News Big changes coming to EPCOT's Future World?

[lazyboy97o]

I feel similarly about the word "detail". Remember when they tried to push "The King's Bookends" from the animated Cinderella as a feature of Princess Fairytale Hall?



How embarrassing. As if a few call-back knicknacks make the experience any more meaningful than the actual Dark Ride it replaced.

I won't pretend detail isn't an essential element to a successful Disney attraction, but true detail lies in generating a rich, whole, bespoke experience and serving that experience both structurally and topically. It's not about mere decor.

A few handmade sprinkles on a store-bought cake isn't "detail", and certainly doesn't make for a memorable dessert.

I agree wholeheartedly. Too often detail means any sort of prop or ornamentation regardless of its appropriateness to the story being told. We’d probably have people praising the new details on CommuniCore East if it was tarted up with a bunch of foam gingerbread trim.

 

[_caleb]

So why doesn’t someone compete with EPCOT? If the idea of EPCOT was so good (which I think it was!), where is the modern version of it that captures the essence for the next generation?

I think most of us would agree that where Disney went wrong with EPCOT was not keeping it updated. Is future-oriented edutainment and celebration of human culture” just not a viable theme for a park? Why hasn’t someone tried it since? Lots of former WDI folks out there...

 

[Mac Tonight]

So why doesn’t someone compete with EPCOT? If the idea of EPCOT was so good (which I think it was!), where is the modern version of it that captures the essence for the next generation?

I think most of us would agree that where Disney went wrong with EPCOT was not keeping it updated. Is future-oriented edutainment and celebration of human culture” just not a viable theme for a park? Why hasn’t someone tried it since? Lots of former WDI folks out there...

You have a spare billion dollars and parcel of available land????

 

[lazyboy97o]

So why doesn’t someone compete with EPCOT? If the idea of EPCOT was so good (which I think it was!), where is the modern version of it that captures the essence for the next generation?

I think most of us would agree that where Disney went wrong with EPCOT was not keeping it updated. Is future-oriented edutainment and celebration of human culture” just not a viable theme for a park? Why hasn’t someone tried it since? Lots of former WDI folks out there...

I would say they do in all of the museums and cultural experiences that exist and continue to be developed. Expos (World’s Fairs) also continue to this day.

Executing a good idea is also not always easy. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who would claim that Disneyland is a failure but many imitators have failed and even Disney themselves have fumbled the concept.

 

[_caleb]

You have a spare billion dollars and parcel of available land????

I don’t! But apparently, Dart Interests does?

 

[_caleb]

I would say they do in all of the museums and cultural experiences that exist and continue to be developed. Expos (World’s Fairs) also continue to this day.

Executing a good idea is also not always easy. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who would claim that Disneyland is a failure but many imitators have failed and even Disney themselves have fumbled the concept.

So the answer is probably “because it’s very difficult and expensive.” Makes sense.

I agree we can still get a taste of what EPCOT did through Expos, museums, and cultural experiences (some of them designed by former Imagineers)—there are some really neat things out there that play into that same edutainment approach and outlook. But nothing that would really rival the EPCOT we knew and love (deliberate use of past-tense “knew” and current-tense “love” here).

 

[UNCgolf]

So the answer is probably “because it’s very difficult and expensive.” Makes sense.

That's almost certainly the answer. It's much easier (and cheaper) to build some roller coasters and have a successful park.

I think the only way we would ever get something akin to original EPCOT again is if it was the passion project of a billionaire who had the money to spend and wasn't too worried about the overall profitability. Not that they'd want to lose money long-term, but an individual can be on board with a modest profit for something that fits their vision. A publicly traded corporation really can't be in the present climate due to investor pressure.

 

[Mac Tonight]

watch Apple surprise everyone and announce iPark...

 

[Mike S]

watch Apple surprise everyone and announce iPark...

Idk, doing something like this actually strikes me as something Elon Musk would do.

 

[Mac Tonight]

Idk, doing something like this actually strikes me as something Elon Musk would do.

but would it be on Mars???

 

[montyz81]

So why doesn’t someone compete with EPCOT? If the idea of EPCOT was so good (which I think it was!), where is the modern version of it that captures the essence for the next generation?

I think most of us would agree that where Disney went wrong with EPCOT was not keeping it updated. Is future-oriented edutainment and celebration of human culture” just not a viable theme for a park? Why hasn’t someone tried it since? Lots of former WDI folks out there...

