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 once you’re having enjoyable–I nonetheless bear in mind when the inaugural occasion was introduced!) Festival of the Arts can also be the least-popular of Epcot’s occasions, and doesn’t draw almost 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 method across the 13 cubicles, and having fun with a few of the artwork on show. Trying the brand new meals, seeing artists exhibit their work, and collaborating within the interactive choices on the occasion is all the time a superb time.
After being blown away by the inaugural occasion, and whereas a few of the specifics have modified in the previous couple of 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 publish, we’ll cowl a few of the explanation why we find it irresistible, and why we suggest 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 massive information is that Figment is enjoying a fair 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 basically 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 consists of nods and restored items from the unique Journey Into Imagination at EPCOT Center, circa 1982. Figment’s Inspiration Station options an authentic Figment Audio Animatronics determine, mural impressed by the journey’s load space, the unique background music, and projections from the attraction. There’s additionally inspiration drawn from the unique upstairs ImageWorks, with authentic 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 finally 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 particular person.
Figment’s Inspiration Station doubles as a meals and merchandise sales space, serving the Pop’t Art, Rainbow Cake, and a wide range of different snacks and drinks, together with a lot of completely 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, you may as well deliver house the brand-new Fruity Fig Bar Figment Disney Munchling. This limited-edition Disney Munchling options the candy odor of berries and will 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 mild present options Figment. This technicolor tribute options music that’ll deliver one little spark your creativeness, together with a spectacle of dazzling mild. This combines Journey into Imagination and Muppets by additionally using “Rainbow Connection” in what may be probably the most impressed and imaginative model of the wonderful EPCOT Beacons of Magic but.
With what’s new for 2023 out of the way in which, let’s provide a little bit of background on the fundamentals of the occasion which can be 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 consists of Food Studios (naturally!) and an array of leisure choices.
The very first thing you’ll want to know is that there’s so much to see and do on the Epcot International Festival of the Arts, however the overwhelming majority of the leisure is not repeatedly operating. Quite the converse, actually.
While there’s nearly all the time one thing occurring all through the park between park opening and 5 p.m., most of the reside performers are solely out just a few instances per day, and a few of their units are pretty quick.
Because of this, it’s completely important that you just seek the advice of a instances information or leisure schedule for the day your visiting, and plan across the leisure that’s the most “rare.” Alternatively, if in case you have a surplus of time, you may need 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 will be slotted in every time, so match these into your schedule when you’ve down time, however plan across the reside leisure.
You received’t have the option 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 resulting from robust phrase of mouth concerning the occasion amongst locals, who work in the course of 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 way of Sunday. This 12 months was a completely completely different story, with pent-up demand enjoying out in full power and just about every single 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, confer 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 friends, these would be the spotlight of the occasion, providing market snack choices in venues just like these discovered in the course of the Epcot Food & Wine Festival. We thought the meals was usually actually offered exceptionally effectively, and tasted superb ultimately 12 months’s occasion.
We sampled many of the menus on the Epcot International Festival of the Arts, and had been shocked that the majority parts had been comparatively hearty and worth for cash was pretty strong. In each instances, higher than the Food & Wine Festival, however not nearly as good of worth as a daily counter service meal.
As we observe in our Food Studio Guide to the 2023 Epcot International Festival of the Arts, the “culinary arts” are the least necessary part 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 excellent and a few parts are beneficiant, it’s additionally on the costly aspect–much more than Food & Wine Festival. This makes it a tricky promote in case you’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 gadgets, then monitor your progress by amassing a stamp after every buy. Once you’ve loved at the least 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 stated, you could possibly skip the meals completely and nonetheless have an superior time on the occasion. This is sentiment you won’t learn elsewhere, however remember that 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 sensible 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 friends the flexibility to peruse art work by Disney artists in galleries.
Additionally, there are reside artists creating art work in Epcot. It’s actually attention-grabbing to look at them; we had been so captivated by one of many artists that we watched him full a complete Mickey Mouse portray, which he did in ‘unison’ with music.
Other artists will likely 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 reside artwork with the wave of a paintbrush.
Interactive visitor artwork is one other one in every of our favourite features of Festival of the Arts. We have had an opportunity to assist full a number of completely different murals, together with the one pictured beneath.
It’s additionally a extremely enjoyable expertise within the second, and satisfying when you see the completed product just a few days later, figuring out I helped make that!
For youngsters 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 to be if he had been a part of the art work, and hidden one in every nation round World Showcase–see if you could find all of them. The work are cleverly performed, and a great way to introduce youngsters to artwork historical past.
It’s additionally simply loads of enjoyable to seek for the Figment-infused artwork. If you need, you should buy maps for ~$10 every on the principal present retailers (Port of Entry, Creations Shop, World Traveler Shop, and so forth.) and play the sport–being rewarded with a Figment souvenir as soon as you discover all of them. However, you may as well simply search for them for a way of enjoyable and satisfaction–that’s often 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 sequence will as soon as once more return. This options three reveals 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 way 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 in case you’re in EPCOT that night!
Disney on Broadway Dining Packages are additionally out there, however we sometimes do NOT suggest these (apart from possibly the prolonged finale on February 20, 2023). We’ve seen Disney on Broadway live shows numerous instances and by no means as soon as had a difficulty getting seats. I assume in case you completely want a first-rate 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 completely different. Food and drinks are the bottom precedence right here, and there’s a lot “other stuff” that it’s exhausting to view this as a thinly-veiled solution to promote excessive margin stuff. When you think about how a lot all the artists and entertainers possible price, 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 method that feels prefer it recaptures a little bit of the unique spirit of EPCOT Center. The occasion’s ambiance makes it much more pleasing to only wander round Epcot, and there are robust instructional 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 received’t be the 12 months for that, as EPCOT is (nonetheless!) within the midst of an enormous development undertaking to remodel Future World into three new neighborhoods (technically, this transformation already occurred–however you possibly can’t inform from the maze of development 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 may be exhausting to consider given the barrage of protection that Food & Wine receives, and provided that that is the shortest and latest occasion, but when we might solely select one to attend, this is able to be it. Despite the shock spike in crowds final 12 months, we might extremely suggest 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 need to share to benefit from the expertise? Any questions we will help you reply? Hearing suggestions about your experiences is each attention-grabbing to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas beneath within the feedback!