D23 Expo 2013 – Day 2

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Another pretty good day at D23 for me. Today was sold out, and it was a LOT busier – the show floor was quite crowded after 11:00 or so. The biggest frustration I heard was how long it took just to get into the building, though – 60-90 minutes for those who arrived in the 8:30-9:30 range (doors opened at 9:00 for D23 members).

You can see some additional photos and info by reading my tweets: @allearslaura

I had time to visit the show floor this morning just after opening when it was relatively quiet, so I could take a lot of photos. And yes, I have photos with today’s blog!!!

Seems to me like there are a few more third-party exhibitors this year, like Party City, Ridemakerz, Honda, and Hallmark. I liked this jelly bean collage that the Jelly Belly people are making. 🙂

D23 Expo 2013

There’s quite a large kid’s area, with sample merchandise and photo ops from Frozen, Marvel, and Tinker Bell and the pixies, as well as Disney Jr. characters like Jake and the Never Land Pirates, Sofia the First, and Doc McStuffins.

D23 Expo 2013

You can even sing Ariel karaoke. 🙂

D23 Expo 2013

You can become a Disney Voluntear, also.

D23 Expo 2013

I was intrigued by this model of Capt. Hook’s pirate ship from Once Upon a Time.

D23 Expo 2013

They take people inside in groups of about 10-12, where we were joined by some of the characters – like Prince Charming, Emma Swan, and Regina. We saw clips of the show from season 2 and there’s a surprise gift at the end. The wait was pretty long, but I’m a big fan of the show so I enjoyed it. When I walked by later, Captain Hook was standing outside.

D23 Expo 2013

I finally made it over into the Collector’s Forum, where there’s lots of booths of people selling Disney memorabilia and collectibles.

D23 Expo 2013

There was no line for the Disney Dream store, and I took a look inside. I didn’t buy anything, but this “4D” Disneyland puzzle caught my eye.

D23 Expo 2013

The first sessions of the day in Stages 23 and 28 have not been full – I went to the first session in Stage 28 (the smaller room), which was called Broadcasts from Buena Vista Street. It started off with six actors performing a scripted 1920s radio broadcast, somewhat reminiscent of War of the Worlds. Turns out that this broadcast actually can be heard in Oswald’s on Buena Vista Street.

D23 Expo 2013

The actors were all very talented voice actors who have worked as voices of a huge variety of characters, both Disney and non-Disney. It was really interesting to hear them change voices in mid-stream, and suddenly sound like someone completely different! One of them said that it’s really fun to become so many different people.

Stage 23 was just down the hall from the Treasures of the Disney Archives exhibit. It had no line, so I popped in. This time we were allowed to take photos as long as we didn’t use a flash.

They had costumes and props from Once Upon a Time (today was my Once Upon a Time day, can’t you tell?).

D23 Expo 2013

D23 Expo 2013

Also costumes and props from Return to Oz.

D23 Expo 2013

And the recent Oz the Great and Powerful.

D23 Expo 2013

I liked the little China Doll.

D23 Expo 2013

The next room was dedicated to Mary Poppins, with storyboards, props, and costumes. Here’s the St. Paul’s Cathedral snow globe featured in the song “Feed the Birds”.

D23 Expo 2013

Mary’s Jolly Holiday costume.

D23 Expo 2013

They had a few costumes from the upcoming movie “Saving Mr. Banks”, which will tell the story of Walt Disney and P.L. Travers.

D23 Expo 2013

I mentioned that this was my “Once Upon a Time” day – well, today that was the topic of one of the sessions I had been looking forward to. I had gotten a Stage Pass for this one, so I only had to arrive about 20 minutes before to get a pretty good seat. It wasn’t completely full, but had a good-sized crowd.

At the D23 Expo two years ago I was in the audience when the creators, Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, showed us the pilot for a new show called Once Upon a Time. It was mesmerizing and I really enjoyed it, though at the time I questioned how long they could keep the show going when the goal was to break a curse. Happily that wasn’t all there was too it, and even though they resolved that they have introduced other characters and twists and turns to keep it intriguing and entertaining.

