News EPCOT to be festival-free for summer 2024

[Fido Chuckwagon]

How about an Epcot festival of festivals... a tribute to all epcot festivals. It'll be festive

With a popcorn bucket made to look like it’s a lot of little popcorn buckets.

 

[Patcheslee]

Don't really know how I feel about this. We've never been during any of the festivals since we had to cancel last summer. Remembering what was offered the Scavenger Hunt & Butterfly Garden were the only things that DD15 was interested in. Maybe 2 food booths, but no alcohol, so we don't find the demo for them.
Most countries have a type of Independence Day. So having some history or something at each would be kinda cool.

 

[Disstevefan1]

This is strange. EPCOT loses A TON of money doing this. Its almost as if TWDC planned this to say, "WDW is not doing as well as we expected, therefore we will not invest in it".

 

[the_rich]

This is disappointing. My last day there is the 29th. I love the booths

 

[James Alucobond]

Do we know if the CommuniCore booth slots under the awning are also intended to be festival-tied? Interested to see if they just leave that empty until Food & Wine.

 

[Disstevefan1]

Do we know if the CommuniCore booth slots under the awning are also intended to be festival-tied? Interested to see if they just leave that empty until Food & Wine.

Yes I wondered that too.

The Communicore building was to be used at least partially for festivals, right?

 

[castlecake2.0]

This is strange. EPCOT loses A TON of money doing this. Its almost as if TWDC planned this to say, "WDW is not doing as well as we expected, therefore we will not invest in it".

They are trying to see if they can make the same amount of money while saving two months of labor

 

[James Alucobond]

Yes I wondered that too.

The Communicore building was to be used at least partially for festivals, right?

Pretty sure the exhibit space, meet and greets, and service counter (mobile ordering?) are permanent, obviously with the potential for some seasonal content. But there’s space reserved for three or so booths opposite the stage.

 

[MichWolv]

Coming Summer of 2025: The International Pixar Fest presented by Advent Health! Come see as Epcot is transformed into a playground for all your Pixar Pals! Look for the hidden Toy Story friends now hidden throughout Spaceship Earth, ride the brand new Inside Out Journey into your Imagination with Bing Bong, come experience Cars Test Track, look for Wall-E and Eve to great you on Mars with Mission Space, enjoy festival booths with Pixar Themed booths throughout World Showcase and stay till close to experience our newest firework spectacular: Together Forever!

Just preparing you all for next summer…

As a temporary overlay to these attractions, I'm in!

 

[MichWolv]

I have a different theory - they are trying a summer without a festival to see how it affects park attendance and F&B sales in the park, to see if the revenue is worth the cost for the summer.

I'm thinking similarly. Maybe they think that the festivals don't draw more people in the summer than would already be coming to WDW -- in other words, they're going to be busy no matter what. So they're trying to figure out if a summer festival actually increases F&B spend enough to justify it. it's also possible that staffing is still a problem, and cutting the festival was the way to try to deal with it this year.

I would guess that a decent number of booths will still be open, just without an overaching "festival" theme. And if crowds and spending justify it, they can open more, but this gives flexibility to decide.

 

[pigglewiggle]

I'm a bit flabbergasted reading this thread. It's seems people complained that the festivals went all year and are now complaining that start dates have gone back to more normal timing.

Interesting.

 

[fgmnt]

The real crime will be if I can’t mooch off an equivalent cast discount to the 20% off M-Th festival booths as in the past.

 

[Disstevefan1]

They are trying to see if they can make the same amount of money while saving two months of labor

Actually that's a thought. They know how much money they net for two months in a festival.
Now they can see how much money they net in a regular two months with no festival but having Genie+ and ILL.

Maybe now with Genie+ and ILL, they will determine that don't actually net that much more with the festival.

Remember, the festivals are EXPENSIVE to run; all that food cost, energy cost, cast members to pay, etc.

Genie+ and ILL....... While it took money to initially develop and launch, many years ago as FastPass+ now its a fraction of the cost to keep going. Just money coming in for nearly no cost.

 

[ToTBellHop]

I'm a bit flabbergasted reading this thread. It's seems people complained that the festivals went all year and are now complaining that start dates have gone back to more normal timing.

Interesting.

Perhaps there’s more than one person posting on these boards. Perhaps there are as many as two people posting here and they have different, sometimes contradictory opinions.

This feels like they’re collecting baseline data so some higher-ups can congratulate themselves when they make more money off some new festival next summer. If they focus on utilizing indoor spaces, it could work.

 

[pigglewiggle]

Perhaps there’s not than one person posting on these boards. Perhaps there are as many as two people posting here and they have different, sometimes contradictory opinions.

This feels like they’re collecting baseline data so some higher-ups can congratulate themselves when they make more money off some new festival next summer. If they focus on utilizing indoor spaces, it could work.

Man, thanks for explaining it. All makes sense now.

 

[muteki]

I actually like having the booths there to take some pressure off the more permanent places to eat. Was there between Arts and Garden and everywhere was packed.

 

[mattpeto]

Might be an olive branch to the Epcot restaurants, who have lost revenue with competing with booths that essentially run 99% of the year.

 

[GhostHost1000]

less festival time I assume means less staffing for festival (booths) and decor expense as well

 

[PREMiERdrum]

"Keep them in the corners."

So to speak.

 

[Purduevian]

I agree with most of this list. However, I've been a fierce advocate of ABC and it's quality has dropped over the land 2-3 months now unfortunately.

Very disappointing to hear ABC wasn't flashy, but it was elevated from standard theme park fair in the past. (also massive AC seating area is always a big plus).

Going back to EPCOT and labor talk, I assume they will have to up the staffing at all the QS and carts, but it will probably still be a lot less than staffing all the booths.