News EPCOT's Harmonious to be replaced with new nighttime spectacular Luminous

[Cliff]

I'd happily take a simpler Epcot Forever type of show (i.e no permanent structures) being more permanent. Those Harmonious barges are awful and were a stupid idea from the start.

Yes,...I'm OK with new display hardware but it needs to be removable the way RoE was.

Water projection screens? Ok,...so we know that World of Color have a retractable "sinking/rising" table of fountains and screen nozzles and pumps. Fantasmic Disneyland also hides their fountains as screens during the day. What if they are developing long and narrow "floating" water screen and pumps? These need to be long but don't need to be wide. They are just floating "tubes" with pumps, nozzels, jets and power hookups and an outboard motor. They make five of them and bring them out every night the way they used to with RoE. The projectors can be on the islands hidden inside grassy looking berms using astro-turf.

I think THAT is something they can build and test offsite easily and bring them in 3 months before show launch to calibrate projections and anchor locations and content testing. But yeah,...90% of these "floating pumps" can be developed off site, completely away from us.

This idea would also not be anywhere near as expensive as what they built for Harmonious. That would only be a small fraction of the cost.

Y'know,...LED panels all have a limited life span and those Harmonious "taco" displays are VERY expensive and they degrade over time every hour you run them. Water screens and projector lamps and water pumps are way....WAY cheaper to maintain.

 

[trainplane3]

I know EF is only a Temporary Show but why didn't Epcot add Fountains to it????? Any permanent Show should have Fountains IMO! Epcot has had them for just about 40 Years! Except EF of course.

Because it's hard to add fountains when the infrastructure to support them won't be on the lagoon (moved to the marina). If they stay on the lagoon, the barges will be getting modified so they can't run them anyways.

 

[Crazydisneyfanluke]

Harmonius was cancelled last night due to "technical difficulties".

It's a rare announcement (most cancellation announcements played are due to "inclement weather"). Although it was raining the whole night, so interesting they chose this type of cancellation announcement.

Here's a stream from last night with timestamp of the exact announcement:

I have watched Harm in a down pour. Since there wasn't lightning, the show must go on.

 

[doctornick]

Because it's hard to add fountains when the infrastructure to support them won't be on the lagoon (moved to the marina). If they stay on the lagoon, the barges will be getting modified so they can't run them anyways.

It's always possible to add fountains like they have at WoC at DCA where they are below the water's surface during the day.

 

[Andrew25]

There are 3 issues with Harmonious: it's surprisingly long length (which makes it feel as if it has less pyro as its spread through ~18 minutes versus Illuminations' 12 minutes), the intro being very slow, and the finale being very monotone non-triumphant.

If you take the intro/finale of Illuminations, Disney can then fit the middle with whatever IP they want to promote.

 

[Cliff]

It's always possible to add fountains like they have at WoC at DCA where they are below the water's surface during the day.

Maybe,...but I dont see them wanting to do a lot of underwater construction. World of Color's lagoon is very very shallow and has concrete as it's floor. Epcot's lagoon is much deeper with muck and mud as it's floor. They "could" add tons of concrete down there to add a heavy base to build infrastructure on with hydraulics and stuff like that but,...ehhh...I dont see it.

My bet is a 100% floating and mobile water nozzel/pump system that will live in backstage marina during the day. Just build long "tube" barges with small outboard engines. Hell,...they could build many of them that "connect" together every night 2 hours before the show. 6 of them? 9 of them? They can be fully built at any off site location and trucked in when finished.

This wont be that expensive as they are only (maybe) 55 gallon drums welded together. Nozzels and jets and pumps and 15hp motor. Get 10 projectors on the islands with image stacking onto those water screens and you are done with that part.

Get Gavin Greenaway back to score this show. I 100% know this man could write us another RoE and Tapestry of Nations level score in literally a month. The man is a genious and absolutely THAT good at whet he does. Then you got fireworks which Disney can do in their sleep and then take time for a really good "STORY" for the show. This will be the hardest part.

Yup,...a floating, movable water projection barge system is my best guess.....

 

[mikejs78]

Maybe,...but I dont see them wanting to do a lot of underwater construction. World of Color's lagoon is very very shallow and has concrete as it'd floor. Epcot's lagoon is much deeper with muck and mud as it's floor. The "could" add tons of concrete down there to add a heavy base to build infrastructure on with hydraulics and stuff like that but,...ehhh...I dont see it.

My bet is a 100% floating and mobile water nozzel/pump system that will live in backstage marina during the day. Just long "tube" barges with small outboard engines. Hell,...they could build many of them that "connect" together every night 2 hours before the show. 6 of them? 9 of them?

This wont be that expensive as they are only 55 gallon drums welded together. Nozzels and jets and pumps and 15hp motor. Get 10 projectors on the islands with image stacking onto those water screens and you are done with that part.

