¡Celebración Encanto! Sing-Along Announced for EPCOT
Walt Disney World is announcing its plans for June through September 2024, promising that Summertime at The Most Magical Place On Earth is going to be extra magical this year! One of the biggest pieces of news is the “¡Celebración Encanto!” sing-along show that’ll debut at EPCOT–this post has dates, details, and concept art for the new experience.
As for summer as a whole at Walt Disney World, not only will you be able to join the party in The Big Easy when Tiana’s Bayou Adventure opens at Magic Kingdom, but there’s also going to be a lot of new stuff to experience at EPCOT. According to Disney, EPCOTians everywhere know that the park has been undergoing the largest transformation in its history, and each new element has brought the park closer and closer to a fully reimagined EPCOT.
To recap, here’s a rundown of everything that’s been added to EPCOT and will be new to some of you in Summer 2024: that gorgeous new fountain and tombstone-less front entrance; Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure; Creations Shop and Connections Cafe; Beacons of Magic on Spaceship Earth; Space 220 Restaurant; Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind; Moana’s Journey of Water; the return of the Land Pavilion’s original BGM. Starting June 10, the finishing touches of this grand transformation will debut with extra fun for Summer 2024.
Everyone will be talking about Bruno from June 10 through September 6, 2024 because a new summer sing-along featuring the beloved songs and story of “Encanto” is in development now. This won’t be a surprise to regular readers, as we shared the casting call a couple of weeks ago that sought two high-energy male or female hosts with infectious personalities who can sing and tell captivating stories, have likable personalities and comedic flair, plus (ideally) bilingual skills.
This new limited-time show, “¡Celebración Encanto!” runs several times throughout the day and will not only invite you and your family to sing along with some of your favorite songs, but you’ll also spot Mirabel and Bruno on the newly opened CommuniCore Plaza stage.
That’s right, the “¡Celebración Encanto!” sing-along show will take place on CommuniCore Plaza stage. That’s possible because the last walls in the center of the park are coming down! Beginning June 10, you’ll be able to stroll through a fully transformed EPCOT.
While CommuniCore Hall will be home to the iconic EPCOT festivals and other celebrations, it’ll also be a perfect cool indoor space year-round for you and your family to recharge. CommuniCore Hall will be surrounded by serene views and exciting experiences.
The coolest mouse around will be ready to give you a hug once new character greeting location Mickey & Friends debuts! (Not to be confused with the parking structure at Disneyland.) Based on the way this is worded in the announcement (“once” the character spot debuts), it sounds like Mickey & Friends may not be opening on June 10, 2024 with the rest of CommuniCore Hall. (Hopefully I’m wrong about that.)
With its colorful mural of all things EPCOT past and present, a geometric exterior design inspired by Spaceship Earth, and of course, Mickey Mouse and his pals, CommuniCore Hall is going to be the gathering place of World Celebration Gardens. It’ll also feature more greenery and relaxing spaces to enjoy out in CommuniCore Plaza and Inspiration Gardens.
Walt Disney World ends the announcement with this: “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.” While ‘stay tuned’ teases of this nature aren’t uncommon, we think there’s even bigger news still to be shared about Summer 2024 at EPCOT…
As you know if you’ve been following our commentary since the 2024 EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival was announced late last year, we’ve been predicting that Walt Disney World would introduce a brand-new summer festival for June through August 2024 by further scaling back both Food & Wine and Flower & Garden to allow for the new event.
No need to read the rest of this if you’re familiar with our tinfoil hat dot-connecting theory as nothing that follows is anything new (same stuff we’ve been saying since like last December). Suffice to say, we believe the plan is to make the grand debut of both that new summer festival and CommuniCore Hall all at once. That’d actually be pretty savvy and splashy on Walt Disney World’s part.
As for what this theoretical EPCOT summer festival featuring Encanto could be…how about simply the 2024 EPCOT Summer Festival. Simple as it sounds, summer festivals are common in Europe, Asia, and even the United States. An open-ended summer festival could encompass a wide variety of celebrations.
When it comes to Colombia, the obvious candidate is a carnival. There’s the Bogotá Carnival every year in early August that could serve as inspiration. Not only that, but it’s not hard to envision Walt Disney World offering a carnival-like celebration with vibrant street dancing, music, and masquerade parades. Even if it’s not called carnival, it could evoke the spirit of the event–and would “feel right” for summer in Florida. (It could also be a test for a permanent pavilion concept–there have been plans for carnival in World Showcase for years.)
It wouldn’t need to stop there. If the 2024 EPCOT Summer Festival is to be, it could include a ton of stuff in different countries. There could be celebrations for Bastille Day in France, Dragon Boat Festival in China, Summer Solstice in Norway, Independence Day in America, and various other music and fire festivals around the world–plus other events I’m probably forgetting or don’t know about.
I’m admittedly biased to this idea because it would also mean celebrating my favorite event, which is Matsuri in Japan. This is an event in various cities, with the highlight being Gion Matsuri in Kyoto. For several years, Tokyo Disneyland did an excellent event called Natsu Matsuri (literally translates to Summer Festival) that melded authentic culture with characters. It would be awesome to see something like that, but expanded across the entirety of World Showcase.
Closer to home, it could be like Viva Navidad or Lunar New Year at Disney California Adventure, which are a bit more narrow in focus but are arguably very EPCOT-y in nature. Something like those events, but make it summer, would be a perfect fit for World Showcase and the newly-opened CommuniCore Hall & Plaza.
As noted above, food & beverage have been huge for EPCOT over the years, sustaining the park even as it stagnated. While it’s entirely possible that the Flower & Garden Festival shortening is simply a repeat of last year with Walt Disney World cutting dates due to diminishing returns, my money would be on a brand-new event that “solves” both that issue and sustains elevated food & beverage spending that EPCOT enjoys during its other events. Disney loves fresh revenue streams!
