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

[Gusey]

Tinker Bell being the only character walking makes the lack of characters in between floats stand out a bit. That's probably the main area to improve. It has got me thinking, once Peter and Wendy fly, will there be space on the float for Tink to fit too, and that her walking on her own is only a temporary fix until they can fly?
Pre-recorded vs live speaking doesn't effect me much because the character still has to be there for the audio to make sense now. They'd have to edit the soundtrack if they removed a "talking" character.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

It has got me thinking, once Peter and Wendy fly, will there be space on the float for Tink to fit too, and that her walking on her own is only a temporary fix until they can fly?

Oh! That makes sense - Tink enabling them to fly and also… the reason she is the only walking character.

 

[jrhwdw]

I'm sorry but this parade is beautiful and I love it. It's not perfect by any means but it's really good. You guys can hate it all you want but not me!

Absolutely!!!! You would think everyone would be over the moon after 9 Years!!!!! We're we ever 100% Sure we would get here????? Thankfully, TDO answered that Friday Night. MK is So Back at Night!!!! FOF still needs help though......

 

[Ayla]

Also I wish they could have done some sort of minimalistic starlight projection on the castle. The initial concept art seemed to suggest they would. I know it’s just concept art, but feels like a missed opportunity that would have added a bit more energy

Some of the floats may be too tall when going through the hub and would block the projections.

 

[phillip9698]

I believe I saw the example of the Epcot ground lighting issues referenced in this topic. That is a poster child example of something like this and what most miss is the ridiculous, but nonetheless real reasons why some of this stuff takes so long to get fixed. Please note, I have no specific facts on this but having worked in the industry the patterns are pretty similar. 1) You create a design you want to implement. 2) You put the design out for proposals on how to implement what you want/ 3) you get to a final design and bid the building and installation of the 'thing' you want to deploy. it goes in and everything seems to work until some random event causes it to stop working.

In the case of the Epcot ground lights they break and stop working. Keep in mind this whole thing is 100% custom designed and built for this installation. When something breaks you can't order replacement parts from Amazon for same day delivery. And then the lawyers get involved around warranty and contract terms and redesign for purpose because the thing doesn't work and the whole process of fixing the show elements grinds to a halt for an interminable time.

Then once everyone agrees on the remediation plan (and who is paying for it) an entire process to redesign and refabricate the system or solution can go forward. Now, you are going to demand that the replacement be aggressively stress tested to make sure it will work for the intended purpose and under the intended conditions. This takes absolutely forever to complete a redesign and truly stress test it for purpose. Then you have to get park OPS to agree to an installation window when the construction walls can go up so the paving can be pulled up for re-installation of the new version.

I know nobody likes it, but this is the sort of real-world stuff that surrounds things like this. Nobody wanted it to happen and it was pretty likely not done on purpose but fixing it is WAY more complicated and tedious than many around here are willing to accept for something as simple as ground lighting.

I wish more people understood this. I work with commercial builds quite often. When a build is complete, a month later you can have something seemingly small like a sprinkler leak occur.

You would think a sprinkler leak could be repaired by in house maintenance. But if in house maintenance touches it then they own it and if its discovered the issue is much more widespread that could become a very costly touch. So you end up needing to talk to the general contractor, who talks to the company he subbed it out to, who then needs to have discussions on what is and isnt covered under warranty, then if the sprinkler leak damaged something then insurance gets involved. It can take a very long time to get that resolved in a manner satisfactory to all parties.

That being said, with the amount of money and contractors thrown around at Disney, its not a simple manner of just having something fixed tomorrow.

 

[flynnibus]

Live mics would be more complex vs. pre-recorded. Not the other way around.

back then the floats were audio sources and playback. Now the playback is blended and synch’d externally.

Point is back then the system was much simpler and performer mics could be locally done. Now you’re trying to blend into a system and performance that is all being managed off board and way more intricate

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

back then the floats were audio sources and playback. Now the playback is blended and synch’d externally.

Oh I see what you mean. Honestly all the Christmas parades blend together in my mind but isn’t Santa a live mic?

 

[flynnibus]

Some of the floats may be too tall when going through the hub and would block the projections.

The projectors are on the roof of Main Street. That’s quite the line of sight to block

 

[zemmyz]

All this does is make me miss the early 2000s and everything we used to have. It’s half the length of Spectro, with (at least from the video) shoddy light work and underwhelming street performers and costuming. I want to be excited. I really do. I love that we finally have a night parade back, and most people agree sure.
But to compare the length, pacing, amount of lights, characters and performers we used to have, with 20+ year older tech, it just triggers another deep sigh and "what happened to what I loved" outta me. It's 10 minutes long, with marching street performers with sticks, and half the floats have one character with practically no motion on the floats. I mean, what are we doing here. 15 years since Spectro ended and that's your big "one-up". I hope some people don't settle, because there's some good bones to this. Music and theme have something.