Get Gavin Greenaway back to score this show. I 100% know this man could write us another RoE and Tapestry of Nations level score in literally a month. The man is THAT good. Then you got fireworks which Disney can do in their sleep and then take time for a really good "STORY" for the show. This will be the hardest part.

Yup,...a floating, movable water projection barge system is my best guess.....

Steve did tease something innovative and new tech wise that would draw people to the park. So probably all you said + drones?

 

[vikescaper]

I was browsing the internet looking for an EPCOT Center shirt that I could wear on October 1 and I came across this beauty!

 

[DznyRktekt]

If Gavin Greenaway isn't available, Thomas Newman could be a good option for the score as well. Road to Perdition, The Highwaymen, Finding Nemo, Wall-E, Monsters Inc..

 

[Vinnie Mac]

I just thought about something.

That Epcot concept art that was released in April didn't showcase the barges. I didn't think much of it but now I'm starting to think that they knew they were getting rid of the barges by the time the new plans for Epcot were created.

 

[Cliff]

Wow,...listening to my opening comments on Harmonious,...wow! THAT didn't age very well at all! I was WAY off!

HilarioUS!

 

[fgmnt]

Literally the worst condemnation of Harm to come from executives (including Chapek) is how awful the lagoon looks during the day. It’s surprising given that they approved this decision in the first place, but apparently they didn’t realize how bad it would be.

Harmonious, like every other capital project in EPCOT announced since 2017, came off as decisions made by people who had never graced EPCOT with their presence, much less formed an opinion of it from a visit. I guess this is just so in-your-face with how bad it is, you can't deny it had to go.

 

[Vinnie Mac]

Wow,...listening to my opening comments on Harmonious,...wow! THAT didn't age very well at all! I was WAY off!

HilarioUS!

Well let's hope this new show can run for the next couple of decades.

 

[eddie104]

Steve did tease something innovative and new tech wise that would draw people to the park. So probably all you said + drones?

Can you point me to his particular comment ?

 

[James Alucobond]

Can you point me to his particular comment ?

Here and here.

 

[mikejs78]

Wow,...listening to my opening comments on Harmonious,...wow! THAT didn't age very well at all! I was WAY off!

HilarioUS!

Did not realize you were the Cliff from Clifflix. I have to say, I love your videos. The presentation and the work you put in to bring the spectaculars to YouTube is impressive and something that I enjoy immensely.

 

[Vinnie Mac]

I love your videos.

I second this. Your 2021 Illuminations video and your Harmonious video are personal favorites of mine. You did a perfect job in capturing the vibe and the scale of the both of those shows.

 

[Cliff]

I second this. Your 2021 Illuminations video and your Harmonious video are personal favorites of mine. You did a perfect job in capturing the vibe and the scale of the both of those shows.

Thanks guys! I made these videos for you all. I recommend downloading your own copy from the links in the description. Those files dont have all that nasty YouTube compression artifacts.

Just got back from D23 Expo and I shot all new World of Color and Fantasmic! out there for new productions in 2023. Im also about to start on a brand new Reflections of Earth feature documentary for next summer too.

Back to Harmonious and my completely wrong comments in the opening. I have to say that scrapping all that highly custom AV hardware they designed and built for this show?....was absolutely 100% unthinkable to me up to a week ago.

I mean....dang...Disney research must have seen an overwhelming amount of negative feedback to not only kill this show and it's music...but to kill all that investment in display tech too?

Wow...I would LOVE to be a fly on the wall in those board room meetings. Wow....

 

[Sir_Cliff]

It’s easy to forget execs (and us) were told it would look like this during the day:
View attachment 666869
There still would have been bad views from certain angles but nothing like we actually got.
View attachment 666870

In addition to the obvious amount of water they would need to achieve the effect in the illustration, the fountains as illustrated also just looked kind of ugly and weird. Honestly, that second image with the WDW 50th logo probably looks better than the barges spurting water out in all directions and playing an image of a fountain on the screens. So strange that anyone ever looked at that concept and saw a solution for the sightline issues posed by the barges.

 

[Br0ckford]

Thanks guys! I made these videos for you all. I recommend downloading your own copy from the links in the description. Those files dont have all that nasty YouTube compression artifacts.

Just got back from D23 Expo and I shot all new World of Color and Fantasmic! out there for new productions in 2023. Im also about to start on a brand new Reflections of Earth feature documentary for next summer too.

Back to Harmonious and my completely wrong comments in the opening. I have to say that scrapping all that highly custom AV hardware they designed and built for this show?....was absolutely 100% unthinkable to me up to a week ago.

I mean....dang...Disney research must have seen an overwhelming amount of negative feedback to not only kill this show and it's music...but to kill all that investment in display tech too?

Wow...I would LOVE to be a fly on the wall in those board room meetings. Wow....

Don't think they will find a way to repurpose it?