EPCOT’s International Festival of the Arts runs from January 13 till February 20, 2023 at Walt Disney World. This information affords information, ideas, meals suggestions, and our must-see highlights of this annual winter particular occasion. (Updated January 13, 2023.)
For these unfamiliar with it, the Epcot International Festival of the Arts is the “newest” particular occasion of the 12 months, which is in its seventh 12 months come 2023. (Time flies whenever you’re having enjoyable–I nonetheless bear in mind when the inaugural occasion was introduced!) Festival of the Arts can be the least-popular of Epcot’s occasions, and doesn’t draw practically as many vacationers because the long-running Food & Wine Festival. This is partly as a result of it happens in winter, nevertheless it additionally doesn’t appear to attract fairly as many locals, both.
Walt Disney World has dubbed this occasion the “ultimate celebration of world-class food, amazing visual art, and live entertainment.” We agree. EPCOT’s Festival of the Arts is our favourite occasion of the 12 months, and we love chatting with artists, watching the performers, and consuming our means across the 13 cubicles, and having fun with among the artwork on show. Trying the brand new meals, seeing artists exhibit their work, and collaborating within the interactive choices on the occasion is at all times a superb time.
After being blown away by the inaugural occasion, and whereas among the specifics have modified in the previous few years, our impression stays the identical: Epcot’s Festival of the Arts is our #1 seasonal occasion of the 12 months at Epcot.
In this put up, we’ll cowl among the explanation why we adore it, and why we advocate experiencing it for your self in January or February! Let’s begin with what’s new for the 2023 Epcot International Festival of the Arts–the large information is that Figment is enjoying a good larger within the 2023 EPCOT Festival of the Arts…
The 2023 EPCOT Festival of the Arts is getting extra imaginative, with Figment’s Inspiration Station: Art, Food, and Little Sparks of Magic. With this, Figment primarily takes over the Odyssey occasions heart, which was beforehand the EPCOT Experience preview heart (and has additionally functioned as a pageant heart for previous occasions.
Figment’s Inspiration Station on the Odyssey contains nods and restored items from the unique Journey Into Imagination at EPCOT Center, circa 1982. Figment’s Inspiration Station options an unique Figment Audio Animatronics determine, mural impressed by the trip’s load space, the unique background music, and projections from the attraction. There’s additionally inspiration drawn from the unique upstairs ImageWorks, with unique pin tables and a rainbow corridor-esque aesthetic in Figment’s Inspiration Station.
Additionally, the Figment Premium Popcorn Bucket makes its return, however this 12 months with a brand new EPCOT fortieth Anniversary strap. Last 12 months, Festival of the Arts was dominated by headlines that EPCOT’s Longest Line Is For Figment Popcorn Buckets. It took some time, however Walt Disney World ultimately solved that downside by streamlining the method with Mobile Order.
Thankfully, Mobile Order is as soon as once more the answer to that individual downside. Simply search for EPCOT Souvenir Release and choose a return timeslot, beginning at 11 am. Limit 2 per individual.
Figment’s Inspiration Station doubles as a meals and merchandise sales space, serving the Pop’t Art, Rainbow Cake, and quite a lot of different snacks and drinks, together with quite a lot of totally different beers. (Strikes me as sorta odd for Figment’s sales space to serve alcohol, however no matter.)
In addition to the popcorn bucket at Figment’s Inspiration Station, it’s also possible to deliver dwelling the brand-new Fruity Fig Bar Figment Disney Munchling. This limited-edition Disney Munchling options the candy scent of berries and may be discovered each on the merchandise places on the pageant and on storeDisney.
The Figment enjoyable continues when the solar goes down on the 2023 EPCOT Festival of the Arts.
Over at Spaceship Earth, a brand new Beacons of Magic gentle present options Figment. This technicolor tribute options music that’ll deliver one little spark your creativeness, together with a spectacle of dazzling gentle. This combines Journey into Imagination and Muppets by additionally using “Rainbow Connection” in what is perhaps probably the most impressed and imaginative model of the wonderful EPCOT Beacons of Magic but.
With what’s new for 2023 out of the best way, let’s provide a little bit of background on the fundamentals of the occasion which are constant from year-to-year. The Epcot International Festival of the Arts is a particular occasion celebrating the visible, culinary, and performing arts from around the globe. The occasion contains Food Studios (naturally!) and an array of leisure choices.
The very first thing you might want to know is that there’s quite a bit to see and do on the Epcot International Festival of the Arts, however the overwhelming majority of the leisure is not repeatedly working. Quite the converse, in reality.
While there may be just about at all times one thing occurring all through the park between park opening and 5 p.m., lots of the stay performers are solely out a number of occasions per day, and a few of their units are pretty quick.