This time they showed us a 19-minute mini-pilot for the upcoming “Once Upon a Time in Wonderland”. This time they’re going to put their twists on the Wonderland universe (as if it isn’t already twisted enough!). I didn’t find this one quite as gripping, but I’ll still give it a try this fall. As they told us: “Nothing is impossible in Wonderland.”

D23 Expo 2013

They also spoke about what we might be seeing on Once Upon a Time this season. We’ll meet familiar characters like Ariel, Tinker Bell, Ursula and Eric, and we’ll find out more about Peter Pan and how Hook became a pirate. We’ll see flashbacks, and episode 2 will feature an old-fashioned Charming and Snow vs. the Evil Queen show.

They said that they would love to see Rapuzel and Tiana in the show, but that they won’t introduce characters until they can use them correctly.

In one of their closing comments they told us how in our cynical world, this is a show for believers. You can believe that I will be watching! 🙂

The session concluded at 2:00, which was when the Disney Legends ceremony was starting in the Arena. I went down to the show floor to check out the overflow viewing area. As it turned out I still could’ve gotten a seat in the Arena, but I decided to watch it from the overflow anyway. I was expecting this to be a standing area, but it was full of chairs, with five large video screens at the front, though only two were showing a live feed. There was hardly anyone in there…I don’t know how well it worked for other more popular sessions, like the Disney Studios presentation earlier that day.

D23 Expo 2013

The Legends ceremony is always very touching. This year there were 8 recipients: Tony Baxter, Colin Campbell, Ed Wynn, John Goodman, Billy Crystal, Dick Clark, Glen Keane, and Steve Jobs.

D23 Expo 2013

John Lasseter accepted for Steve Jobs, and got rather emotional as he spoke about him and his vision for Pixar. (Lee is working on the video of the Legends ceremony which we will be posting to AllEars’ youtube channel.)

D23 Expo 2013

At the end of Legends Bob Iger announced that there were would a 4th D23 Expo in 2015. That’s also the year of Disneyland’s 60th anniversary, so it will be interesting to see what they might bring out for that.

Tonight DebK and I saw the Evening with Richard B. Sherman and Alan Menken. They held this one in the Arena, and it was pretty close to full. They both came out together at the beginning, but then they each played a separate concert – Sherman then Menken, though they both came out together and each played one last song at the end. They have an amazing body of work…so talented! Richard Sherman told a lot of interesting stories, since he had actually worked with Walt Disney. Menken didn’t talk quite as much – it seemed like he felt a little rushed.

It was a good show, but unfortunately a little bit anti-climactic because we heard a lot of the songs we heard last night at Broadway & Beyond. And, no offense to Mr. Sherman and Mr. Menken, but they aren’t really singers, and the songs are much more powerful when performed by people who can sing. 🙂

Not too much going on tomorrow session-wise, just a couple of things I want to see. I expect it to be a fairly quiet day.

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Laura Gilbreath is a native of San Diego, CA. She has been making the trek up Interstate 5 to Disneyland since she was a small child and terrified of talking tikis and hitchhiking ghosts. She and her husband Lee enjoy trips to Disneyland and Walt Disney World, as well as sailings on the Disney Cruise Line.

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One Reply to “D23 Expo 2013 – Day 2”

  1. These comments on the past two days of D23 are interesting. Your experience doesn’t seem to match any of the people’s that I’ve been reading about. My cousin went and barely saw anything due to the lines. I don’t know how you just walked into events and said that there was still room to go into an arena event. My cousin shared what the lines were like for the stores, events, and StagePass. If you have media credentials and were able to get in that way, please let us know. If you bought a sorcerer’s package, we should know all of that as well.

    AllEars: Laura did not have a Sorcerer Pass. Media for AllEars was not allowed any special privileges at the D23Expo except for 2 instances where AllEars had reserved seating at the Legends Ceremony and Menken/Sherman concert.