Anyway, I think that’s the perfect idea and hope it happens. With CommuniCore Hall finally opening on June 10, a new event would be the perfect way to commemorate that addition, too. Given how open ended ‘Summer Festival’ is, Disney could weave some sort of tech expo or something futuristic into the front half of the park, too. Ample opportunities to do something fun that would resonate with tourists and locals, while also being in the ‘edutainment’ spirit of EPCOT Center.
Festival of the Arts is EPCOT’s newest festival and also its best. So I’m confident that Walt Disney World could create something excellent. A cultural celebration featuring the characters from Encanto…now that could work. I’m sure it’ll elicit groans from the “no characters in EPCOT!” crowd, but that ship sailed long ago. Marrying Disney characters with culture is very obviously the compromise solution and path of the park going forward.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
Are you excited for the new “¡Celebración Encanto!” sing-along show? What about the opening of CommuniCore Hall on June 10, 2024? Think an EPCOT Summer Festival would be a fun event with a lot of potential? Agree or disagree with our take? 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!
I would love if they brought a sing along like this to Disneyland. We did WDW in January and loved the Frozen sing along (and the Beauty and the Beast show) at HS. We are looking into Disneyland for next year and can’t believe there are basically no shows there. I know B&tB is a pretty big production but I feel confident you could find two bilingual actors in LA and play the same video clips in DL, no?
To make up for the lack of show space there is SO MUCH roaming entertainment, a great daytime parade, and top-tier nighttime shows in both DCA and Disneyland. We were WDW people until of first trip to DLR and have never looked back. Have a great trip.
This is very meh news…it’s like Disney is phoning it in. It’s so draining to be at the parks lately, I can’t imagine having the desire to do a sing along. And frankly I can do that at the local high school production of this show.
Honestly, the fact that the parks are so draining make the sing along appealing to me. It’s nice to sit in a comfy seat and chill in that frozen theater at HS for a while rather than rushing around, especially with a young kid.
Build more rides Disney.
Yes! And fix Spaceship Earth and that horrible Figment ride.
I was hoping to not deal with the the dirt pit again during our visit to Epcot on June 6. The Encanto singalong does not move the needle for FOMO for me, but a summer festival would. I am hoping that this announcement (with any more announcements to come) will offer some hope of less crowds the week we are there, but I am also realistic in my forecasting and expect more crowds than we did the same time last year with the resurgence of the revenge travel of 2022. Love the respite of crowds the first week of June last year, but have zero expectations of that experience this year.
“Love the respite of crowds the first week of June last year, but have zero expectations of that experience this year.”
I wouldn’t bet against it!
ugh I’ve got an unpopular opinion. yay for Encanto show but having just experienced a brutally busy spring break with flower and garden at epcot I was really hoping our quick june bounceback trip we’d get to experience epcot without the flood of locals for a festival. (no offense locals! lol)
On the plus side, WDW wouldn’t be planning such a festival if they weren’t convinced that the traditional summer flood of tourists was going to be less than historical trends, like it was last year. While I don’t want to guess whether more locals and less tourists nets out to larger or smaller crowds against historical trends overall, at least it means that Monday through Thursdays should be all be slower days to experience most of EPCOT than it was last summer.
Unrelated but on topic, there sure are a lot of places around the world that call their summer festival “Summer Festival,” so I’m fine if the EPCOTters in charge of names don’t overthink it.
Thanks to your blog I pretty much knew what was going to be announced for Epcot today! I’m sad that our trip this year will not coincide with the completion of the endless Epcot dirt pit ™. However, flower and garden is a nice consolation prize.
If it’s further consolation, the condensed EPCOT Dirt Pit™️ is hardly intrusive. The World Celebration Gardens are nothing special (IMO), but they offer a straight shot through the center of the park and are better than a maze of walls, at the very least. Enjoy F&GF!
If your guess is correct, and they’re going to announce dates for a new summer festival, would you expect it to start June 10 with the Encanto sing along?
We’re traveling in June, and June 10 is our last day at the parks. We were planning on going to Animal Kingdom that day, but now I’m considering Epcot instead. We really liked Encanto a lot, but I wouldn’t say that a sing along show is a can’t-miss for us. So, if it’s ONLY the sing along show premiering, then we might just keep our plans as is…. but if there is a brand new summer fest, I think we’d be willing to battle the crowds of the first day of a festival to experience it!
June 10 makes sense for the start date of another festival. That gives sufficient turnaround time from the end of F&GF.
In fact, September 6 also makes sense for an end date. That would push Food & Wine back even further, but I don’t think they’d mind that. It had gotten way too long.
Plus, a Summer Festival would give them a reason to get rid of many of those *hearty* dishes at Food and Wine that I have never been able to eat until September anyway. I love this idea. If they debut it this year, then they’ve got a good trial run and could go even harder on it next year as some co-programming to Epic Universe.
“Summer Festival would give them a reason to get rid of many of those *hearty* dishes at Food and Wine that I have never been able to eat until September anyway.”
As optimistic as I am about the future of Walt Disney World, I’m more cynical about this–I’ll believe it when I see (and taste) it.
In my years of covering EPCOT festivals, the dishes have gotten heavier and heavier. I swear the culinary team making the menus has never stepped outside in Florida during the summer (March through October).
Are the dishes getting heavier because the culinary team doesn’t go outside, or because that’s what people are ordering? I would not underestimate the general theme park public’s tolerance for heavy food no matter what the weather.
People definitely love heavy food, so that’s part of it. But I think part of that is Disney not serving up lighter and refreshing dishes that are actually good. The resulting conclusion drawn is that people want heavy foods, rather than that people want lighter dishes that don’t taste bad/bland or feature Impossible products.