Because of this, it’s completely important that you simply seek the advice of a occasions information or leisure schedule for the day your visiting, and plan across the leisure that’s the most “rare.” Alternatively, when you have a surplus of time, you may wish to take a gradual method, simply meandering round World Showcase and stumbling upon artwork as you stroll. We actually get pleasure from that sense of “discovery.”
The Food Studios, displays, and interactive artwork alternatives may be slotted in each time, so match these into your schedule when you might have down time, however plan across the stay leisure.
You gained’t have the ability expertise all of Epcot and Festival of the Arts in a single day. Accordingly, we advise spending two days at Epcot throughout Festival of the Arts: each weekdays.
Weekends at Epcot are busy throughout Festival of the Arts, primarily attributable to robust phrase of mouth in regards to the occasion amongst locals, who work through the week. As with each different Epcot pageant, weekdays are far much less busy.
The final two winters have been a veritable crowd curler coaster at Walt Disney World. Two years in the past, attendance was down significantly, making Walt Disney World’s customer numbers disproportionately locals who go to Friday by means of Sunday. This 12 months was a very totally different story, with pent-up demand enjoying out in full pressure and just about each day being jam-packed.
As mentioned in our Crowd Predictions for 2023 Epcot Festival of the Arts, we’re forecasting one thing in-between for Winter 2023. Fortunately, the dates encompassed by the 2023 EPCOT Festival of the Arts must be among the many better of the 12 months. For extra information, check with that–or seek the advice of our January 2023 Crowd Calendar and February 2023 Crowd Calendar for Walt Disney World for particular greatest and worst dates to go to.
Let’s flip to the Food Studios. For many visitors, these would be the spotlight of the occasion, providing market snack choices in venues just like these discovered through the Epcot Food & Wine Festival. We thought the meals was typically actually introduced exceptionally properly, and tasted excellent ultimately 12 months’s occasion.
We sampled many of the menus on the Epcot International Festival of the Arts, and have been stunned that the majority parts have been comparatively hearty and worth for cash was pretty strong. In each circumstances, higher than the Food & Wine Festival, however not nearly as good of worth as an everyday counter service meal.
As we be aware in our Food Studio Guide to the 2023 Epcot International Festival of the Arts, the “culinary arts” are the least vital element of the occasion. We have a number of particular snack suggestions there, however none are important to having fun with the occasion.
While the meals is superb and a few parts are beneficiant, it’s additionally on the costly aspect–much more than Food & Wine Festival. This makes it a troublesome promote if you happen to’re paying out of pocket–particularly since this occasion doesn’t revolve round meals.
If you do go for the foodie components of the pageant, the Wonderful Walk of Colorful Cuisine is a enjoyable solution to do it. Set out on a tasty trek across the 2023 EPCOT Festival of the Arts and buy 7 vibrant dishes—and be rewarded with one technicolor deal with to get pleasure from on the finish of your journey.
Use your Festival Passport as your information to search for specifically notated menu objects, then monitor your progress by amassing a stamp after every buy. Once you’ve loved a minimum of 5 of the 7 dishes—and picked up the corresponding stamps—deliver your stamped Festival Passport to the Deco Delights meals studio to obtain a complimentary Artist Palette Cookie.
With that mentioned, you possibly can skip the meals totally and nonetheless have an superior time on the occasion. This is sentiment you may not learn elsewhere, however needless to say a lot of the curiosity round Epcot’s festivals revolves round meals; that is additionally how Disney monetizes the occasions.
So in fact it is smart for Walt Disney World and different blogs to hype up the meals…even when it’s far from the spotlight of Epcot’s Festival of the Arts. Aside from the snacking, Epcot’s International Festival of the Arts affords Walt Disney World visitors the power to peruse art work by Disney artists in galleries.
Additionally, there are stay artists creating art work in Epcot. It’s actually fascinating to look at them; we have been so captivated by one of many artists that we watched him full a whole Mickey Mouse portray, which he did in ‘unison’ with music.
Other artists can be portray panorama scenes all through World Showcase. Additionally, chalk artists will reproduce traditional works on park sidewalks, Epcot Living Statues will do roaming artwork, and visitor efficiency artists will create stay artwork with the wave of a paintbrush.
Interactive visitor artwork is one other one among our favourite elements of Festival of the Arts. We have had an opportunity to assist full a number of totally different murals, together with the one pictured beneath.
It’s additionally a very enjoyable expertise within the second, and satisfying when you see the completed product a number of days later, realizing I helped make that!
