New Epcot World Celebration & World Discovery Announcements Starring CommuniCore!
The press event for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind was held this week. As part of that event, announcements were made. Want to know what all that construction was about in the center of former Future World at Epcot? Well, despite ambiguous imagery, it appears we’ve been given a clearer view of what is coming to the heart of this Walt Disney World Resort. park We’ll take a look at the details. As such, we’ll look at what is the new festival center coming, Communicore, as well as a much more expanded Moana gardens than previously showcased. At least, that’s what the drawings show. So let’s see what is coming to a big chunk of Epcot and what it will look like. We’ll share all the details we’ve uncovered, and we’ll overview what we don’t know.
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World Celebration in General
- World Celebration definitely emphasizes the Epcot festivals.
- Emphasis is on trees and gardens and heavier landscaping.
- The center of all this is the five core ring symbol of Epcot. This is essentially the hub of the park.
- Water returns to the center of World Celebration as it had before with Communicore.
- The gardens in the area will also evolve with the seasons and will have an extensive lighting package at night–one tailored to the festivals.
- Pavement lighting looks like a possibility at night
- Is a Wonderland garden–Chinese lanterns setting still coming?
- Earlier discussion noted a beer garden. That remains to be seen.
- Dreamer’s point still sits at the base of Spaceship Earth, presumably with the statue of Walt Disney. Disney noted: “As guests pass Spaceship Earth, in the future they will discover a breathtaking new view of World Showcase from Dreamers Point. World Celebration will also feature a new statue honoring the legacy of the original dreamer, Walt Disney, plus beautiful natural environments and global design elements filled with Disney magic.”
- New access path to The Living Seas.
- Guest Relations is completing its remodeling.
CommuniCore: Festival Center
- The title of this Festival Center is CommuniCore, which relates to Community Core
- The multi-tiered and roof-top festival center planned earlier has been eliminated.
- The exterior plays on the triangular geometry of Spaceship Earth. It would be great if it played on the lighting approach as well.
- The interior will be known as Communicore Hall and the exterior as Communicore Plaza
- No images were shown for the interior of CommuniCore Hall
- Essentially this seems to be more of a black box for providing events both inside and out.
- There is still a Mickey and Friends Meet ‘n’ Greet plus demo kitchen, mixology bar, gallery space, and more, similar to what was staged inside Wonders of Life.
- Communicore Plaza is on the backside of CommuniCore Hall facing towards Journey into Your Imagination.
- Lighting package for exterior suggests a sort of marquee entrance from the center
- The rear of the Festival center suggests more of a plaza or square.
- It seems that more intimate concerts could be facing toward the center of World Celebration with larger concert opportunities facing the CommuniCore Plaza area.
- Surprising that there is no roof-top location suggested. Gardens on the roof would have made it more of an attraction.
- In many ways this serves a similar purpose to what was done with World ShowPlace during the pandemic.
Journey of Water: Inspired by Moana
- Journey of Water on the aerial architectural map is fuzzed out by the title.
- Still, renderings paint a more sophisticated experience than first detailed back in 2019
- The entire exhibit pushes itself out to the monorail beam and to the ponds on World Discovery (Future World West)
Outstanding Issues
- Starbucks Becoming a Festival Kiosk
- Future of Odyssey Uncertain
- No further details or timeline for the Play Pavilion, Guardians’s next door neighbor
- Imagination’s Future and Link to World Celebration
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