“Sold Out” Boo Bash Dates Available Again
Most Disney After Hours Boo Bash tickets that were previously listed as “sold out” are once again available for purchase. In this post, we’ll provide details on the dozen dates that are now bookable, offer commentary about crowd expectations, and potential explanations as to why this is happening.
Let’s start with a bit of background for anyone who missed the roller coaster Boo Bash drama from a couple of weeks ago. Guests of select Walt Disney World Resort hotels could book their tickets beginning June 8, but only by phone. Since Disney’s call centers are currently experiencing a staffing shortage, that went predictably bad. There were multi-hour waits on the phone lines for those first few days. (Sarah endured exactly that, plus one disconnection, to purchase ours.)
During that pre-purchase window, a few dates sold out, including Halloween and opening night. Prior to Halloween actually selling out, there was some day one confusion about it potentially being sold out, not yet available, or temporarily unavailable, for reasons unknown…
Ticket sales began for the general public on June 15, which was reportedly a much smoother process. That’s presumably due to the online system also opening for Disney After Hours Boo Bash tickets. To my knowledge, no issues with Stitch eating any pages, but admittedly, I didn’t pay super-close attention.
In any case, more dates sold out, and by June 16, here’s what availability looked like:
I didn’t take another screenshot, but the last time I checked earlier this week, here are additional dates that were sold out:
- August 17
- September 21
- September 24
- October 22
- October 26
Basically, the remaining options were all dates from August 20 through September 19, 2021–plus all Sunday nights in October 2021. (At least, if my recollection is accurate…and it seldom is.)
Above is what’s available in August as of this morning.
Looking good so far–no changes whatsoever!
Here’s the latest on Disney After Hours Boo Bash availability for September 2021.
Okay, everything is open, but perhaps there were cancellations or adjustments. No cause for alarm yet.
Finally, current October 2021 Disney After Hours Boo Bash ticket options.
Uh oh.
Last week, our commentary was that dates selling out quickly was good news. Our reasoning was that it suggested Walt Disney World actually was capping attendance for Disney After Hours Boo Bash at a low level. Here’s a paragraph from our Guide to Disney After Hours Boo Bash, published on June 16:
One of our fears is that Walt Disney World would increase the attendance cap, thus negating the main advantage of the After Hours event, which is enjoying most attractions as near walk-ons and minimal crowds throughout Magic Kingdom…It’s always possible that the cap is higher than we suspect—or that Walt Disney World will quietly release more tickets once these sell out, but we are cautiously optimistic about the event as of right now.
It would appear our fears have been realized and our cautious optimism was misplaced.
We have not called to inquire about the basis for today’s ticket release and have absolutely no intention of doing so. However, in talking to a few “annoyed” guests who purchased these tickets and have contacted Walt Disney World via phone and/or chat in attempts to receive refunds, there appear to be a few unofficial explanations.
First, that the tickets were previously sold out in error, due to “phone problems” the first day tickets went on sale. This seems unlikely, as the only date that sold out initially was Halloween. It didn’t actually sell out on the first day, and it’s not available again, anyway.
Most of these dates that are once again available did not sell out until online booking started. Moreover, Disney has had over two weeks to correct the supposed phone issues but they’re just fixing it now?
Second, that limited availability has opened up because guests have switched dates.
Again, not likely. Changing dates does not create more inventory out of thin air. It’s a 1:1 trade. Hopefully I don’t have to illustrate this with an example, but if so, I have a great one involving earthbound pigs learning to fly.
Finally, that Disney increased capacity consistent with the phased reopening of Walt Disney World.
This is probably the truest explanation, so long as you stop reading after “Disney increased capacity.” The rest wouldn’t make sense for a variety of reasons, the least of which being that After Hours events have a cap much lower than 35-40% of normal attendance.
Prior to tickets being released, we published Crowd Predictions for Disney After Hours Boo Bash. The salient piece of advice in that post was do not buy Disney After Hours Boo Bash tickets in advance.
I’ll level with you–after seeing tickets sell so quickly, I questioned that advice, worrying that I might’ve led you astray. I was slightly heartened by the overwhelming number of commenters who disagreed (most of the rest of you thought it was a rip-off all along, and weren’t buying tickets regardless). As it turns out, maybe I should’ve trusted my gut?
To reiterate what was advised there, we’d caution against buying tickets now for Disney After Hours Boo Bash unless you absolutely know you want to attend, and don’t care about how crowded it is.
Keep in mind that After Hours is fundamentally a low crowd event—the entertainment is the icing, not the cake. Low crowd levels are the reason to attend, so if it does not offer that—or you don’t find yourself needing that, Boo Bash tickets are arguably a pointless purchase.
We’d recommend waiting until closer to your travel dates to assess ticket sales and event attendance levels, particularly for the previously sold out parties.
It’s worth noting that the first two August dates have not had capacity added, which is probably by design. Opening night is full of bloggers like us, and the second night is typically sponsored media night. Even though we bought our opening night tickets, our report on crowds will (admittedly) be less reliable than someone doing a late August or September date.