It needs more. You have to give it more. Settling for this result isn't the way. Harmonious was fixed, but it just hurts that entertainment suffers yet another rough go out the gate in a post-pandemic WDW.

 

[Ayla]

The projectors are on the roof of Main Street. That’s quite the line of sight to block

Have you seen the size of some of the floats? They are as tall as the buildings on Main Street.

 

[BrianLo]

One thing I miss about the Eisner era of Disney is that both Walt Disney World and Disneyland used to have a much healthier balance when it comes to representing Disney Characters from older films and shorts at the parks. For example, The Three Little Pigs characters used to be common meetable characters. It wasn't uncommon on seeing them in live parade and entertainment during the 80s and 90s.

They even had the honor on leading Spectromagic's grand finale.

If Spectromagic was made nowadays, it would focus heavily on characters from the post-Renaissance era. Is Iger/Chapek allergic to older Disney Characters that ain't Snow White, Pinocchio, or anything from the Disney Princess lineup?

35 years ago the company tended to focus less on the characters from the last 35 years is not the correlation you think it is.

 

[thomas998]

All this does is make me miss the early 2000s and everything we used to have. It’s half the length of Spectro, with (at least from the video) shoddy light work and underwhelming street performers and costuming. I want to be excited. I really do. I love that we finally have a night parade back, and most people agree sure.
But to compare the length, pacing, amount of lights, characters and performers we used to have, with 20+ year older tech, it just triggers another deep sigh and "what happened to what I loved" outta me. I hope some people don't settle, because there's some good bones to this. Music and theme have something.

It needs more. You have to give it more. Settling for this result isn't the way. Harmonious was fixed, but it just hurts that entertainment suffers yet another rough go out the gate in a post-pandemic WDW.

Agreed. And this parade seems to be a bit too heavily slanted to the newest IP which was not even what I would consider good enough to warrant the amount of parade some of it has been given. Of all the night parades at Disney World, this is probably the weakest one ever. Weaker even than any of the special ticket parades which I would normally expected to be weak given they are only expected to be done for a few dozen times each year... but this is supposed to be something that can stand up to time and be around for a while... Frankly it doesn't deserve more than the summer and they should send it back to get fixed.

 

[Starship824]

The projectors are on the roof of Main Street. That’s quite the line of sight to block

Not in MK, in Paris and Hong Kong sure but in MK the projectors are in the windows.

 

[brb1006]

Oh I see what you mean. Honestly all the Christmas parades blend together in my mind but isn’t Santa a live mic?

Yes, Santa is live mic at both WDW and Disneyland. The exception is Paris and Tokyo where they use pre-recorded audio for the Christmas parades (Tokyo relied on pre-recorded audio for their Christmas parades since 2006).

 

[AndyS2992]

Some of the floats may be too tall when going through the hub and would block the projections.

I don't believe that would be an issue, though even if it was, Disneyland Paris's castle has LEDs built in to the wall to make the castle sparkle, I'm sure they could do a slowed down version of this would look nice. Can't recall if Cinderella castle has this feature or not.

 

[IMDREW]

I think a flickering fabric flame with a windmachine underneath wouldve made the encanto float so much better than the balloon flame thats there now.

 

[Brer Panther]

I could tell that TBA was lacking in a number of key ways that go beyond how it looks in a video, but that didn't stop people from saying you shouldn't judge it until you've seen it in person.

I always thought that was just the pro-rethemers trying to move the goalposts. You know how sensitive they are to criticism of Tiana's.

another thing to note - the characters are mouthing to pre-recorded dialogue.

I wasn't sure if the face characters were speaking live or if it was pre-recorded. You think they actually got Ariana DeBose back to record the dialogue?

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

Yes, Santa is live mic at both WDW and Disneyland. The exception is Paris and Tokyo where they use pre-recorded audio for the Christmas parades

that’s where I’ve seen a pre-record Santa! Which makes sense with all the interactions during the show stops. The timing would be tricky live.

 

[ToTBellHop]

I always thought that was just the pro-rethemers trying to move the goalposts. You know how sensitive they are to criticism of Tiana's.

I wasn't sure if the face characters were speaking live or if it was pre-recorded. You think they actually got Ariana DeBose back to record the dialogue?

I’m sure she was available after flops like Kraven the Hunter and Love Hurts...

Doesn’t sound like Bruno on the Encanto float, though. I wonder if perhaps they got the new Miguel actor since they’re making Coco 2 anyway? Obviously, the original actor is too old.

 

[flynnibus]

Not in MK, in Paris and Hong Kong sure but in MK the projectors are in the windows.

Main Street Casey's Corner projectors housing - Photo 2 of 3

Main Street Casey's Corner projectors housing - Photo 2 of 3

www.wdwmagic.com

When they did the castle show they put them on the roofs of main atrret. Windows were done later for the ms projections