For children of all ages, one of many highlights is Figment’s Brush with the Masters Scavenger Hunt. Mischievous Figment has re-imagined what well-known work may appear like if he have been a part of the art work, and hidden one in every nation round World Showcase–see if yow will discover all of them. The work are cleverly completed, and a great way to introduce children to artwork historical past.
It’s additionally simply quite a lot of enjoyable to seek for the Figment-infused artwork. If you need, you should purchase maps for ~$10 every on the major present outlets (Port of Entry, Creations Shop, World Traveler Shop, and so on.) and play the sport–being rewarded with a Figment souvenir as soon as you discover all of them. However, it’s also possible to simply search for them for a way of enjoyable and satisfaction–that’s normally what we do!
There’s additionally extra structured leisure for the Epcot International Festival of the Arts. For 2023, the Disney on Broadway live performance collection will as soon as once more return. This options three exhibits every night headlined by Broadway stars performing beloved songs from greater than 25 years of award-winning stage productions.
Here’s the Disney on Broadway live performance lineup for the 2023 EPCOT Festival of the Arts:
Kara Lindsay (Newsies) and Kevin Massey (Tarzan)
- January 13, 2023
- January 15-16, 2023
- January 19-20, 2023
Arielle Jacobs (Aladdin) and Adam Jacobs (Aladdin)
- January 14, 2023
- January 17-18, 2023
- January 21-22, 2023
Patti Murin (Frozen) and Robert Creighton (The Little Mermaid)
- January 23, 2023
- January 25-26, 2023
- January 29-30, 2023
- February 2-3, 2023
Mandy Gonzalez (Aida) and L. Steven Taylor (The Lion King)
- January 24, 2023
- January 27-28, 2023
- January 31 by means of February 1, 2023
- February 4-5, 2023
Ashley Brown (Mary Poppins) and Michael James Scott (Aladdin)
- February 6, 2023
- February 8-9, 2023
- February 12-13, 2023
- February 16-17, 2023
Kissy Simmons (The Lion King) and Josh Strickland (Tarzan)
- February 7, 2023
- February 10-11, 2023
- February 14-15, 2023
- February 18-19, 2023
On February 20, 2023 the Disney on Broadway Concert Series options an prolonged finale that includes Ashley Brown, Josh Strickland, Kissy Simmons, and Michael James Scott. In previous years, this prolonged finale has been the spotlight–don’t miss it if you happen to’re in EPCOT that night!
Disney on Broadway Dining Packages are additionally obtainable, however we usually do NOT advocate these (apart from possibly the prolonged finale on February 20, 2023). We’ve seen Disney on Broadway concert events numerous occasions and by no means as soon as had a difficulty getting seats. I suppose if you happen to completely want a major view, it’s not a foul possibility–nevertheless it strikes us as a waste of cash. To every their very own, although.
Ultimately, Epcot International Festival of the Arts has confirmed itself to be one thing totally different. Food and drinks are the bottom precedence right here, and there may be a lot “other stuff” that it’s arduous to view this as a thinly-veiled solution to promote excessive margin stuff. When you contemplate how a lot all the artists and entertainers probably value, the cynicism melts away.
To the opposite, the Epcot Festival of the Arts is a real enhancement to Epcot. It cherrypicks the weather of Flower & Garden and Food & Wine that we like greatest, and enhances the park in an natural means that feels prefer it recaptures a little bit of the unique spirit of EPCOT Center. The occasion’s ambiance makes it much more pleasurable to simply wander round Epcot, and there are robust academic and leisure elements.
With 6 years underneath the occasion’s belt, we’re assured that Epcot’s International Festival of the Arts has discovered its footing. While we hope that it continues to evolve and increase, 2023 gained’t be the 12 months for that, as EPCOT is (nonetheless!) within the midst of an enormous building mission to rework Future World into three new neighborhoods (technically, this modification already occurred–however you’ll be able to’t inform from the maze of building partitions!). However, Figment’s Inspiration Station must be a superb addition for which followers will go loopy.
Disney continues to ship on the Epcot International Festival of the Arts, which is why it has been our favourite pageant because it began a number of years in the past. That is perhaps arduous to consider given the barrage of protection that Food & Wine receives, and provided that that is the shortest and latest occasion, but when we may solely select one to attend, this could be it. Despite the shock spike in crowds final 12 months, we might extremely advocate this occasion–and this time of 12 months–to anybody contemplating when to go to Walt Disney World in 2023.
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Your Thoughts
Have you attended EPCOT’s International Festival of the Arts in any of its previous years? Are you excited to expertise the 2023 Festival of the Arts? Any ideas you wish to share to benefit from the expertise? Any questions we may help you reply? Hearing suggestions about your experiences is each fascinating to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas beneath within the feedback!