For like the hundredth time, Boo Bash is not comparable to Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. This is an After Hours event; the selling point is low crowds, not the entertainment. If Boo Bash is not delivering low crowds and short waits, it’s not worth the money.
We’d be highly apprehensive about attending the event on any night that sells out–especially now that the capacity cap has seemingly been increased. Instead of having FOMO about dates selling out, it should bring a sense of relief—who wants to attend a low crowds event on a night with higher crowds?
Ultimately, there might very well be an innocent explanation for why a bunch of sold out Disney After Hours Boo Bash dates are once again available. It’s possible one of the far-fetched explanations above is accurate, and there’s no cause for concern. Maybe Disney has added to the attraction lineup or is expanding the entertainment slate to comport with guest expectations (and confusion about how this differs from MNSSHP), which will offset the increased capacity and ticket sales.
It’s also possible that earthbound pigs will someday take flight. (Everyone knows about griffins, a very real animal.) However, just because we can’t definitively rule something out yet, doesn’t mean it’s likely. The very reason our last Boo Bash ticket update suggested that Walt Disney World might release more tickets was because we’ve seen exactly that happen in the past. This isn’t exactly new or unprecedented, nor does it need to be explained away.
Walt Disney World never said they wouldn’t release more tickets. The company promised a “limited-capacity” event with “less time waiting in line.” That’s it. So long as the attendance cap is 99% or less and wait times are lower than they’d be on some undisclosed day (whether that be September 1 or New Year’s Eve is totally unclear), they’ve upheld their end of the bargain. That might seem like a cynical way to parse words, but when you’re dealing with a company that chooses its words carefully, that’s the pragmatic approach.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What are your thoughts about all of this? If you bought tickets, are you upset that previously sold out dates are once again available for Disney After Hours Boo Bash? Concerned that crowds will be larger than expected? Alternatively, are you happy you can now buy tickets? Optimistic that there’s a “good” explanation for more tickets becoming available? Will your family be attending or sitting this Halloween event out? Do you agree or disagree with our perspective on this? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
Do you anticipate the day crowds being lower on a Boo Bash night?
WDW is pretty slick. They dumb down MNSSH and label it an “After Hours Event” to make the price increase percentage look less onerous. They disseminate this message into the “Influencer” community and most bite hard, amplifying the message to every corner of the Disney community. Then, when they get the demand perception result they wanted by selling out a number of nights they release more tickets to make it more crowded and hence a dumbed down MNSSH experience. This is downright diabolical. As a stock holder it helps me. As a rapid Disney fan it makes me wonder if they care about their customers at all anymore, or just consider us sheep to be shorn.
I think they purposely created the chaos and “sold out” dates to get people to freak out and pre-purchase. (People want what they think they can’t have). My guess is that demand is actually quite low for most dates.
@Tom Bricker,
Thanks for that suggestion. I’ll mostly keep an eye out for your updates then!
Will they allow you in earlier than 7pm like MNSSHP?
I do not plan on attending the boo bash but I do have a MK park reservation for one of the days in October that coincides with a boo bash event that evening. On average, does MK tend to be significantly busier on a boo bash day than not? Trying to decide if I should switch my park reservations for a different day. I also assume there will not be fireworks that evening as well as extra magic hours for resort guests do not apply on those days?
I was actually one of the people that called to rebook a different date. I had tickets for October 8 and had not purchased a ticket for someone who decided to join late. So I had to change my dates to October 10. Had I known they were going to reopen tickets I wouldn’t have spent the couple hours on the phone changing the dates. But hopefully the new dates will have lower crowds anyhow.
Extremely frustrating on multiple levels. I spent 12 hours redialing to get into the loop (no lie, it was 12 solid hrs) finally got in, held for just under 3 hrs and was told they stopped selling tix at 9 pm. Called back the next morning, and held for 3 hrs. Finally got my 3 tix. (I even emailed Chapek telling him how unacceptable it was for the disaterous first day- I did actually get a call back to follow up to make sure I got my tickets)
Then a week later you can buy online for general public? WTHay Dis? No reason resort guests couldn’t have done an online order- this is 2021, I’m sure someone could’ve written the code for that for the system. They had plenty of time to get that done. Now- they release more tickets?? Super not happy seeing that. It feels like Disney doesn’t appreciate their guests time. I just hope the lines are super short and it was worth what I paid because this may be our last trip for a long time.
I’m so upset!! We bought tix for Oct 5th hoping to have some relief from the heavy 50th anniversary crowds. I feel certain this will now b over sold and we’ve wasted r money. I’m just hoping they add fireworks and parade so we can have low wait times on rides while everyone is doing fireworks/parade. We’re one of the few that don’t care about the entertainment. Just there for the rides. Thx Tom for the great, speedy, we’ll explained info.
I know people are disappointed but really, after a year of paying as much or more for a reduced experience, why would anyone expect Disney to give them exactly the same low crowds as a pre-2020 after hours event? This is not in addition to a halloween party like in the old days, it is instead of it, so you can bet Disney is going to try to make more money now that it knows demand is there to make up for the absence of it money maker parties.
