How Epcot is Becoming the 'Festival Park' at Walt Disney World

Disney World recently shared plans about the transformation of EPCOT. While a timeline hasn’t been provided, we now know that Disney is officially making EPCOT its “festival park” by creating new spaces for these events to take place.

The EPCOT International Food and Wine Festival has really grown in popularity and now runs from July 14 through November 19, 2022. Remember when it used to run for just a few weeks? I wouldn’t mind if it ran all year!

Festival of Arts, EPCOT’s winter event has become one of my personal favorites with so many interactive displays and events like the giant Paint by Numbers wall.

And of course the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival with the amazing Disney topiaries and of course the concerts.

As festivals continue to become more of an integral part of the EPCOT experience, Disney Imagineers are creating new spaces that will bring these events into the heart of the park in the new World Celebration neighborhood.

In several new artist concept renderings recently released, you can see how the transformation of EPCOT will take shape as you walk past Spaceship Earth and begin your journey through the park.

World Celebration will offer a beautiful hub divided into several different gardens, with a central planter based on the five-ring EPCOT logo. Filled with ample seating and shade.

Each of these gardens will have their own identities, and they’ll change along with the festivals throughout the year.

At night, the gardens will take on a whole new life, as you can see here.

They’re designed to be enjoyed in the round, where lighting immerses you in the nighttime experience that will evolve through the seasons.

This all surrounds CommuniCore Hall and CommuniCore Plaza, a multi-use facility and outdoor event space, respectively, that bring the park’s international festivals to the center of EPCOT.

CommuniCore Plaza will have the flexibility to host intimate musical performances that extend out into the nearby gardens, as you can see in the rendering above, as well as large-scale concerts.

This new facility, which you can see in the upper-right side of this rendering, is inspired by the original EPCOT aesthetic apparent throughout the park’s transformation, including the timeless triangular geometry most prominently featured in Spaceship Earth.

Even the CommuniCore name reaches back to the origins of EPCOT while also emphasizing the park’s central idea of community.

If you have been to EPCOT recently or if you have passed by on the monorail and got a look over the construction walls, you know that work is far from complete and they seem to be working at a snail’s pace.

While no opening date has been provided, my guess is that we are at least a year out from completion, unless this new area is opened in phases.

Darren is a Disney-focused travel agent with Magical Vacations Travel and has over 13 years of experience. Readers of the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World rate him as a Best of the Best Disney Travel Agent. Darren is also an Orlando-based travel writer with topics ranging from theme parks to cruise lines.

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