I feel like Epcot is more a victim of the internet rather than a failed experiment. The original Epcot idea was for industry to test their concepts on the public in a controlled city. Epcot Center, to a certain extent, did that. As the internet developed, businesses' concepts became much more visible. People could react more easily, reducing the need for any company to sponsor and create concepts in a controlled environment like Epcot. That made building a competing environment much less viable. The byproduct of Epcot has always been attendees' ability to become inspired. As the internet took hold, people now want instant gratification making it less important to get their inspiration from a place like Epcot. Just my 2 cents.

 

[Mac Tonight]

I feel like Epcot is more a victim of the internet rather than a failed experiment. The original Epcot idea was for industry to test their concepts on the public in a controlled city. Epcot Center, to a certain extent, did that. As the internet developed, businesses' concepts became much more visible. People could react more easily, reducing the need for any company to sponsor and create concepts in a controlled environment like Epcot. That made building a competing environment much less viable. The byproduct of Epcot has always been attendees' ability to become inspired. As the internet took hold, people now want instant gratification making it less important to get their inspiration from a place like Epcot. Just my 2 cents.

I think you're right about the Internet. Epcot is a victim of not changing enough, while the society surrounding it, changed too drastically. It never had a chance to continue being what it was once information became so readily accessible.

And it's only gotten worse with the powers-at-be who think the only way to fix a "problem" is to slap a marketable character onto it, because of synergy.

Nothing makes me sadder than realizing the first experience my wife will (eventually) have of Epcot will be in it's current state.

 

[UNCgolf]

I feel like Epcot is more a victim of the internet rather than a failed experiment. The original Epcot idea was for industry to test their concepts on the public in a controlled city. Epcot Center, to a certain extent, did that. As the internet developed, businesses' concepts became much more visible. People could react more easily, reducing the need for any company to sponsor and create concepts in a controlled environment like Epcot. That made building a competing environment much less viable. The byproduct of Epcot has always been attendees' ability to become inspired. As the internet took hold, people now want instant gratification making it less important to get their inspiration from a place like Epcot. Just my 2 cents.

I've seen this argument before, but I don't buy it -- partially because the real beginning of EPCOT's decline happened before the rise of the Internet. I'd say the combination of the destruction of Horizons and the change of Imagination was the death knell for the original idea of EPCOT, and those both happened in the late 90s, as did the losing of sponsorships for some of the other pavilions like the Living Seas.

Not that the Internet didn't exist in the 1990s, but most people didn't have easy/home access to it, and what existed as the Internet was not comparable in any way to what exists today. What we now think of as the modern Internet really only came into being with widespread home access to broadband speeds, and that's only been the case for 10-15 years (at least in the US, which matters the most for this discussion because of EPCOT's location).

Beyond that, EPCOT doesn't actually need any corporate sponsorship to function. It may have when the park first opened, but it certainly doesn't today -- Disney is a major corporation with tremendous assets itself now.

 

[_caleb]

I feel like Epcot is more a victim of the internet rather than a failed experiment. The original Epcot idea was for industry to test their concepts on the public in a controlled city. Epcot Center, to a certain extent, did that. As the internet developed, businesses' concepts became much more visible. People could react more easily, reducing the need for any company to sponsor and create concepts in a controlled environment like Epcot. That made building a competing environment much less viable. The byproduct of Epcot has always been attendees' ability to become inspired. As the internet took hold, people now want instant gratification making it less important to get their inspiration from a place like Epcot. Just my 2 cents.

I can appreciate this. I think the internet certainly took some of the novelty out of the experience of seeing emerging technologies in the park. It defiantly made a presence at the parks less valuable to the companies that once might have paid handsomely for space/sponsorships at EPCOT.

But even a regular guy like me can see they could have pivoted a bit without ditching the edutainment and inspiration approach completely (which they seem to have done). The only reason retailers like Best Buy even exist in the age of Amazon is because sometimes people just want to see and touch things before buying them. Epcot could have been that for major new technologies—a permanent CES, for example.

Or what about pivoting to “sell” the audience to sponsor corporations? EPCOT guests as focus groups, market testing, or even test subjects (all with guest permission, of course!)? They could measure guest biometrics on Mission:Space, get guest feedback on experimental foods, test new technologies with different demographics, etc.

