2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival Dates & Details
Walt Disney World announced details & dates for the 2024 EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival, which is the park’s flagship foodie event of the year. This shares all of the news and our commentary about certain interesting changes for this year’s popular celebration of the culinary arts.
Let’s start with the basics. The 2024 EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival will begin on August 29, 2024 and run through November 23, 2024 for a grand total of 87 days. It’s starting over a full month later than last year’s event, which began on July 27 and ran for 115 days. (That event was 2 weeks shorter than the previous year, for what it’s worth.) The end date is later, but that’s due to the timing of Thanksgiving.
Despite this, the 2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival is not expected to be smaller scale. According to Walt Disney World, there will be more than Global Marketplaces throughout EPCOT, including returning favorites such as Belgium, Hawaii, and Germany. A full list has yet to be announced, but Disney teased a few fan-favorite dishes from those booths.
At the 2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival, the fun doesn’t stop with the food. It extends to exciting activities for the whole family to enjoy! Walt Disney World has also announced some of the entertainment and other offerings that’ll return for the 2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival. Namely, the Eat to the Beat Concert Series (and dining packages for that) will be back.
Emile’s Fromage Montage also returns in 2024. This fun food stroll encourages guests to sample a variety of delicious cheeses served in inventive ways. Purchase any five cheese dishes from the official Global Marketplaces list in your Festival Passport and make sure to collect a stamp for each dish purchased. Once you’ve collected all five stamps, bring the passport to the specified location for a specialty unique item to enjoy!
Families can embark on Remy’s Ratatouille Hide & Squeak – a “Ratatouille”-inspired adventure that’s très magnifique! Guests of all ages can search for Remy throughout World Showcase and the Global Marketplaces.
Here’s a sneak peek at some of the merchandise you can buy during the 2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival:
Take home a taste of the fun with magnificent merchandise that keeps the magic alive between visits, featuring beloved friends, like Remy from “Ratatouille” and Mickey Mouse.
Here’s a fun reveal: Everyone’s favorite purple dragon, Figment, will also be cooking up some fun this fall just in time for the 2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival.
Of course, the biggest development for the 2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival is the opening of CommuniCore Hall on June 10, 2024 in the heart of World Celebration. During our recent days in the parks, we noticed that this building has made massive progress in the last month and now appears, at least from the outside, to be nearly or totally finished.
Walt Disney World has shared that once the EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival begins, the new space will add exciting fresh elements to the festival. Stay tuned for more!
In terms of commentary, the most interesting angle of this news is the decision to delay the start of the 2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival until the end of August rather than starting in July like all other years since 2020. This is a return to pre-closure normal, as the 2019 event also began on August 29 and that was the longest (at the time) festival ever.
It wasn’t until 2017 that the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival was first extended into August. Prior to that, it had typically started in mid-to-late September and ended earlier. Going back a full decade, the event ran from September 27 until November 11, 2013.
So the 2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival is still long by historical standards. It’s just over a month shorter than last year’s event, and 40+ days shorter than the 2020-2022 festivals.
With that said, it’s very rare for Walt Disney World to scale back events. Like prices, usually this type of thing only goes in one direction. When we’ve seen this type of thing occur in the past, it has been due to unpopularity or slower sales.
Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party comes to mind; there were a few attempts at adding dates in August and November 1 several years that didn’t initially stick. That problem no longer exists, with every single date selling out last year.
This is why it’s so surprising to see both the 2024 EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival and now the 2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival shortened, and both by a month. And it’s precisely why we’ve been predicting a summer festival to fill the gap!
The best theory that I can come up with is that Walt Disney World is purposefully moving the 2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival outside of the summer tourist season in an attempt to push demand among Floridians and Annual Passholders to the August and September off-season.
The thought process here would be that EPCOT now has a strong enough ride roster to draw tourists during the summer, so it’s better to delay demand from locals and regulars until the peak tourist season subsides. It wouldn’t be unprecedented to bifurcate demand by targeting different demographics.
However, I’m at least somewhat skeptical of this after our recent visits to EPCOT that fell during the shoulder season and over halfway through Flower & Garden Festival’s run. The park was the least-busy I’ve seen it since at least last August or September.
As for a summertime festival, one now seems unlikely. After all, it would be logical to announce that before announcing the 2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival. Usually these things are done in order.
However, it’s also fair to point out that August 29 is almost certainly two months later than the official opening date of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure. And we still don’t have that! It’s entirely possible that Walt Disney World is announcing Food & Wine Festival dates to drive bookings for the off-season, and still has nearer-term plans for more news.
