Originally Posted By TP2000 100,000 square feet is the total in Wonders of Life. But that includes a lot of segmented space around the perimeter of the building where you couldn't "exhibit" large scale productions. Some of the 100,000 SF isn't even meant for Guests to be there, as its backstage areas and attraction real estate. 50,000 square feet is the total open square footage inside the dome, and even then you've got lots of fixtures and walls and hardware dialed in to the floor there. <a href="http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d21/TessRC/TeaParty.jpg" target="_blank">http://i32.photobucket.com/alb...arty.jpg</a> It's not an open space exhibit hall made for big trade show displays. Did you attend D23 Expo mousermerf? Have you been in to the Anaheim Convention Center and seen how big it is?
Originally Posted By TP2000 Mousermerf>> "You can turn off Energy and show films on temporary stages built over the vehicles - they've done it before... 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... 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." Okay, so you are now proposing that they shut down Epcot Pavilions for a week or more, shoehorn in trade show displays and major D23 Expo elements into a working theme park, fly out at least a few hundred personnel from California for the week, and host a 3 or 4 day D23 Expo at Epcot Center??? Oh, and do it in August when the Central Florida climate is at its absolute most charming? To prove what exactly? That WDW can have nice things too? I get that D23 Expo kind of took everyone by surprise at how fancy and lavish and thorough and huge it was. I was certainly surprised, and my expectations were already high. The Parks & Resorts Pavilion alone was worth the one day price of admission for me. But really, let's be reasonable. Go back and read Post #11 if you'd like. But the end result is that Disney has an absolutely perfect setup for D23 Expo in Anaheim. The Anaheim Convention Center is posh and big and fabulously positioned. Disney has thousands of its own hotel rooms and two very special theme parks (the Original, and the Billion Dollar Makeover) all within 15 minutes walking distance of the Expo. Even if D23 Expo expands later in the decade and takes over all the ballrooms and the 200,000 square feet unused in Exhibit Hall D, they can still expand some breakout sessions and special events into the 200,000 square feet of space at the Disneyland Resort hotels nearby. I am confident that they are NEVER going to move D23 Expo to Epcot or Magic Kingdom or any other working theme park, just to let TDO stroke some egos in Florida. The perfect setup already exists in Anaheim, and as expensive as D23 Expo looked and felt, it's much cheaper than moving it all to Epcot Center. And that's exactly why they reserved the Anaheim Convention Center for a week in late summer for the next four years, as far out as the contract allows them currently. But, I give you credit for thinking outside the box. ;-)
Originally Posted By FerretAfros Who said that the Expo had to be in August? If they had it in WDW, I would hope that they would be smart enough to have it at a different time. Also, why not just move it around the country? The shareholder meeting is in a different location each year, so why not do the same thing with this? It could be somewhere vaguely related to Disney (like the shareholder meeting in Albequerque during the HSM hype), or just some random city. That way, lots of different people get the chance to visit. After hosting it in southern California a few times in a row, locals will start getting tired, and visitors will be less likely to travel. But if they put it somewhere else, they have a whole new 'local' crowd, and a fresh location for the folks that visit every time. WDW might be among the locations it goes to, but it really could go to any city with a large convention center. Then again, they wouldn't get the hotel profits (but aren't the DLR hotels always full anyway?), so it will never happen.
Originally Posted By TP2000 You could make the same argument for ComicCon in San Diego every year, MacWorld in San Francisco every year, or any other big fan convention that is held in the same city year after year. And yet those big conventions return to their host cities every year, and the fans flock in big numbers from around the world. A great deal of the personnel staffing D23 Expo and physical stuff on display is located here in SoCal. It's a much cheaper and convenient, not to mention greener, proposition to shuttle it 45 minutes down I-5 than it would be to load all of those people and all that stuff onto planes and trucks and ship it around to different cities each year. Anaheim works. It's easy, it's convenient, it's efficient. And you can also get A and B List celebs down to Anaheim without much fuss to add the predictable glitz for breathless fans to swoon over.
