SplashJacket
Well-Known Member
Anyone else notice Zach Ridley’s posts regarding Epcot have almost entirely dried up? 
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News New Play Pavilion to replace Epcot's Wonders of Life
- Thread starter wdwmagic
- Start date
Anyone else notice Zach Ridley’s posts regarding Epcot have almost entirely dried up?
News - 2023 EPCOT Festival of the Arts
Travel has approached pre-pandemic levels. There was and is no extra surge of everyone who missed a scheduled vacation all suddenly traveling at once overwhelming the tourism industry. Revenge vacationing is not a thing, despite the data-less echo chamber of the internet saying so. I think...
Maybe it's time for them to dust off the Weather Pavilion plans.
cranbiz
Well-Known Member
No projects in the funnel that need floor tile.Anyone else notice Zach Ridley’s posts regarding Epcot have almost entirely dried up?
HauntedMansionFLA
Well-Known Member
Went by on the monorail and it looked abandoned.
is there another direction for this space? Is The second Marvel attraction that @marni1971 talked about Might be back on??
is there another direction for this space? Is The second Marvel attraction that @marni1971 talked about Might be back on??
DreamfinderGuy
Well-Known Member
No Marvel, but there are some contingency concepts. Apparently the structural work they did on the back of house facilities was done with those in mind.
doctornick
Well-Known Member
I hope so. I honestly don’t care too much as to what goes into this space but really want to see it open again for capacity sake and more stuff on that side of the park. Ideally, using the ride and/or theater space in addition to the “main” WOL hall.
HauntedMansionFLA
Well-Known Member
The ride space has been completely gutted. If you would open the doors to enter what use to be body wars., you would fall about twenty feet to the bottom. That space is used to store a lot of the festival equipment used throughout the year and can be changed out whenever needed.
I was in the theatre right before someone stoled Buzzy. It looked like it could used right then. Who knows what they did once they started to make it into the play pavilion??
DreamfinderGuy
Well-Known Member
I can speak on that some. The theatre wing was gutted to its bare bones, nothing left. The Body Wars queue areas were stripped but are structurally intact. The 3rd floor grade was extended over the simulator pits, one would assume that's for more office space but I have been told there's a desire for a walkthrough attraction in that area in the future. Nevertheless, that means there is no longer clearance to ever run a simulator attraction in there again, so if anyone ever had any doubts that that ship has sailed, it has. I have not been able to get confirmation on whether the lounge space has survived, but I can say that that grade at the minimum still exists within the structure.
As for the dome, it's pretty empty from what I've been told. Everything from Wonders is gone, little from Play made it in.
FigmentFan82
Well-Known Member
You start to wonder (lol) what Epcot could look like (and for that matter MK with something in Stitch) with simply putting something in this space instead of leaving it blocked off and how that could only help capacity and crowd congestion. All the little features add up! It's time they stop stripping away!
Coaster Lover
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- No
I feel like there's a Catch 22 with this space... any major IP (Marvel or the like) would dictate a major E-ticket and it doesn't seem like the current structure has room for a major attraction and I'm not sure there is any space around the building that could be reclaimed for a show building (a.l.a. what was done for Cosmic Rewind). The simulators that were there for Body Wars were a great use of the space (at the time) but simulators like that just really won't move the needle anymore. Having a pavilion geared towards kids would be a great use of the space, but spending all that money for something like that almost seems like a waste of space for a full pavilion. I'm curious to see where they (eventually) go with this one... with the "Xandar Pavilion" I'm honestly surprised they didn't jump on the "Wakanda Pavilion as well, but it's probably for the best that they didn't...
Bill Cipher
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- Yes
It's still baffling to me that the best decision execs and WDI could come up with for this space was interactive experiences and M&Gs when Epcot is in dire need of additional ride through capacity. The Wonders building is massive and could easily fit one or two solid dark rides, and an IP like WALL-E or Big Hero 6 could be a big hit for the family demographic (I know we're all tired of the IP overuse in Epcot, but Disney isn't and I'm trying to be realistic here). If the rumors are true that this project was put on pause due to staffing concerns and lack of ROI, I really hope they're taking it back to the drawing board to consider a ride through attraction. Purely from a business perspective, a ride will push more ticket sales, merch, and social media buzz than an interactive game or M&G ever will, so why not choose what feels so obvious?
zipadee999
Well-Known Member
What if they gutted the entire pavilion and made it a single, stand alone dark ride? With cosmic rewind right next door, it wouldn’t have to be a major, IP based thrill. It could even be a fresh take on horizons or another form of slow moving dark ride. Epcot needs another thesis attraction that just offers a glimpse into the future. If it absolutely has to be IP, maybe do WALL-E or something, but future world …. I mean world discovery …. could use another non-thrill, and this is coming from a coaster junkie.
No Name
Well-Known Member
The company’s management is not all that different from 15 years ago when they got rid of fully functioning attraction infrastructure that had proven its success two miles away. They could’ve rethemed it to a number of things, but instead, decided it wasn’t worth the investment or even the operational costs.
That’s what they’re doing now.
That’s what they’re doing now.
Epcot82Guy
Well-Known Member
The irony being you can also see the Guardian's gravity building from the one in Oklahoma...
ppete1975
Well-Known Member
Oddly it was a bank but has sent vacant for about 20 years because nobody can figure out what to use the building for.
It was supposed to be torn down to become a walgreens but there was alot of outcry from preservationists so its still there, but we have lost some iconic buildings the last few years.
doctornick
Well-Known Member
If there’s two stories, that should still be enough height to put in a smaller scale dark ride (think like a Fantasyland level ride) and couple that with a show in the Buzzy theater space plus maybe some M&Gs on the main pavilion floor (with hopefully some smaller “stuff”) and you have a nice pavilion and good compliment to the rest of World Discovery.
It would be very useful to have an area that is all ages on that side of the park given that all the other rides have height restrictions and some level of thrill.
Playing a bit of devil’s advocate: They could have put in a BH6 simulator, flying around San Francokyo (however it’s spelled) with the BH6 characters on some kind of mission. A walk-through Baymax attraction of some kind. A M&G area. Could still have focused on health to a degree with the BH6 tie-in, which could be a decent movie IP to use at this pavilion. Nah, it would never work…
Mickeynerd17
Well-Known Member
That could work if the effort and finances were put into it.
But of course, this is 2023.