Speaking of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, it’s entirely possible that announcement will be ‘bundled’ with reveals for Summer 2024 in the other 3 parks, just like happened last month with “4 New Experiences to Celebrate Summer at Walt Disney World.” I could see a repeat of that with the TBA opening date. At least, that’s my hope–it would make sense for a splashy announcement that drives last-minute summer vacation bookings!
During that last summer announcement wave, Walt Disney World revealed the new limited-time show, “¡Celebración Encanto!” that will run several times throughout the day this summer. It’ll invite you and your family to sing along with some of your favorite songs, and see Mirabel and Bruno on the newly opened CommuniCore Plaza stage.
The announcement for that teased the following: “And that’s not even mentioning the more food and beverages and more entertainment to come … but we’ll have more details for you soon.” That reaffirmed our theory–that we’ve had since last year–that EPCOT would do a summer festival.
Given all of this, I’m still inclined to think something else is happening at EPCOT this summer. Perhaps not a fully-fledged festival, but some sort of ‘event’ a la Incredible Summer that features entertainment plus special menus. It just makes too much sense with EPCOT’s other festivals getting shortened by considerable amounts. Will Disney really be willing to leave that sweet, sweet food & beverage revenue on the table?!
Again, the Global Marketplaces are incredibly lucrative. The average guest is spending more grazing from these than they are doing a counter service or sit-down meal in World Showcase. More importantly, the margins on alcohol are incredibly high. (During its low points, we heard rumors that festivals and drinkers were EPCOT’s biggest saving grace.)
It’s just difficult to imagine Disney shortening two festivals without a gap-filler. But perhaps there’s more there than meets the eye. It’s possible the longer festival spreads out almost the same demand (again, disproportionately among locals and regulars who love these events) leading to lower per day revenue and higher per day operating costs.
Obviously, it’s impossible to crunch the numbers from the outside looking in, but it’s very safe to assume Walt Disney World has done exactly that. Another possibility is that there’s something I’m overlooking entirely. The bottom line is that Disney would not voluntarily leave money on the table. That’s not what they do.
Speaking of leaving money on the table, there’s also the question of culinary seminars, demonstrations, meals with celebrity chefs, and other special events. Walt Disney World still has not announced any of this–or even teased its return. Last year, none of these things returned–which might suggest the same for 2024.
However, the difference for this year is the debut of the CommuniCore Hall event space. It seems like a no-brainer, as all of these special events are pricey and generate a lot of revenue. I don’t know, though, as EPCOT has had other unused (or underused) events spaces during the last few years and has declined to use them. After being used in 2020 for the event, World ShowPlace has stopped being one of the festival spots.
Ultimately, we’re looking forward to the start of the 2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival. Although I’m curious about the rationale for reducing the number of dates, I’m honestly pleased by the decision. The event has been too long the last few years and, like Halloween season, I’ve been ready for it to be over by the time it entered what should’ve been its sweet spot. Personally, I still think this is a couple weeks too long; my perfect EPCOT Food & Wine Festival would run from September through November.
My personal ‘wish list’ for the 2024 EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival would include new Global Marketplaces from actual countries or regions and a return of the studio concept booths in the culinary corridor, plus past favorites making a comeback. In any case, here’s hoping this will be the year the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival turns things around. Maybe a shorter and more focused festival is precisely what’s needed!
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Looking forward to the 2024 EPCOT Food & Wine Festival? Did you attend the event in any of the last few summers or falls? Think that it’ll benefit from being shorter and more focused, or are you disappointed that you’ll miss it during your summer vacation? Any hopes for Global Marketplace booths or menu items? Think any of the other demonstrations or seminars will return? Any tips you want to share to make the most of the experience? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
2024 will be the first time in 9 years that I will
miss the food & wine festival because of the the new dates. I hope they will have the Christmas party during Jersey week.
I have enjoyed the Food and Wine Festival for 10 years, yet without the celebrity chefs and the seminars, I feel it is time to close the book on my presence.
I’m totally bummed that I’ll have to tell my wife this news. We’re driving from Texas & visiting family near Tampa in August & we already decided that our one & only Disney day HAD to be at EPCOT. We used to be locals & we absolutely loved EPCOT & especially the Food & Wine Festival. For years we had the after 4PM pass for EPCOT & we’ve been fans since our first visit as newlyweds in 1989. We literally credit the World Showcase & events like F&W for how diverse our (now early 20’s adult) kids food likes are. We’ll still be going in early August but I’m sad that I can’t give my bride of 35 years one more visit to the Food & Wine Festival. I was really hopeful for that late July opening.
