It was Friday night, and the southern California stadium was packed with cheering fans. They wore light-up bracelets and homemade costumes, and screamed every time a new A-list celebrity made a surprise appearance.
This wasn’t a pop concert or a sports game. It was a marketing event for Walt Disney, a company with a legion of fans so devoted that about 15,000 were willing to buy a ticket and come to Anaheim, California, to see its newest film and TV advertisements first.
“The most epic event for the most epic fans!” James Cameron, the director of Titanic and the Avatar films, exclaimed, as he announced the title of the third Avatar film, Fire and Ash, and showed the audience some exclusive concept art.
The audience shrieked and applauded as Disney previewed an extensive, albeit predictable, slate of sequels: Moana 2; Frozen 3; and Toy Story 5, the story of an epic battle between the toys and digital screens for a child’s attention . There is even a follow-up to Lindsay Lohan’s 2003 film Freaky Friday in the works, called Freakier Friday.
Disney shot off flames, filled the stadium with fake snow, and provided a medley of Broadway performances. Throughout the night, a parade of Hollywood stars – Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Zoe Saldana, Jamie Lee Curtis, Lin-Manuel Miranda and others – appeared on stage to thank fans for their support and credit them with the success of the company’s recent films.
Jude Law showed the first clip of himself starring as a jedi in Skeleton Crew, a new Star Wars series. Gal Gadot and Rachel Zegler introduced a teaser trailer for Disney’s live-action Snow White.
Being a Disney superfan is not cheap. Tickets to all three days of the D23 fan conference, which is held at a local convention center, started at nearly $300. The most deluxe package, with prime seats, cost $2,599.
The price of an average family trip to Disney’s theme parks has also jumped sharply in recent years. One outside analyst estimated the price of a typical four-day trip to Disney World for two adults and two children staying at a “value” hotel has increased nearly 25% between 2019 and 2024 – and that’s adjusted for inflation.
For the superfans in Anaheim, the cost is still worth it. Outside the convention center on Friday morning, Andrea Dragone, a 32-year-old Disney fan from Long Island, New York, waited in line in front of an enormous sculpture of a wizard’s hat, bedazzled with Swarovski crystals. She and her husband, who are both teachers, work additional after-school shifts in order to be able to afford their Disney vacations as a “once-a-year treat”.
In previous years, they have watched videos of the D23 conference announcements from home, but this year, they wanted to attend in person. “We just wanted to feel the energy,” Dragone said. The couple had woken up at 6.30am to be at the front of the line.
Further back Shannon Richey, 51, and her mother, Peggy Martin, 72, who had flown in from Houston, Texas, were also visiting D23 for the first time. “This right here is overwhelming,” Martin said, as they waited in the hot sun. But their family was loyal to Disney as a brand that always delivered experiences that were magical and “where you feel safe”, Richey said. After two Disney cruises, they had tried another cruise, and found the experience unsatisfying. “It’s hard to top Disney,” she said.
Founded in 2009, D23, Disney’s “Ultimate Fan Convention”, offers no theme park rides – just panel discussions with the casts and crew of Disney franchises, and a convention center floor filled with elaborate photo opportunities and long lines to purchase Disney-themed merchandise. Many fans show up in outfits, from Moana-print shirts and dresses to coordinated couple’s costumes: Peter Pan and Wendy, Mary Poppins and Bert, Tiana and Naveen. And, of course, a dizzying array of mouse ears.
Rachel Meyers, a stylist from Los Angeles who works in the film industry, was dressed as Tinker Bell, with full glittering wings. It was her second trip to D23, and she was there with a group of more than 10 friends, all of whom had planned different costumes for each day of the convention.
Compared with a visit to Disneyland, the fan convention offers a more “intimate” experience, Meyers and other fans said – despite what felt like “12 billion people” attending, and the conference center location. “You’re connecting with the community in ways that you wouldn’t in the parks,” Meyers said. While Disney does not confirm attendance numbers, US media outlets have estimated the conference attracts well over 100,000 people.
Disney superfans use the convention to meet each other, offer praise or constructive criticism of each other’s costumes, and geek out over behind-the-scenes details about the making of their favorite film, sometimes while broadcasting their findings to those watching from home. “This is how the Disney adults recharge. It’s how we charge our magic,” quipped David Vaughn, a southern California content creator who offers Disneyland tips to hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
“I’m extra and everyone here is also extra,” added his friend Ashley Dingess, whose joint account RealMouseVibes has nearly half a million followers on TikTok.
