D23 2024 - The Ultimate Disney Fan Event

[Randall]

This year's event will be held during my birthday weekend in August. I'm planning to go, as part of a larger California trip, and my son will likely come along for some of it this time (while my wife waits patiently in the hotel room). This time, we'll for sure also hit the parks before and after.

I'm posting now, because this year's Disney Legends just got announced, and it's a cool list. Johnny Williams, James Cameron, Harrison Ford, Steve Ditko, Miley Cyrus, Frank Oz, and more! Cool to see who'll actually be in attendance (not Ditko, obviously). It'll be held at the hockey stadium, so more people should be able to attend than when it was at the convention center.

Update: Wifey truly is excited for the Legends event. Good! Should be fun!

Tickets for D23 go on sale in one week!

[Ben]

Funny…I was totally underwhelmed at these "Disney" people, almost not one genuine one among them.

"Disney" "Legends" has become a bit of a meaningless joke at this point, and largely just another fan event for them to gawk over rather than the poignant and somewhat worthy acknowledgment it started out as waaaay back when. You can almost literally hear them asking "who's around?" and "who's left?" in this list…

I did see D23 was happening over August 11, though, and did think that was cool for you.

[Randall]

Yes, the "Disney" part has lost all meaning, but it's still a neat group of people and makes for a nice tribute nonetheless.

[Randall]

I got my 3-day D23 tickets today. Whew. It wasn't easy. And I'm a little bummed that I couldn't secure tickets for the Honda Center evening presentations (e.g. film previews, Disney Legends), especially after getting my wife excited at the possibility of attending. I had hoped that the larger venue would make it easy to get tickets, but it was not easy enough. In 2019, Dan and I got into everything we wanted by lining up early physically, including an overnight wait; but this year it was virtual queuing. I was logged in all day, and when buying opened at noon, I was randomly assigned #10,566. Ironically and quite amazingly, Dan got a pretty similar number to mine (though there were well over 50,000 people in the queue!), and we ended up in there at the same time! I watched in horror as the last few Honda Center seats were quickly disappearing, and did not get one, though Dan managed to grab one of the last ones! I might have grabbed a single seat for myself, actually, but wanted three seats together, which seemed impossible. But really, before I had time to even ponder options, the "Sold Out" sign came up. Argh!

Perhaps I could have planned it differently and gotten a different result. Like, if I had tried specifically for single day tickets. Who knows?

The bottom line is, as many folks that were frustrated and disappointed today, and as much that we might like to see a different system in place for ticket sales, at the end of the day there just aren't enough tickets for everyone in the world who plans to attend. I feel very fortunate to have seen all that I did in 2019 (which was amazing). And this year, no wasted time lining up for presentations. I already know I'm missing them.

Oh, well... at least I saved myself the extra money - at least $100 per person (more for better seats). So, I can add back $300 to my trip budget. And at least I got tickets to the main event already. About 30,000 people from today were not so fortunate yet. Tomorrow is presale for Visa cardholders, then open to all D23 members again the following day - though likely just for the Convention Center, of course, not the Honda Center.

This also opens up my evenings, making it easier to do other things while on vacation, like visit friends in the area or enjoy a relaxed supper.

[Dan]

I ended up having to play whack-a-mole in an effort to get my ticket. I was fortunate to figure out what was happening so that I could focus and strike when a seat opened up. But yeah, I only had an idea of how close I was cutting it about 30 minutes after I got my ticket when co-workers of mine who were going got theirs and asked me what I got (they managed to pull off buying the individual days) because they were literally right behind me in line.

But yeah, Rand and I will be hanging out in Anaheim again, just not as packed as the last time.

[Randall]

Another issue was that the buying process was so glitchy. Some folks got to the front of the line, and were booted out again, starting over with a long wait - many never getting back in before sales closed for the day (tickets were only sold for, what, 3.5 hours? - good thing I didn't wait until tonight to log on!). For many of us, we got no purchase options when we got in, and had to refresh our screens, which was scary (I actually opened up a new tab in my browser, as I was scared to try refreshing). I also tried loading other exclusive merchandise into my cart, but I only got error messages. And with time ticking down, I didn't' want to go back and try to re-do trying to buy anything, so I grabbed what I could (three 3-day passes), and ran. I also had a client waiting at the time, and didn't want to delay too long. As it was, I was sooo lucky that I got in during the only 10 minutes of the day that I was actually free! Miraculous, actually.

(Hard to say when tickets will sell out overall, so good that I secured them already, I think. When we went to Comic-Con in 2008, it took a few months to sell out. The next year, it was an immediate sellout - after crashing the servers twice and having to reschedule sales.)

Looking forward to seeing Dan again!!

[Dan]

Heck, the system essentially crashed early on with only the official notation coming thirty minutes into the sale. I was legitimately amused because I had just related to a co-worker about when, I believe for 2019, the queue process to reserve spots in programs crashed so badly from the start that they had to postpone it to the next day, saying this mere minutes before today's crash happened. It was down for over thirty minutes (maybe 45 minutes), and I imagine the combination of folks getting booted from their place and having to start over as well as my belief that some others got p****d and took off allowed for us to move up once it was running again. Ah, the joys of online pre-sales. Right up there with the annual stress-inducing Comic Con runs.