Since 2019, I’ve come every year, except of course for 2020. My eight year old daughter loves the food and wine. She loved the festival so much that I brought her in March to see flower and garden. She was so sad today when I told her that the festival isn’t starting until the day we leave. With all the planning Disney expects you to do, they need to tell people sooner what event dates are. It’s not fair to spend a lot of money on a trip, thinking you are following a pattern, and then it’s moved. My flight tickets are paid already. I hope they don’t take away the August dates for MNSSHP. I understand as a local that you would get sick of it, but for those of us who can only come when school is out, August is it for us. I have my best memories with my daughter at the parties. We went four times last summer during our two week stay and we are hoping to do the same this year. Fingers crossed for an epic halfway to Halloween announcement this week!
Does this mean the mnsshp ticket sale could be announced soon?
I thought last week was going to be Halfway to Halloween.
Then I thought this week would be Halfway to Halloween.
…surely next week will be Halfway to Halloween, right? RIGHT?! 😉
just saw a Disney Channel half way to Halloween commercial…..could it be?????
I am praying Communicore Hall means the return of the seminars. At this point, every festival has food–and often times better and more interesting food, rather than the dumbed down umpteen variations on meat and potatoes Food & Wine menus have become over time. Food & Wine desperately needs the shot in the arm that bringing back the demos and special events would give. It’s the OG and has really been a shell of itself since the closures. We had to move our trip this year to September, so I am hoping that we can get back our carb heavy French breakfast at Chefs de France!
I was hoping the F&W Festival would’ve started & ended sooner so that the International Festival of the Holidays would start sooner. I guess Disney didn’t want a festival over Thanksgiving. Hopefully the IFOTH would start by November 30 at the latest. Been there in mid-November for F&WF & holidays in the other parks but IFOTH is on my EPCOT bucket list.
Oh nooooooo, we’re going the week before it starts!! I’m so bummed, I thought we were finally going to catch it for the first time even if there’s a summer festival it will probably be over by that week so they can switch over, too
I saw on a previous post that you commented Labor Day is generally not a busy holiday. Do you think the Food and Wine Festival starting that weekend will change the crowd dynamics at all? I’m happy we’ll be there for the festival… not so happy about the Beginning-of-a-Festival Crowds.
EPCOT is always crowded the first weekend of a festival, but it’s busy with locals–meaning that wait times aren’t impacted all that much. It’s totally a “feels like” crowds thing (oh, and long lines for the booths).
The other parks shouldn’t see any impact whatsoever. People who plan trips for Food & Wine typically don’t target opening weekend. At least, not in large numbers.
The last few years we’ve been enjoying Flower and Garden more, mostly because of the flowers and gardens. It’s kind of shocking to see the flowers removed for Food and Wine, as EPCOT really looks so good with the extra plants.
Maybe its just us, but there hasn’t been special or more food and wine at Food and Wine; it just seems to be a generic festival with the same kind of food booths as every other festival. I realize the booths and food are different with different festivals, its just Food and Wine without celebrity chefs or food/wine related events is pretty generic.
It’s not just you. Food & Wine has become EPCOT’s worst festival. I’d argue that was true even in 2019, but it has definitely been the case since 2020. I don’t even know how anyone could argue otherwise. Hopefully 2024 is the year things turn around!
Why they would get rid of the gorgeous flower “murals” on the banks of the lagoon is beyond me. It’s so beautiful. I could see changing it with the seasons, but it’s gonna be summer for a long time yet. Also the planters in the lagoon should be permanent as well.
F&W has gone downhill starting with not having the SPAM Hash. It really was the best dish of them all. And still is.
I tend to agree too. Food and wine used to be a good family event where everyone could try new foods. Now it feels like a drinking festival and competition on how drunk people can get.
It’s no longer feels family friendly.
When we do go now we avoid weekends completely and focus going mostly midweek.
We are really disappointed. Visiting from the UK, we’ve had our dates booked for over a year and our flights booked for 6 months. Our 2 week holiday staying at an Epcot area resort is now only going to overlap with 3 days of the festival, and that’s opening weekend so will be heaving. It’s really unacceptable that Disney force you to plan but refuse to give the information to let you do so!! Fingers crossed for summer festival – involving food!
The silver lining is that EPCOT should be very uncrowded during the first ~10 days of your trip, as locals will be waiting for the event to start and August is the off-season anyway. And if there is a summer event that does overlap with your dates, it’ll be nearing an end so it also won’t be as popular with locals at that point.
I know it’s disappointing and I agree wholeheartedly about Disney making these announcements earlier, but I’d probably consider this a win if it were my trip.