D23 Convention Wrap-up

So, what happened?

In short, two years ago, for the first D23 Convention, they made huge announcements (Fantasyland Expansion, Star Tours, Carsland, California Adventure, etc. etc.) and this year they had....they had....well, NO new announcements.



Now, that might not have been such a problem, however, they sold tickets to this year's Expo by promising people it would meet or exceed the last Expo.  They advertised it as the place to hear about all these exciting new announcements...and then they had nothing to announce. Especially after what they announced two years ago, people had really high expectations.  And Disney let people have those expectations, and did nothing to temper them because they knew people were buying tickets hoping to see a big announcement.  As annoyed as I was, sitting at my computer watching this, I'd be ten times as pissed if I made the trip out to Cali and spent a significant amount of money for that. 

After Tom Staggs' presentation he took to the Disney Parks Blog to hopefully do some damage control, because the consensus is - people are disappointed (to say the least). Here's what he had to say:

Thanks to all of you for your responses. Your passion, energy and affection for our parks and resorts is the reason we do what we do so I appreciate your feedback. I know many of you were hoping for announcements regarding new projects from Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, especially at Walt Disney World Resort, so I wanted to take a moment to address those comments.
The projects we’ve already announced represent the largest period of growth ever in Disney Parks’ history. We’re working hard to create new and exciting experiences for our guests around the world and while the timing isn’t always right to announce another big project, we like to use opportunities like the D23 Expo to update fans like you on the great progress we’re making. We have several incredible projects currently in the works and look forward to sharing more information with all of you in the weeks and months ahead, including new details regarding Downtown Disney in Florida.

You could have seen the whole Parks presentation on the blog

I suppose they now know that we don't want updates on projects already in the works, we want new, exciting, and interesting announcements.  It might be worthwhile to mention also, that if you are a regular reader of the Disney Parks Blog, you get regular updates on the projects they are working on - so why was it necessary to have a convention presentation of things you regularly post online?

I am sure Nick will have more to say about this topic, so look for a post from him in the coming days, right now he's too depressed to even type. j/k!