A ‘cash cow’?
Disney came into its biennial fan weekend with a mix of good and bad news on its corporate front. At the last D23, in September 2022, some fans had booed the company’s CEO, Bob Chapek, when he came on stage to address them in the midst of months of struggle and controversy.
That year, Disney had been caught in an ugly political battle with Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, over his “Don’t Say Gay” law, as rightwing commenters attacked “woke Disney” for casting a Black actor as a mermaid and having an occasional LGBTQ+ character in its films. (This spring, the company settled a legal dispute stemming from that political battle.)
Less than two months after the 2022 event, Chapek was ousted from the company, and Disney brought back its longtime former CEO, Bob Iger, who was greeted on Friday night with a roar of approval and a standing ovation from fans in Anaheim’s Honda Center. “Boy, did I miss you,” Iger told them.
Iger has faced his own challenges: he was widely criticized in 2023 for calling striking Hollywood artists’ demands for increased pay as “just not realistic”, and oversaw sweeping layoffs in an effort to reassure shareholders – but the company has seen a series of recent wins.
Last year’s historic double Hollywood writers and actors’ strike has ended, and Disney also narrowly avoided a strike by tens of thousands of Disneyland theme park employees this July by offering significant wage increases, including a $24-an-hour minimum wage.
After losing huge amounts of money as it fought to make its streaming platform, Disney+, a successful competitor with Netflix, Disney announced last week that its wider streaming business – which also includes Hulu and ESPN+ – was now profitable. A series of recent Marvel movies, once box office juggernauts, have flopped in recent years, but this summer’s cheeky hit Deadpool and Wolverine has just made $1bn at the global box office. Pixar’s Inside Out 2, meanwhile, is now the highest-grossing animated film of all time, with $1.5bn to date at the global box office.
Back at the sports stadium on Saturday night, the Disney Experiences chairman, Josh D’Amaro, offered new details on the estimated $60bn Disney plans to invest in its theme parks and cruise lines over the next decade. The company will expand its fleet to 13 Disney ships; construct a major Lion King attraction at Disneyland Paris and a new Avatar area at Disneyland in California; and create a new “Villains Land” at the Magic Kingdom in Florida.
But amid all the festivities, one thing Disney executives did not want to address was the effect of rising theme park prices on the very superfans D23 is supposed to celebrate.
A four-day value hotel vacation at Walt Disney world that cost an average of $3,230 in 2019 now costs nearly $4,300, according to Len Testa, president of Touring Plans, a company that helps visitors strategize their theme park visits. A similar four-day family stay at a “deluxe” Disney resort costs nearly $7,300, he said.
Most of the increased average cost of the vacations “is Disney charging for things that used to be free”, such as airport transfers and surcharges to access shorter lines for the popular rides, Testa said. Disney’s new “lightning lane” fees have been criticized as a “pay to play” system that undermines the populist feeling of Disney theme parks. The added fees also contribute to the feeling among fans that the parks are a “cash cow” keeping the rest of Disney’s vast media empire afloat, Testa said.
Disney’s experiences arm, which includes its theme parks, cruises and merchandise, currently generates far more value for the company than its entertainment or sports divisions.
The price rises appear to be affecting park attendance. US domestic parks and experiences operating income fell 6% in the most recent quarter, and it’s expected to fall again next quarter. Disney blamed the drop on inflation-related cost increases and technology spending.
The company did not respond to requests for comment on Testa’s data. At a Sunday morning D23 panel, top Disney Experiences executives, including D’Amaro, spoke for an hour in front of a room of 60 international journalists. The executives did not discuss the debate over pricing, and did not take take questions in real time: journalists had only been allowed to submit questions for Disney to review in advance.
Today, “there’s probably 40% of American households who cannot afford a single day and night at Disney,” Testa said. “It’s more than they spend in a year on vacation.”
“I’m not saying Disney World should be free,” he said. But, he added: “When a place that is familiar to all of us, like Disney, is only accessible to the top 20% of Americans, we should ask what that means for us as a society.”
