Has Magic Kingdom nighttime atmosphere ever been the same since Spectromagic Left?

[Goofyernmost]

Woah. “Gloomy”? How did you get gloom out of Spectro?

Not being facetious, I’m actually curious.

The pace was funeral possession, the people(?) with the white face masks were unexplainably weird and looked like cereal killers, the music was downbeat and, unlike the Main Street Electrical Parade, was, like I said, just plain gloomy. Both of them were around to long. A company that makes billions a year in profit can design and build a new parade. I know that people get all gooey nostalgic over either the electric light or spectro, but I think that if it is the first one witnessed it is great and will always want the first one they saw. But, it is time to get something new and spectacular. If done right the new can be as impressive as the past although in recent years I'm not hopeful that will happen. All the people with real imaginations have either died off or were cast off.

 

[Goofyernmost]

In fairness, the parade still exists, it's just not currently running.

If they are not running it then for all intents and purposes it does not exist. It's like having an old car in the yard the doesn't run, it's there, but isn't of any use.

 

[Raxel7851]

If they are not running it then for all intents and purposes it does not exist. It's like having an old car in the yard the doesn't run, it's there, but isn't of any use.

But it still “exists”. Just like your old car analogy, the parade and your old car could be put back into service with some new imagination and make it much better than when it was put out to the yard.

 

[TTA94]

Time will tell but I’d be shocked if we don’t see PTN again at least in some way shape or form. Could they have dismantled it and or destroyed it? Maybe, But that seems unlikely. It’s kinda in the same boat as the MH floats. It might not return as it was but can’t imagine they would destroy all of it.

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

If they are not running it then for all intents and purposes it does not exist. It's like having an old car in the yard the doesn't run, it's there, but isn't of any use.

Yeah no - it's more like having a winterized boat in your driveway. If your neighbor walked up and said "She was a great boat" you'd look at them and say "Was? She's still a boat, dude, we're just out of season".

Paint the Night wasn't decommissioned. It's in storage. Like the Halloween and Christmas parades are when they aren't being run. No idea when PTN will return to DL, or even if it will, but I can't imagine Disneyland is paying to house it for no good reason.

It's not like SpectroMagic, which literally no longer exists. Tragic though that is.

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

To this day I can’t wrap my head around them dismantling and throwing the floats in a dumpster. Part of me still wants to believe it was false information, maybe deliberately, that was given to insiders and the floats, or at least some of them, still exist in some warehouse.

They were reportedly damaged beyond repair. That they got that way is really the bigger brain teaser - you would think a company like Disney would know what it takes to protect such assets. To get it so wrong the parade had to be outright trashed is a pretty big screwup.

 

[Goofyernmost]

Yeah no - it's more like having a winterized boat in your driveway. If your neighbor walked up and said "She was a great boat" you'd look at them and say "Was? She's still a boat, dude, we're just out of season".

Paint the Night wasn't decommissioned. It's in storage. Like the Halloween and Christmas parades are when they aren't being run. No idea when PTN will return to DL, or even if it will, but I can't imagine Disneyland is paying to house it for no good reason.

It's not like SpectroMagic, which literally no longer exists. Tragic though that is.

A parade that exist but is not used is much more disturbing than one the physically does not exist at all. Then it means that Disney doesn't want to use it and in Florida it would never be out of season so it depends on where the question or statement is made.

 

[yensidtlaw1969]

A parade that exist but is not used is much more disturbing than one the physically does not exist at all. Then it means that Disney doesn't want to use it and in Florida it would never be out of season so it depends on where the question or statement is made.

Disneyland owns Paint the Night. Same way that they own the Main Street Electrical Parade. After the way WDW treated MSEP the last time Disneyland loaned it to them, they're not super interested in lending them parades anymore. WDW did not provide proper maintenance to the floats, and Disneyland was shocked at their condition when they returned.

Did you complain that Disneyland wasn't running SpectroMagic when WDW had MSEP? Of course not - because it's not automatic that parks on different coasts will just trade parades. That this particular iteration of MSEP has played both coasts is somewhat unusual.

Every Disney park owns more parades than they're using at any one time. This isn't the scandal you're making it out to be.

 

[Goofyernmost]

Disneyland owns Paint the Night. Same way that they own the Main Street Electrical Parade. After the way WDW treated MSEP the last time Disneyland loaned it to them, they're not super interested in lending them parades anymore. WDW did not provide proper maintenance to the floats, and Disneyland was shocked at their condition when they returned.

Did you complain that Disneyland wasn't running SpectroMagic when WDW had MSEP? Of course not - because it's not automatic that parks on different coasts will just trade parades. That this particular iteration of MSEP has played both coasts is somewhat unusual.

Every Disney park owns more parades than they're using at any one time. This isn't the scandal you're making it out to be.

Scandal? Really? What I am saying is if WDW isn't running a parade it is because they don't want too. Hard stop! This is a thread about how or what Spectro was. My opinion was that I thought it was depressing and that MSEP was more upbeat and less spooky. The real issue is neither of them should still be running. Disney needs to get off their cash stuff butts and create something new that is upbeat and current. My point was also that depending on what parade you saw first determines which of the two you prefer. I preferred MSEP but had seen it often enough that I feel it needed a new one. I was hopeful for Spectro and even though some of it was really good, overall a lot of it seemed weird and made no sense.

After watching it twice to give it a chance to win me over, I decided that I would much rather spent that time riding the harder to get on attractions then standing in one spot for what seemed like days at a time.

