Hub for a Fantasmic at the castle! (help needed)

[emmieloveswdw]

I am working on a new castle park right now and am struggling with laying out the hub section. I want my big nighttime castle show to not only include the usual fireworks/projections, but also Fantasmic like parts of live actors and possible large animatronics. Could this even work logistically? How should I layout the hub to be big enough to include close enough viewing for this type of show since main street viewing would probably be too far away. However with making a big hub I’m worried about it looking too sprawling and empty as well. Design advice and maybe even layout drawings would be very helpful! (I’m also hoping I can get the hub to be so big that I can include a dumbo and carousel in this section of the park)

 

[stitchcastle]

Disney's been trying to figure this out for forever, really. The closest they've come to achieving this is the chinese parks, particularly Hong Kong's new central plaza/stage. It would help to have a large enough castle to justify a large enough stage to store the elaborate show elements/animatronics and a sprawling plaza where you'd then have to play with elevations to accommodate sightlines. Pretty much what Shanghai has. (They also have Dumbo and the carousel in what is a reimagined version of the hub plaza like you're wanting.)

Another way you could do it is to bring in mobile floats/equipment for a lot of the more elaborate show pieces. This could probably work for a Hong Kong 2.0 style plaza and stage.

Then there's the Paris solution, which was to just build an entire stage and seating arena off to the side of the castle but it's not really conducive to an elaborate nighttime spectacular that ought to be viewed from all over mainstreet and the plaza.

What you can do, and it's a radical change for a castle park, is put a massive lagoon/lake in front of the castle, essentially aping the layout of Tokyo DisneySea. This would essentially take care of all the issues, especially if you can bring in your live actors on barges or have an elaborate stage/fountain layout rigged to rise from under the water.