#D23Expo Day 1 – Thoughts & Observations

Day one at the D23 Expo 2013 was long as they all tend to be. I arrived at the convention center just before 8am and left around 9pm. I will post my full comments and photo updates next week when I have time to go through them all and write it up. For tonight just wanted to give my quick first impressions.

I was inside and watched the first group of guests, maybe 50 or so be let inside so the could start the inside queues. Well for some reason several in the group decided they want to switch positions so they sort of ran/moved quickly and tried to pass the others. This made no sense to me. If you are in the first dozen people does it really matter? I am guessing they were fighting for the Dream Store line. I cannot believe someone would try that for the Arena… this incident did mean the entrance process slowed down for those behind.

I spent a few minutes getting some pictures of the Consumer Products and Disney Interactive areas before the crowds descended for the day.

First up this morning was Art and Imagination: Animation at the Walt Disney Studios. Before the presentation began Bob Iger took to the stage to officially welcome everyone to the Expo and give an overview. I was surprised Steven Clark did not join him.

Then it was on to Animation with John Lasseter running the show. It featured a look at upcoming projects from Pixar, DisneyToons, and Walt Disney Animation Studios. For each film the director as well as producers and some of the voice talents were brought out on stage to talk about the film.

A quick run down of what was covered, they allowed no pictures, video, or recording. Disney did release some pictures and I will post those in a few days or as time allows:

Pixar Animation Studios

• Monsters University – Discussing the success of the film and showed the Snail Clips featuring Bill Hader
• Party Central Short featuring the Monsters University cast
• Good Dinosaur – Peter Sohn / Denise Reem
• Inside Out – Pete Doctor / Jonas Rivera
• Finding Dory – Andrew Stanton / Lindsey Collins
• Toy Story of Terror – October 16 8pm on ABC

DisneyToon Studios

• Disney Fairies – Legend of the NeverBeast
• Disney Fairies – The Pirate Fairy
• Planes
• Planes – Fire & Rescue

Walt Disney Animation Studios

• Burny Mattinson Tribute
• Mickey Mouse in Get a Horse
• Big Hero 6
• Zootopia (2016)
• Frozen

This presentation started about 30 minutes late and ran long which meant the early part of the afternoon was messed up for me. As soon as the presentation ended I had enough time to grab a burger and eat on the walk to the the 3:00pm Marty Sklar presentation. Marty Sklar spoke about his new book and showed several film clips and some pictures. Overall I thought the presentation was lacking a bit, mostly because I had seen almost all of the material before and the Q&A was a joke. It also started late, about 15 minutes.

After that presentation I headed upstairs to get in the standby line for the Broadway and Beyond show to end the evening. We were among the last to get a seat. There were only a handful of rows and maybe 50 seats after us. So I felt lucky to make it in. They did allow a couple rows of standing along the edges to enable more of the standby line to get in. The show featured a live band and a handful of Broadway singers performing and Thomas Schumacher talking a bit about each show.

The highlight of the day was the Broadway and Beyond. The Animation Presentation was interesting but long. Marty’s presentation seemed lacking to me. I was a bit disappointed I rushed through lunch and had no real time to explore or try and catch another session.