Originally Posted By TP2000 Interesting point about the hotels. Last years D23 Expo was held after Labor Day in September, traditionally one of the very slowest parts of the year for Disneyland and hotels. Lots of folks complained on message boards that they weren't able to go to D23 after school started and summer ended. For 2011 they've moved it up to the middle of August. The hotels will be busier then, but I think they believe that by announcing it this far ahead the fans will get their hotel rooms early.
Originally Posted By CuriouserConstance I bet if you held it in a city that wasn't anywhere near a Disney park attendance would dramatically decline. No local APs to attend (which probably makes up a large part of the attendance) and people might not be as willing to travel to it if they can't make a family vacation out of it and attend the parks at the same time.
Originally Posted By ralphjr I think the guest relations challenges from having such a large event in an operating theme park would be a huge headache as well. I've been at the MK for one of those Halloween parties where they put wristbands on the people who were there for the event and tried to shoo out the day guests. There were quite a few angry guests that the CMs had to contend with, even though they should have known what time the park was closing to the general public. I can't imagine what that would be like if they tried to have a large scale event, restricted to guests who paid the extra convention fees, in an operating theme park. (Not to mention that the convention would then cost $80+ more per day because admission to Epcot would be required.) I know the parks regularly host smaller paid events with little fuss or guest complaints, but I think that a large event like D23 would be more noticeable to the regular guests and attract more complaints from the non-convention goers, who will wonder why they weren't allowed to see Johnny Depp or Courteney Cox. (Of course, that's assuming that they could get the same caliber of celebrities to fly out to Florida for a week.)
Originally Posted By mousermerf You have to admit, Epcot is probably the only other place they have a shot in hell of pulling it off. And January - they could do it in January. They do close large swaths of the park - it happens. I think that it's "unheard of" merely speaks to the fact that it doesn't bother guests as much as one would think. They work around it and give people plenty of warning. They shut down entire halves of future world for corporate events a couple times a year. What's the website? Disney Meetings? You can see all the cah-razy stuff Epcot Events is capable of pulling off if you throw money at them. If you re-think the event some, you can certainly make it into something you can charge a pretty penny for and get guests to flock to at Epcot, maybe a serious hard ticket event for Epcot even. You've got actual gallery spaces in Epcot like the American Adventure rotunda. You can talk about TDR, DLP, and HKDL at the actual Japan, France, and China pavilions in their current gallery spaces - they all have galleries. Reuse Epcot's 25 Anniversary gallery to show the future of the parks and that whole southwest corridor too, heck, go all tent-tastic toward Imagination, hell, the second floor of Imagination! Use the Harvest theater (Lion King film). Use the old Turtle Talk screen in Seas that is decommissioned but still usable (it's ironically a giant screen saver of fish if you've not seen it..) Of course Wonders and World Showplace for things like Films and ABC. What are we missing at this point?
Originally Posted By mousermerf Quick list: Wonders Odyssey Millennium Tent American Adventure Rotunda Communicore Southwest/Epcot 25 Harvest Theater All World Showcase Gallery Spaces All Temp Food/Wine/Flower/Garden Sites How do they not have enough space?
Originally Posted By cheesybaby People would complain that they would have to buy tickets to both the Expo AND to Epcot to see it.
