The D23 Expo is a convention held bi-annually by the Walt Disney Company as a promotion effort to show off the latest and upcoming Disney movies, TV shows, products, and park experiences for their fans. While the experience may seem like an amazing opportunity, life on the convention floor has a different tenor to it. Instead of the magic and whimsy that Disney is known for, the convention turns into something that is a bit more corporate, maybe not something incredibly surprising given what Disney has grown into.
I’d like to start off by saying that I consider myself a Disney fan. I’ve watched the classic movies as well as the far-fetched ones. I know a lot of Disney trivia ranging from the media content they produce to the Parks knowledge. My cubicle at work and my apartment are filled to the brim with Disney paraphernalia. I even have a hidden Mickey tattoo on my arm. With that information, let me tell you about my experience at my very first D23.
Online Reservations / Virtual Queue
A week before the convention itself, D23 allowed people to make online reservations for the convention panels. This system of booking reservations online was new to me. I’m used to the system that New York Comic Con has in place where if you want to go to a panel, you arrive early and get on line. The process that Disney was using had people sign into a system, wait on a virtual queue, and once it was your turn, you were able to book whatever you wanted. So, the first few people in line were able to get reservations for everything they wanted, meanwhile people later in the queue didn’t have an opportunity to get anything.
And when I say later in the queue, I don’t mean people who attempted to make reservations hours after the reservation opening time, I mean people who logged on no later than 15 minutes after the reservation opening time. After waiting on the virtual queue and getting onto the actual reservation page, there was no visual indicator of the events that were completely booked up until you clicked into the panel description itself, so after waiting on the virtual queue for 45 minutes, I was frantically clicking through the individual panels, even ones that I had no interest in, just to see if anything was still available. My hope gradually dropped as every single panel I clicked into was booked up.
I didn’t understand why Disney didn’t just boot me out of the virtual queue and tell me that everything was taken. Or why I didn’t get a notification when I got onto the reservations page that nothing was available. This experience was heart breaking and really didn’t leave me excited for the convention. I approached the convention with a looming fear that I wouldn’t be able to get into a single panel.
I think there could have been a better solution to this, which involves removing the panel reservations all together, NYCC style, or limiting the amount of panel reservations that someone can make.
I would say that there were three or four big panels that everyone was trying to go to, and I think they should have limited each person to only book a reservation for one of those panels each. And if they wanted to go to the other ones, they would have to queue up for it. Limiting the reservations would mean that there would be a more even number of people going to panels and queuing up for other panels. This is a reward system that doesn’t fairly award panels evenly and turns it into an all or nothing approach.
Queues
Speaking of queuing up, the queue process that was used during this convention was insanely inaccurate, confusing, and inconsistent. There were queues for everything at this convention. If you wanted to go to a panel, or get into a store, or buy food, or use the bathroom, you were on a queue. I don’t feel like I’m exaggerating when I say that I felt like 75% of my convention time was spent standing in line for something. I’m sure you can understand that it didn’t exactly leave a pleasant taste in my mouth.
Within one of the store queues, you had to flag down a cast member if you wanted get a bathroom pass which was a 15 minute pass to leave the line and come back. This is a decent solution to make sure that people aren’t cutting any lines or that 1 person isn’t holding spots for five people. The reason this didn’t work as well as they would have liked is because there was nothing to indicate to convention goers that this rule was in place for that 1 particular store line. None of the other store lines functioned that way. We watched a man who had left the line without being stopped by a cast member, who tried to re-enter the line and was stopped.
Of course he raised hell, because at that point he had been waiting for nearly an hour and he was about to be kicked out of the line for something he was unaware of, so they let him back in the line. The valid point he brought up is that there needed to be a sign or something to tell people that rule. Needless to say, this man was irritated, and we couldn’t blame him. After waiting on lines for hours of your day, anyone would be upset. During the convention, someone mentioned that it would make sense if the queues for the stores started lining up separately outside before the convention started, this way people could get into the stores without trampling anyone in the process.
Another queue story that we heard was related to probably the biggest panel from the weekend. The panel was at 10:00am on Saturday and was called “Go behind the scenes with The Walt Disney Studios.” My fiancé (fellow Pop Break staff writer DJ Chapman) and I arrived at the convention on Saturday close to 8:00am (we were cosplaying that day so we got out of the room a little later than we planned) and wanted to see if there was still room on the standby queue. As we approached the area, they quickly told us that the queue was closed because it was completely full.
