Imagineer Discusses Incredible Changes Coming to EPCOT
It’s been a HUGE couple of weeks at EPCOT with the soft opening of Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, Connections Café & Eatery and more! Best of all, the progress shows no signs of slowing! Disney Imagineer Zach Riddley has recently taken to his Instagram account to discuss some of the additional happenings that we have to look forward to!
Let’s dive in and take a look:
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As you can see from Zach’s post above, World Celebration is going to be absolutely incredible once the lights go down at EPCOT! The area will come to life with over 12,000 individually controllable lightning fixtures designed to create a dynamic environment on display every evening.
Pavement Lights Are Returning – Here’s something that you EPCOT fans can get excited about. Zach Riddley confirmed that the optics embedded in the pavement at EPCOT will be coming back. The new paving designs will pay homage to the EPCOT of days gone by while using updated technology to deliver some lighting advances. In addition, the EPCOT logo will come to life with light and color in what Riddley calls “an inviting and dynamic celebration of unity.”
In addition to the new lightning, guests are sure to be in awe of incredible features like large-scale décor, topiaries and more!
The lightning at EPCOT will also be updated depending on the season. For example, above is a look at the sort of evening display you’d see during the EPCOT International Festival of the Holidays with both a stunning display and coordinating lights across Spaceship Earth.
The CommuniCore Plaza will also be a new area designed with flexibility to host a wide array of entertainment and performance options. Above you can get a first glimpse of one of the stages and what it might look like if used for the EPCOT International Festival of the Arts.
These images have us even more excited about the EPCOT of the future! The World Celebration neighborhood will be comprised of six acres of redeveloped space. The idea was to bring more greenery and shade to the center of the park. This will include four gardens each with their own aesthetic.
According to Riddley, 50 different types of trees and hundreds of different types of plants, shrubs and flowers that will be changed seasonally.
In the rendering above you can see Dreamers Point. This area just on the other side of Spaceship Earth will offer a new vantage point. It will consist of an elevated garden where guests can take in World Celebration through until World Showcase.
This area will also be home to the statue of Walt Disney, the original dream as a way to celebrate the limitless possibility of the imagination.
Above is a look at the Journey of Water which will immerse guests in a lush environment. The attraction will feature our favorite friends from Moana while telling the story of the global cycle of water. Guests will be invited to play and interact with water as it travels from the skies to our oceans and back again.
If you’re not already following along with Zach Riddley on Instagram, make it a priority. His account is a treasure trove of incredible information relating to the theme parks and beyond.
Readers are encouraged to keep following along with MickeyBlog for further Walt Disney World news and updates. We’ll be coming to you LIVE! from the theme parks each and every week.
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