Originally Posted By TP2000 mousermerf, I'm going to have to assume you didn't attend D23 Expo since you haven't answered that question, and you are offering up re-purposed small spaces in the 50,000 square foot range spread around a huge operating theme park to replace the 600,000 square feet of open exhibit hall space and 200,000 square feet of ballrooms and pre-function space used by D23 at the Anaheim Convention Center. Not to mention the 8,000 seat Anaheim Arena for the big announcements. D23 Expo used 800,000 square feet of space in the 1.2 Million square foot convention center. And it got rather congested even in that massive center on the Saturday of the Expo. I know you love Epcot mousermerf, and I find it to be a great park as well and my second favorite behind Disneyland. But really, there's no way in heck that D23 Expo in its current format would ever be held in Epcot or any other theme park. If you shrunk D23 Expo to about a third of its 2009 size, and gave up on trying to get A Listers out there, you could maybe host something in a few of the unused Epcot buildings. Maybe if you corral a half dozen abandoned Epcot buildings, you could use them for one of the much smaller hard ticket Destination D events?
Originally Posted By mousermerf You pretend D23 was some amorphous blob that actually took up those square feet you grasp so precariously to as the reasoning behind all logic for its existence in Anaheim. May I remind you that I could alter the fabric of time and space to my will, I could pick up Epcot and flatten Disneyland, DCA, and the Anaheim Convention Center quite neatly underneath the footprint of one multi-use established and public ready Epcot Center
Originally Posted By TP2000 How about this... Why not email the D23 folks. Email Steven Clark, the head of D23, and propose to him that he move the D23 Expo to Epcot for 2013. Let us know what he says, although I'm sure it will be the typical form response. But still, it might be fun for you to try and plant that seed with the powers that be that D23 Expo should be moved to Epcot in future years. Although I'm fairly confident that a potential Destination D event in 2012 or beyond is the biggest D23 event that WDW will be able to host. But it could be fun to see what kind of email response you get, and let us know what they say.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 While it's fun to watch the back-and-forth, I'll just point out that IF Disney wanted to hold the event in Florida there's this tiny, little facility 15 minutes away from WDW called the Orange County Convention Center. I kinda think that they just might be able to stuff all of the pixie dust in there with plenty of space to spare! ;-) The fact is D23 is Anaheim because it is easier (and cheaper) to get everything there (and everyone) ... it in no way has to be held on WDW property to be in Orlando ... although it could be spread out (but would be a logistical nightmare). I do have an inkling that the next one will be smaller than the last one and so on and so on ...
Originally Posted By TP2000 Oh gosh yes. As I pointed out early on, D23 Expo could easily fit into the Orlando Convention Center, and they could still host another big event there simultaneously. At 2.1 Million square feet, the OCCC is almost twice as big as the Anaheim Convention Center. But the logistical nightmare of transporting tens of thousands of people per day from WDW property to the OCCC makes that idea a nonstarter. Disney wouldn't want to lose all those hotel stays to International Drive, and the transport of 40,000+ people to and from WDW property doesn't just pound a nail in that coffin, it seals the coffin in cement and dumps it overboard 1,000 miles out to sea. They chose Anaheim as the site for D23 Expo for a reason. And they reserved the Anaheim Convention Center through 2014 for that same reason. I do find it interesting that the much smaller Destination D concept is being launched in Anaheim as well. That's a concept that could go into one of the two larger convention resorts on WDW property, and might soothe some ruffled feathers out there over not having D23 Expo. And yet they are launching the concept at Disneyland, with no word yet on if/when a similar event might go to WDW.
Originally Posted By Spirit of 74 ^^That's simple. They long ago realized that the true base of real Disney fans is much greater in Anaheim. That's why they killed the Disneyana Conventions in O-Town too. They could certainly hold the event at the OC CC on I-Drive and transport guests, but I suspect that they'd have a hard time getting half the turnout they got in Anaheim last year (and recall how many CMs who got in for huge discounts because tix weren't selling). I seriously doubt whether you'll see more than one or two more Expos ...
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt D23 would never work inside EPCOT. The place simply is not designed for traveling/temporary show. Show load in, set up, and load out would be a logistical nightmare. D23 belongs in a convention center.
Originally Posted By Dr Hans Reinhardt Are they of the scale of D23 with a comparable number of attendees? I do special events for a living and EPCOT just seems like the wrong venue for that kind of show.
