MK All-New Nighttime Parade Disney Starlight Set to Debut at Magic Kingdom in 2025

C

Comped

Well-Known Member
jpeden said:
Live Entertainment used to be its own division and their budget was considered relatively untouchable, especially when Ron was in charge. They made all the creative calls and decisions. In the early 2000’s after Ron retired the budget for live entertainment was folded into park ops. They resisted a night parade for two main reasons from what I remember:

A. The operational nightmare of a 9PM parade, 10PM HEA, and 11PM parade, especially with how hub-centric the fireworks have become since HEA

B. The cost/hit to the park ops budget. These things are not cheap to run and when you start talking about the increased staffing for ops/crowd control along with the cost of the actual parade performance and maintenance, it adds up quickly.




It’s because the budget for live entertainment lives in Ops now from my understanding and not in DLE.
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This is exactly right. The only time I can remember Ron not having an ounce of say or input into the budget for an event or show or parade was the millennium celebration where Eisner told him how much money was to be spent. Actually, there's a funny story about that which I swear isn't on the internet... Everything else is correct as well, ops hates spending money on entertainment especially in Orlando for some reason, if they can help it. Some parks can't (DHS), but others can patch it over with ride investment (AK) or simply not having a mediocre show or slate of shows and cheapening out on the wider entertainment options (Epcot). The budget is much more of an issue than the logistics.
TTA94 said:
Question is will Ops jump at the opportunity in the future, whatever the reason may be, to once again not have a nighttime parade. Hopefully it becomes, as it should have after MSEP left, a requirement for there to be a nighttime parade.

I think WDW Ops would love it if they had the option to run Starlight off and on like Disneyland does with PTN.
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There was always a requirement to have a nighttime parade, at least culturally. Ops just ignored it through destroying Spectro and refusing to do anything other than the bare minimum (pay very little for reusing a decades old parade when they can get away with it). They only did this because it was forced on them from on high.
jpeden said:
No doubt they’d love to run it seasonly and maybe a few nights a week during the slower seasons and once or twice nightly during peak times. I don’t think outside financial crisis though that will happen mainly because of how 1st time/only trip visitors skew to WDW.
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Outside of a recession, Disney in terrible financial shape,or a 9/11-style disaster for the industry, you won't see it running like you propose. Unlrss, that is, certain operational figures decide to do it that way. And given the track record they have with entertainment, I can't say it's an impossibility. Unfortunately.
 
Squishy

Squishy

Well-Known Member
Drew the Disney Dude said:
I was laughing realizing that they are falling apart in days from the design being so weak. Hey, maybe this will make them realize we need new costumes for the Encanto unit. 😂
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The whole parade needs new costumes tbh, getting more street level performers would be the fastest & easiest improvement for this parade. Sadly it's a operations budget decision.
 
MerlinTheGoat

MerlinTheGoat

Well-Known Member
Well, it's time to be mean again...

While these are cheapo garbage quality that won't hold up past the first couple of uses, there are kid's wearable butterfly wings on Amazon that cost less than $30 that still look far better than Starlight's. I am not exaggerating...

1753273354664.png


And before you say anything, yes I know these are cheaply made trash that will fall apart after a few times of being worn, if they even survive delivery. And they're obviously nowhere close to their prior parade costume standards (but again somehow vastly better looking than Starlight's). One expects that Disney's should be vastly better looking than this AND better constructed to hold up over time... Except oh wait, not only do these somehow look better, but turns out Disney's are ALSO already falling apart after only a couple days.

Disney's bar is so low that they're playing limbo in hell's basement.
 
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Brian

Brian

Well-Known Member
Squishy said:
The whole parade needs new costumes tbh, getting more street level performers would be the fastest & easiest improvement for this parade. Sadly it's a operations budget decision.
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Not fast or easy because these are people. Getting more headcount added to the budget at Disney is like pulling teeth.
 
Squishy

Squishy

Well-Known Member
Brian said:
Not fast or easy because these are people. Getting more headcount added to the budget at Disney is like pulling teeth.
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Compared to R&D more floats it is a way faster & cheaper improvement, it would take them ~1.5-2 years to add a additional 1-2 floats.
 
Brian

Brian

Well-Known Member
Squishy said:
Compared to R&D more floats it is a way faster & cheaper improvement, it would take them ~1.5-2 years to add a additional 1-2 floats.
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Float R&D is a one-time expense, as is their construction. Labor is an ongoing expense, which as we've seen with multiple parades over the years, is easily subject to cuts.
 
Squishy

Squishy

Well-Known Member
Brian said:
Float R&D is a one-time expense, as is their construction. Labor is an ongoing expense, which as we've seen with multiple parades over the years, is easily subject to cuts.
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Sure but the complaint of the costumes & too little preformers will still remain which is what seems to be the biggest complaint about the parade. Adding 1-2 floats without adding street preformers to them will also further make that issue more noticable.
 
Brian

Brian

Well-Known Member
Squishy said:
Sure but the complaint of the costumes & too little preformers will still remain which is what seems to be the biggest complaint about the parade. Adding 1-2 floats without adding street preformers to them will also further make that issue more noticable.
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Agreed for sure, but it's just more difficult to get additional performers added than many would think.
 
D

DisneyHead123

Well-Known Member
Brian said:
Agreed for sure, but it's just more difficult to get additional performers added than many would think.
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Do you think that’s more about budget or concerns about labor shortages? I can see them not wanting to create tons of new roles if they can barely fill the ones they have.
 
AxolotlTales

AxolotlTales

Active Member
TTA94 said:
They need to do what they should have done and went with the butterfly costumes from the past. Fingers crossed.
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I think the butterflies can just be attached to carts similar to what the Frozen unit for Dreamlights looks like. The dancers aren't meant to look like a butterfly so a costume for that doesn't work for Encanto where the designs aren't meant to look like you've shrunk or are immersed in a garden. Same thing for Frozen, but it'd be nicer if the carts had structures of the elements like the gale winds, water nokk, earth giant etc that can be formed with lights through the different lighting sequences. Then if there's remaining dancers from this they can be put into other units like Coco or Peter Pan where they're needed.
 
mastromjm

mastromjm

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
Yes
There is a bit of a precedent for adjusting street performers - years ago when the Share A Dream Come True Parade was changed for the "Celebrate You" promotion they replaced most of the walking character cast with dancers. About five months in, a bunch of characters were added to the street - but in exchange, the entire villains unit was removed and a few dancers were also cut
 

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