Disney appears to be prepping for work on the long-troubled World Celebration Gardens lighting at EPCOT. Rolling planters now cut off half of the central plaza area near Spaceship Earth, and several of the walkways that lead into that section are closed.
No construction has started yet. But the setup suggests Disney could be getting ready to address the in-ground lighting strips that have caused problems since the area opened.
A lighting system with a rough history
The area behind those planters has struggled with its lighting for years. When EPCOT's World Celebration opened, Imagineers installed thousands of programmable LED fixtures around the center of the park. The system was designed to sync up with Spaceship Earth's Points of Light show, the exterior of Communicore Hall, and even the interior lighting inside Connections Cafe.
Problems showed up almost immediately. Sections of the in-ground lights around the central planter went dark or displayed the wrong colors, and the plastic covers over the strips began to crack. Summer heat made things worse, warping and lifting sections of the covers and creating trip hazards that forced Cast Members to rope off parts of the walkway.
By late 2024, Disney had swapped many of the clear lighting covers for solid white opaque panels, without saying if that change was a repair or a full removal of the system.
With planters now blocking part of the area and nearby walkways closed, this could be the start of real work on the World Celebration Gardens lighting. Nothing is confirmed yet, but the setup matches the kind of staging Disney typically does before construction begins.
WDWMAGIC Intelligence
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