NYE? 85k guests. Schedule it during a slow period and the numbers will put Epcot around 65k guests, which is just busy.
