Fantasmic! at Walt Disney World drops to one show per night starting in April

Mar 30, 2023 in "Fantasmic!"

Fantasmic! reopening night show - November 4 2022
Posted: Thursday March 30, 2023 9:40am ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

Fantasmic! at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Walt Disney World will drop to one performance per night beginning late April through the end of May 2023.

According to the latest operating hours calendar, Fantasmic! will be performed once per night at 9pm starting Sunday, April 23, 2023.

Additional shows are not expected to be added during this quieter period between spring break and the start of summer.

Fantasmic! made its return to Disney's Hollywood Studios with huge crowds in November 2021 after a multi-year closure.

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Squishy12 days ago

The DCA frozen show was using blacktrax I think.

gerarar12 days ago

I'm pretty sure they use the manual spots that are on those scissor lifts in the back and on top of the control booth, which are used during the intro, princess medley, Aladdin, etc. For Moana, I believe they use a combo of manual spots and lights on the overhead rigs that are time coded. Can see in this screenshot that one manual spot operated by a tech in the back stays on Moana through her run across the stage and until the "I Am Moana" lyric. Blacktrax would be interesting and nice, but they don't even use those in the stage shows at DL and WDW afaik.

Squishy12 days ago

I believe they're using blacktrax to track the performer, not manual tracking.

DCBaker24 days ago

Beginning March 10, Fantasmic! moves to an 8:30pm showtime through April 23. For the week of March 10 (except March 13 due to an After Hours event), the second showing of Fantasmic! is scheduled for 10pm.

RhinocerousJan 31, 2024

I have no knowledge of how the Fantasmic lights are set up. In modern theatrical lighting design, follow spots will typically be tied into specific light cues, the same as any other lighting instrument. The Fantasmic lights may very well be synchronized to the musical score, which would result in the light “timing off” when the cue changed.

gerararJan 30, 2024

Moana dropped the Heart of Te Fiti during her segment. Thought this was a pretty cool fail as the manual followspot stayed on her as she backtracked to pick up the prop. Interesting thing to note are the followspots are on a timer, rather than controlled by the tech operating it, since it turned off before the CM could finish their run across the stage. The static lights still ran as normal even though no one was there on cue.

imagineer97Jan 15, 2024

Join me on an investigation... : They only introduced the mines with the return of the show. Bear with me... 1999 - The Comets were as they are now (as of Jan 9 or 10): And in 2005 as well: And in 2011: And in 2017 (thanks @marni1971): And in 2020: HOWEVER, when the show returned in 2022, it had the mines: Hp1VoUmVgP4:1712 Therefore: It appears this change is a return to normalcy! Hurrah!

TouchdownJan 15, 2024

The new comets are more accurate to the short. I like them.

imagineer97Jan 15, 2024

Interesting, I think I like the new comets better. More majestic.

gerararJan 15, 2024

There's been some major pyro changes in the finale. The comets with mines have been replaced with larger comets with longer tails. This seems like the pyro/comets used in the previous version pre-Covid and before the 2022 version. Wonder if this is a "budget" cut or simply a change in pyro supplies. (1/7 old pyro, 1/13 new pyro) Not sure what I prefer, but the newer comets are brighter and "more" colorful in a way. Here's a comparison video I made. The pyro change happened sometime in the past week, on either 1/9 or 1/10.

Starship824Jan 14, 2024

The quality of the water screens heavily depends on the wind that night so if it's really windy it's they won't be very clear and will be a lot harder to see. They also upgraded the projections during the 2022 update.

bmr1591Jan 14, 2024

I’m not sure if it was just my angle, but the projections last night were the clearest I’ve ever seen. If I didn’t know better, I’d have guessed they upgraded them. Night and day difference from the last time I saw the show (Tuesday).

gerararJan 09, 2024

As @jrhwdw mentioned, there was no Sorceror Mickey appearance on top of the mountain during last night's (1/8) show! This is really super rare. Usually it's a case of the mountain lift not working. If it's weather/wind related, pyro would be also cut but none were cut last night, so leaning more into the lift being out of service. It's hard to come across footage of this, so had to save it of course lol. Awesome to see the rare B-mode choreography of Tuxedo Mickey. It slightly differs from DL's B-mode choreography when their lift is broken, which happens a lot over there. Timestamped livestreams:

BrianJan 09, 2024

The fireball was removed after a near-miss where it nearly hit the first couple rows of seating. It is unrelated to the Disneyland incident.