I wasn’t shocked because I knew this was one of the biggest panels of the weekend, but I was shocked when we ran into a couple who did make it into the panel. They told us that they started queuing up for that panel at 3:00pm on Friday. So they were waiting in the queue for 19 hours to attend that panel. I’m sure that panel was amazing, and something they’ll never forget, I just can’t get past the idea of spending that much of my convention time waiting in a line for 1 panel. Again, I think the NYCC approach would be better for this. Open the doors at like 8:00am and just let people get in line that day and cap it when it gets too full.
Stores
Let’s talk about shopping at the D23 convention, because I expected to spend a lot of money and come home with a lot of new swag. I mean, I did either way, but I guess I expected to have spent more. There were about five big stores that had long queues, with some moving faster than others. Each store had exclusive 2019 D23 content, but some of the stores had daily exclusive content. This meant that some of the stores expected you to line up for hours every day to get different content from each of them. Assuming it took an average of two hours for each line, that’s 10 hours of your day waiting on lines to pay for merchandise.
I have never related more to the “Shut up and take my money” meme. It shouldn’t have to be this hard, or this much work to give Disney money for their merchandise. And the worst part was that you didn’t really know what was in the store until you got inside, and after waiting on the line for hours, you almost felt obligated to buy things because you didn’t want to feel like you waited for nothing.
I will admit that we got some awesome merchandise from the stores, and I don’t regret waiting in line for things, but I wish I could see the content of the stores before standing in line, so I would know if the wait would be worth it. We also didn’t end up getting into two of the stores because the lines were either a 3+ hour wait, or they were closed. It was really unfortunate because I wanted to see what they had, but also probably for the best since our carry-on luggage was already bursting at the seams when we were heading home.
Panels
We were lucky enough to attend two different panels during the convention. The first panel we attended was the Mousequerade, and we only had to wait an hour in order to get into that panel. The other panel we attended was called “Sneak Peek! Disney Parks, Experiences and Products”, and we waited roughly 3 and a half hours to get into that panel.
The Mousequerade was a lot of fun and really inspiring. It was a tiered costume contest where the entrants created Disney-inspired costumes and a panel of judges picked the costumes they liked the most. Some of the costumes were so elaborate and had pieces that actually moved or were able to transform into different things. It really inspired me to consider entering the contest the next time the convention is in California, but also I can see that the competition is fierce. The host of the Mousequerade was very entertaining and the costumes were astounding, so it was a great panel to get into. Also, since it was our first panel of the convention, there was a sense of relief knowing that we were able to get into at least 1 of the panels during the convention without a reservation.
The “Sneak Peek! Disney Parks, Experiences and Products” panel was an amazing panel to get into. This panel was one of the top 5 big panels that I mentioned earlier. This panel was all about the improvements that they’re going to be making to the Disney Parks and cruise lines around the world. We also got to see what some of the upcoming parade music will be like as well as learn about some new shows and attractions that they’re adding to the Parks.
The CEO of Target came on stage to discuss a partnership between Disney and Target. More importantly, we got to see Spot (the Target mascot) on stage and he was so excited to be there. The panel discussed an addition to Disneyland called The Avenger’s Campus, which will have rides and restaurants all themed around The Avengers. The panel also discussed the updates that will be made to Epcot. This included new restaurants, rides, and shows. But the most impressive thing is that we got to see Dick Van Dyke live on stage! The most wholesome moment was seeing how happy he was to see a full room of people give him a long standing ovation.
All in all the D23 Expo is something that you need to be committed to if you want to experience it to its fullest. The show floor is not big enough to hold your attention for more than a couple of hours, and any of the worthwhile panels and shops you may want to get into will take hours upon hours to get in.
I would compare this convention to a marathon more than anything else, you have to prepare months in advance to succeed, it’s not going to be the most pleasant experience while you’re doing it, and at the end you may be asking yourself “why on earth did I do this?” but you will feel accomplished if you get what you want out of it. For me, I was able to get into most of the shops, and I was able to see two of the panels, so I feel like I got something out of it but I don’t know if I would do another full weekend of this convention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB9rDf4TiU0
