WDW’s 50th anniversary is winding down and will make way for Disney Company’s 100^th anniversary. That means a new nighttime spectacular is in the works for EPCOT. The new show is currently in development and will debut late next year, carrying on the park’s legacy of inspiring nighttime entertainment that unites guests around World Showcase Lagoon.

This new show will replace Harmonious, which debuted for the resort’s 50th anniversary. Hopefully that means the end to the giant spaceship in the middle of the lagoon!

Commentary

As I mentioned in the post about Happily Ever After’s return, Disney has course corrected and seem to know that Enchantment and Harmonious weren’t well received by guests. I have heard from more people that like the former more than the latter but it was still met with a tepid response in Epcot. If there weren’t the barges in the middle of the lagoon every single day, I’m curious if the show would have a different fate.

For Epcot purists, Harmonious was a bit of a disaster. On top of the frustrating sight line problems, the show had almost nothing to do with Epcot’s ethos. That was a big swerve from its predecessor, Illuminations. There was a dance club aspect to parts of Harmonious that were a bit much and the visual impact, outside of the pyro, was, at best, weird. The barges impact on the show is simply not great enough (if they’re great at all) to outweigh the daytime problems. At least in my eyes.

That said, I think Harmonious appealed to a certain demographic. I remind myself often that people that travel to Disney Parks are usually a bigger fan of Disney the company, and all of the entities, rather than just caring about the parks. Many people are there to hear their favorite Disney song set to a faster beat with fireworks shooting off overhead. I would think Harmonious worked for the majority of those guests.

But there wasn’t much of a happy middle ground in the show. Hopefully, that’s where the coming nighttime spectacular will fall. There were next to no details announced about the new show. It’s odd that it won’t debut until late next year even though the show is to celebrate the 100 year anniversary. That leads me to believe it will be a significant departure from Harmonious, with different infrastructure.

That’s all just a guess though. What I can say for certain is that I’m happy to see Harmonious getting the axe after the 50th anniversary ends. I’m eagerly anticipating what will come next!

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