But all of this would require EPCOT to be proactively curated rather than just a a collection of fixed exhibits. Someone would have had to design new exhibits, and then rotate out those perfectly-good exhibits (maybe finding other places for those exhibits to live on) just to keep the presence in the parks valuable and rare.

 

[montyz81]

But all of this would require EPCOT to be proactively curated rather than just a a collection of fixed exhibits. Someone would have had to design new exhibits, and then rotate out those perfectly-good exhibits (maybe finding other places for those exhibits to live on) just to keep the presence in the parks valuable and rare.

I agree. I think that the cost for Disney would still be too much. Having sponsors to help foot the bill to update the technology once a year might work... if there weren't any internet. But with the internet, these companies can reach more people much more quickly. At about 10 million people per year, is there really a justification for spending the money on curating the technology?

 

[montyz81]

Not that the Internet didn't exist in the 1990s, but most people didn't have easy/home access to it, and what existed as the Internet was not comparable in any way to what exists today. What we now think of as the modern Internet really only came into being with widespread home access to broadband speeds, and that's only been the case for 10-15 years (at least in the US, which matters the most for this discussion because of EPCOT's location).

AOL used to send out those access CDs for free to anyone that wanted them. I have been connecting to the internet since about 1995. That's right about when sponsors started to slow down their support for rides in Epcot.

 

[MisterPenguin]

Idk, doing something like this actually strikes me as something Elon Musk would do.

Musk World would never open due to all the feature creep.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Movies Anywhere. Netflix. Disney+. If the internet killed EPCOT Center then the idea of leaning into movies that are more accessible than ever makes no sense. You can experience your favorite movies anytime you want.

 

[UNCgolf]

AOL used to send out those access CDs for free to anyone that wanted them. I have been connecting to the internet since about 1995. That's right about when sponsors started to slow down their support for rides in Epcot.

As I said, the 1990s Internet was not remotely comparable to today's Internet. You couldn't get a lot of easy information back then the way you can now. Businesses were not reaching average every day people via the Internet until closer to 2005-2010. I've also been using the Internet at home since the mid-90s, but we are outliers; a large percentage of the United States didn't even own a home computer back then.

There are statistics that tell us as much -- only 52% of adults used the Internet at all in 2000, and only some of those people actually had it in their homes. That number was significantly higher among young people, but the fact remains that it was a different Internet than today. I think people forget just how much things have changed with regards to the Internet. The Internet of 1999 would be completely unrecognizable to someone in their early 20s.

The Internet as a place for businesses to connect to consumers individually (through ads and otherwise) is really function of broadband access (and modern social media, which also didn't exist back then). The US didn't cross 50% in terms of adults having home broadband access until 2007. The beginning of EPCOT's decline/change precedes the modern Internet by roughly a decade.

The numbers just don't back up the assertion that the Internet was the reason sponsorships stopped -- especially since some companies continued to sponsor well past that time. Beyond that, companies could reach far more people with a TV ad in 1995 than they could at EPCOT. I think the sponsorship model was doomed to fail eventually even if the Internet didn't exist, but as I said above, that really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Disney doesn't need corporate sponsorship; they have plenty of money.

 

[marni1971]

As I said, the 1990s Internet was not remotely comparable to today's Internet. You couldn't get a lot of easy information back then the way you can now. Businesses were not reaching average every day people via the Internet until closer to 2005-2010. I've also been using the Internet at home since the mid-90s, but we are outliers; a large percentage of the United States didn't even own a home computer back then.

There are statistics that tell us as much -- only 52% of adults used the Internet at all in 2000, and only some of those people actually had it in their homes. That number was significantly higher among young people, but the fact remains that it was a different Internet than today. I think people forget just how much things have changed with regards to the Internet. The Internet of 1999 would be completely unrecognizable to someone in their early 20s.

The Internet as a place for businesses to connect to consumers individually (through ads and otherwise) is really function of broadband access (and modern social media, which also didn't exist back then). The US didn't cross 50% in terms of adults having home broadband access until 2007. The beginning of EPCOT's decline/change precedes the modern Internet by roughly a decade.

The numbers just don't back up the assertion that the Internet was the reason sponsorships stopped -- especially since some companies continued to sponsor well past that time. Beyond that, companies could reach far more people with a TV ad in 1995 than they could at EPCOT. I think the sponsorship model was doomed to eventually fail even if the Internet didn't exist, but as I said above, that really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Disney doesn't need corporate sponsorship; they have plenty of money.

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(the sound of dial up before you had to get off the phone line)