I also bought tickets for a September date when we could because we actually are staying/doing universal this trip so this gives us one evening over at MK we wanted to do MK but couldn’t fit it into one of our days, this was perfect. Hopefully it’s like the other after hours events we’ve done they have been really good.
Arguably, if the only limit is on the number of tickets they can sell, not sure they met their end of the bargain in good faith.
That said — I have tickets for August 17th. The fact that it remains sold out, makes me selfishly optimistic that those initial dates will indeed keep a stricter attendance cap. They may feel like they can increase capacity a bit as they hammer out any issues after the first few events. It has been a LONG time since they ran a similar event.
The big question: We really don’t know how many tickets were added. And we don’t know the cap compared to the old AH event cap.
Assuming they conservatively originally capped the event much lower than a pre-Covid AH event… and now simply added more, bringing it closer to a pre-Covid AH, there might not be need for major concern.
For all we know, they simply added a few hundred per night.
But if they are actually taking the position of, “we will ultimately keep raising the cap until there is no more demand”.. then this will be a nightmare.
This situation highlights the frustrating lack of transparency with Disney. If they did indeed increase capacity, the value of the tickets we already bought instantly declines. We have no way of proving this because of that pesky transparency issue and the fact that original capacity was never stated. Capacity is a huge part of the value with special event tickets and Disney just changed that value after people already paid for the event. With other products we purchase, we know exactly what we’re getting. Why have we thus far been ok with spending money on special event tickets without having a clear understanding of what the return would be?! I can at least thank Disney for this wake-up call.
I bought a ticket right away, not because I disagreed with your advice but because I was an exception to your reasoning: I knew I was going to want to do the event once, regardless of any other considerations. There were only two dates coinciding with my upcoming trip, so I went ahead and bought the cheaper evening of the two. Questions of whether it’s worth it at all will come into play starting with the *second* time I have a chance to attend. I’d do Mickey’s Halloween or Christmas parties again in a heartbeat; for this, I’ll see how it goes this time.
If Disney does raise the attendance cap to a point where there seems to be no benefit, well, that’ll be my answer for the future. If it does have enjoyably smaller crowds, then I’ll decide whether it was enough better to justify going again in the future. If it has lower crowds, but not as low as it would have been without them raising the cap, then… well, I don’t have a might-have-been viewer handy so I won’t worry about it.
Wife and I being local grabbed our dates that we wanted and haven’t looked at the calendar since. We do want to go October 31st but if they don’t refill that bucket then we will go to Universal!
Here we go again. It’s a limited ticket event but never say what the limit is. then they add more tickets to event after they sell them all or just want to make more money. Then you show up and there are tons of people everywhere and long lines.
Park passes means every ticket sold today is “limited-capacity”.
Every ticket WDW has ever sold is “limited-capacity” since they have capacity limits.
Bait and switch is standard for Disney at this point. My favorite was how Galaxy’s Edge had a stunt show during the media event but never again. But they do it with restaurants and events all the time.
I reluctantly purchased tickets the first day ( my daughter wanted to go), and seeing the additional tickets tells me this is going to be a mess. I just paid twice as much as the Halloween party and it’s going to be packed with people and less fun and entertainment provided. I went to the Halloween party in 2019 and it was a hot mess with the crowds. Shaping up to be the same thing for more money.
I heeded your advice and am very glad I did! The price point will likely still keep us away, but we’ll see if reports are positive & tickets are still available for our early September dates when we arrive. I will only be lured in if we are absolutely desperate for an extra day in the parks, and the crowd reviews make it really worthwhile. We will be there for a couple of weeks, mostly a resorst-centric visit, with some waterparks and new explorations thrown in, so have lots of flexibility as to dates if we want to add the after hours event.
Can you suggest someone to follow for accurate reviews of crowds, given you think your review of the opening night will not likely reflect accurate crowd reviews for future parties?
Thanks so much for all your great articles & efforts! 🙂
“Can you suggest someone to follow for accurate reviews of crowds, given you think your review of the opening night will not likely reflect accurate crowd reviews for future parties?”
I can’t imagine any bloggers will be attending multiple nights, so my recommendation would be to watch threads on forums or in Facebook groups. The reports will be anecdotal (and sometimes contradictory) but they should paint a picture. I’ll also be doing that, and updating our guide accordingly.
I’m kind of bummed. Opening night is my family’s only chance to be there so I already bought tickets. Without fast pass this was our only way to beat a lot of lines in the thick of summer, and we always do after hours when we can, we love the event. I really hope disney didn’t just ruin another thing we love about our trips there. They’re on a roll lately.
Disney didn’t add capacity to opening night. At least, not yet.
They undoubtedly know that many bloggers/vloggers/etc. bought tickets to attend that night, which might be one thing that keeps capacity lower. Or perhaps they’ll add tickets for the first two nights at a later date.