One of the positives about D23 is that they don't slouch on the programs, even if they're not one of the major programs. Rand and I were discussing the other day some things we could expect and noted this year marks twentieth anniversary of The Incredibles and our belief that they'll have something (aside from an outdoor screening the Monday before). I also remembered this year marks the 90th anniversary of Donald Duck, so we're thinking they're gonna do some big things for Donald. And that's just what we could come up with and already I'm thinking those are gonna be some great programs that will be put together with some major names and some delightful discussions to be had.

Can't wait to see what Rand, his fam, and I get to see this year!

[Randall]

One thing that occurred to me is that, given that the biggest presentations will now be evening shows at the arena, that opens up things quite a bit during the day in terms of programming. And--- that one hall at the convention center, which holds thousands of people, could conceivably now be free to host some pretty big panels. I don't expect a Harrison Ford panel, but might someone like Frank Oz do one? Lots of possibilities.

Regardless, we're in for a good time!

Y'know, I was originally going to skip the big presentations anyway, figuring my family wouldn't want to line up if they came along, or my time might be short at the show if they didn't. Having the option for ticketed seats, and my wife deciding to accompany me, changed my mind. And now I'm back to missing them. But that's okay. As mentioned, there are advantages to missing them, as fun as they will be.

BTW, someone posted on FB tonight that he logged on to the sales site on three different devices at three different times before the sale started, and each time he logged on, he got a smaller number. So, it really was random. He started at about 25,800, and the last time he got a number in the 5000s.

[Dan]

One of my co-workers tried that, actually, just on two devices. One was the place right behind me. The other was in the 30K spot.

We're obviously going to wait to see what the set up will be over the next few months, but the impression I got from the first press release is that that area that was Hall D23 will be used to merely expand the exhibit floor. Which means they might be closing out the basement waiting area except for when lining up to get into the exhibit hall first thing in the morning probably.

They'll be having programming back in the convention center's arena (last time, they had Walt's personal plane parked in there the entire weekend as an exhibit to check out). The arena was where we saw the Tarzan anniversary presentation, Little Mermaid, and the music celebration of Aladdin, so that will probably be the place to go to for the large daytime events.

And yeah, these daytime programs are a hoot to check out. As you mentioned, there's still a great chance to see someone worth checking out and some surprises to boot (the Character Voices presentation at the last show is proof enough of that!). So yeah, there's still plenty to see without having to get into the Honda Center. Heck, some of the best programs will probably be one of the daytime programs, honestly.

[Ben]

It actually sounds like chaos (planning *and* attending!), but I hope you guys get to see some cool things that make it all worthwhile!

[Dan]

Just as San Diego Comic Con began posting their programming schedule by day, Disney decided to shadow drop the full programming schedule for D23.

Some of the highlights:

- 30th Anniversary retrospectives (even though they're one year off) on Toy Story and A Goofy Movie

- Matt Groening (The Simpsons), Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy), Mike Judge (King of the Hill) and Loren Bouchard (Bob's Burgers) will participate in a panel on animation.

- Anika Noni Rose will be partaking in a lot of programs presenting the various Tiana projects coming out, from a children's book she wrote to the forthcoming animated series.

- 70th Anniversary retrospective of The Muppets (with an apparent emphasis on Miss Piggy)

- 60th Anniversary retrospectives of the New York World's Fair and the Disney Ambassadors program

- 90th Anniversary celebration of Donald Duck

- Screenings of Big City Greens the Movie: Spacecation and the first two episodes of Pixar's Win or Lose

- Signings that signal the presence of Elio, Moana 2, Zootopia 2, Toy Story 5, and Pixar's untitled 2026 film.

- As of right now, there's a Sunday noon panel that's marked TBA.

[Randall]

I scanned this earlier, but need to take my time and give it all a closer look. I'm hoping that Dick Van Dyke shows up at the Mary Poppins presentation!

It's kinda nice that you can book entry into panels in advance, but doing it mid-day Monday is really not the best time for me. I do really wonder how quickly stuff will book up, and whether there will still be opportunities to just show up at some of them.

[Dan]

That would be fun to see Dick Van Dyke show back up. And hey, one of the delights of D23 has been their penchant for surprises.

I'm hoping the reservation system isn't like the one that they did when you last attended, Rand. That was the one in which reservations were first come, first served and the system crashed so badly they postponed it to the next day. Ideally, I would think they would pick up from the last D23, in which you have the option to select a specific number of programs/experiences you would like to reserve per day (I think it was three), ordered by preference, and then later they'd email you which of your selections you get (so that you're at least guaranteed something per day, though it may not be your top choice).

As for showing up, since all the major programs are at the Honda Center this year, chances are good you'll probably be able to get into any of the other programs so long as you get there I'd say at least fifteen minutes beforehand and don't mind sitting in the back (going to the Encanto presentation was a last minute decision and I just managed to get in).

[Randall]

They are doing the random order queuing, as they did for the tickets, so that should help prevent crashes. I do wonder how necessary it all is. We got into everything we wanted in 2019 easily enough, aside from lining up for the biggest ones (now at Honda, as you say). The process seems unnecessarily complicated.

But I have to admit, it's exciting. And nice to guarantee a spot in advance.

[Ben]

Wouldn’t it be cool if (shh..whisper it) someone else also turned up for a Poppins tribute…?