 

[Goofyernmost]

They were reportedly damaged beyond repair. That they got that way is really the bigger brain teaser - you would think a company like Disney would know what it takes to protect such assets. To get it so wrong the parade had to be outright trashed is a pretty big screwup.

Unless, and this is more likely, they didn't want it to continue. MSEP started in Disneyland, spent many years in WDW, went back to DL and once again returned to WDW only to go back to DL. I might be wrong but didn't it also go to DLP for a short time too? If that one was important enough to still be operating it would seem clear that Spectro didn't have the same hold that MSEP has. Why? Only Disney knows and the chances are very slim that they will ever let us know the real reason for the neglect.

 

[HauntedPirate]

Holy god, I’m done with some of the unbelievably obtuse posts. Welcome to Ignore, enjoy your stay.

Just because parade floats are in storage doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

From what I recall reading many years ago from people I trust, the Spectro floats were left outside, but “covered”, for years, ordered by some brilliant manager in order to save storage costs. You can imagine what the Florida elements did to the float infrastructures. They were beyond repair.

TDA does not want to loan out any parade to TDO because they send the floats back in such bad shape it takes them months, if not a year+, to get them back into serviceable condition. This was directly from someone in parade ops at DL several years ago. Just happened to strike up a conversation while waiting for PTN to begin. And for the love of Walt, PTN has no place at MK.

 

[NickMaio]

This video is 2006 and I know this has been discussed but just take notice of the surroundings and everything that’s going on before the parade. Forget the parade just think of everything around it. Just the event of a parade about to come around the corner at night made things different. It broke up lines and gave down time. This is what a night at the Magic Kingdom was like between, Jimminy Crickets voice making the announcements, cast member interaction and just the whole coarse of the nightly routine at the Magic Kingdom. It was really something else.

Good times.....
How WDW does not have a night parade for its 50th anniversary just confirms that they are more focused on saving money, rather than guest experience. It's pathetic really.

 

[Po'Rich]

Good times.....
How WDW does not have a night parade for its 50th anniversary just confirms that they are more focused on saving money, rather than guest experience. It's pathetic really.

I agree, and I'm really disappointed in the lack of a nighttime parade. It seems to coincide with the reduced nighttime shows at WDW right now (no Fantasmic! no nighttime show at AK, even after they build an auditorium for one). Yet, I think there may be more than just saving money going on. If we watch the way DL has used MSEP since its return, it's been used as a marketing focus to bring in guests. It doesn't run all of the time...just when there can be fanfare surrounding it.

In a post-pandemic time, people seem to be flocking to WDW anyway. There's the 50th (far reduced from what we hoped pre-pandemic, but still acknowledged), Enchantment, and Harmonious along with Star Wars land (which many still have not seen due to the pandemic). My guess is that they'll wait to provide any sort of electric parade for WDW until they can create a marketing buzz surrounding it.

 

[aladdin2007]

yet they sell the special merch here,,,mind boggling how bad management is.

 

[Little Pixie]

I was born in 2007 so you can technically say I have never seen the SpectroMagic Parade or I do not remember it at all. When the MSEP was at the Magic Kingdom for I think the 3rd time I did see that and thought that was great. That is really the only nighttime parade I have ever seen other than the holiday themed parades. So I really don't know what I am missing. I do think they should have something at nighttime at the Magic Kingdom for the 50th Anniversary though.

 

[THEMEPARKPIONEER]

Good times.....
How WDW does not have a night parade for its 50th anniversary just confirms that they are more focused on saving money, rather than guest experience. It's pathetic really.

Their excuse will be that their Electrical Parade 50th anniversary isn’t for a few more years and we’ll get MSEP again. I’m hoping this return at Disneyland is so successful that they have no choice to make a new one or salvage another. I’m looking to go there just to see that then flip my the bird off at Disney.

 

[Walt Disney1955]

Spectromagic was a parade that made you thankful you were watching it. You never wanted to be anywhere else in the world but at that moment. The music, the characters, the lights, etc. Disney did every detail on it. I've said this to people before, but I think the further we get from Walt's death, the less innovation we have. We see this with the lack of ideas in the parks. To this day, the most popular attractions were done from the brain of Walt Disney. Or at least the most beloved ones. It started in 1991, it is fair to say that at this time there was still a specific job to give the guest the full experience.

 

[TTA94]

Spectromagic was a parade that made you thankful you were watching it. You never wanted to be anywhere else in the world but at that moment. The music, the characters, the lights, etc. Disney did every detail on it. I've said this to people before, but I think the further we get from Walt's death, the less innovation we have. We see this with the lack of ideas in the parks. To this day, the most popular attractions were done from the brain of Walt Disney. Or at least the most beloved ones. It started in 1991, it is fair to say that at this time there was still a specific job to give the guest the full experience.

What’s sad is I question if current Disney is capable of building a parade like SpectroMagic. Tokyo? Yes, US Disney? Not likely.
Whatever WDWs next nighttime parade is, I feel like it will be in the style of Paint The Night and or use less lights and more screens and projections. Hopefully I’m wrong.

 

[Diesel Dan]

Spectromagic was a great parade, wonderful soundtrack. I remember sitting in our campsite at Fort Wilderness after a long day at the parks. We could hear the song so clear coming from MK. Great memory, hopefully see a similar nighttime parade again someday.

 

[THEMEPARKPIONEER]

On this Magic Night is such an amazing song because its not just about Disney Fantasy but Any moment in life. It’s about the best things in life and the best parts that would forever live in our dreams. the music in itself was so full and ground shaking it can stir up the emotion in anyone. I just don’t see how that song in some form didn’t survive the demise of the parade.