25th anniversary of EPCOT
October 1st EPCOT - or as it was originally called on opening day: EPCOT Center - will celebrate its silver anniversary aka its 25th anniversary. Earlier this year the official line was that no public events would be staged for the second park of Walt Disney World. After a change of management and the incredible success of fan-organized events (in particular of Celebration 25 spearheaded by Adam Roth, a 16-year-old Dr. Phillips High School junior, that has more than 1,100 fans registered to take part in meetings, historical tours and other activities) WDW deceived not to limit the celebrations to cast members (of which 300 have hung on since opening day at EPCOT, including EPCOT’s new vice president Jim MacPhee) but to offer some public events as well. So far not much was known about the new public element of the celebrations besides the fact that a rededication ceremony would be held, to which participants of Celebration 25 have been invited. Now the Orlando Sentinel reveals further details…
According to the article, the public “rededication ceremony” inside Epcot “will echo much of the original 1982 dedication“. In addition guests will be able to visit ”an exhibit hall dedicated to the park’s first 25 years” and will receive retro guide maps and can order from retro restaurant menus. In addition various souvenirs with a retro design will be on sale. Fan reports on numerous boards already reported in the last weeks the sighting of merchandise (in particular it seems shirts) featuring the original park name “EPCOT Center” and designs or logos of the early years. Also it seems some in park signage was spotted featuring the “retro-look”. As the merchandise already started showing up in stores it can be hoped it will be on sale after the actualy anniversary day as well. As a fan of music from the Disney theme parks my hope were that EPCOT would be treated to a nice multi-CD set featuring music written for the park from the first 25 years, similar in style to the 50th anniversary set done for Disneyland Annaheim, which proved to be a hit with regular guests and fans alike. Alas, so far not even a rumor about such a project has shown up, just discussions about hoping for such project over on the MagicMusic.net-Boards. Too bad.
All guests in the park on the anniversary will be treated to one more exclusive event though according to Orlando Sentinel: a special “IlluminNations” at the close of the day! While no further information is revealed it seems more likely that the regular fireworks and laser spectacular “IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth” will be performed that night with a special extra tagged on to the end, as done during the Christmas season.
Too bad I won’t visit WDW before October 21st … but I hope all of you out in the park on October 1st will have a great day and report back what the day and the special IllumiNations performance was like…