Credit: DisneyStar Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is opening at Disneyland in just a few days and we couldn’t be more excited! As we eagerly wait for this new land to premiere at the world-famous Disney Park, we can’t help but wonder about the inter-workings of the new land and some of the inspiration Disney drew from in their design. And according to a new report, it seems Disney tested one part of this new land several years ago with the help of Captain Jack Sparrow from Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean.””
When trying to achieve a new level of immersion, where guests can interact with rebel spies and bounty hunters, Disney wanted to find a way to present meet-and-greet characters in the park without having them wait in a line. In an attempt to test their theory, Walt Disney Imagineering decided to have Jack Sparrow walk around Magic Kingdom and interact with guests.
According to OC Register, by having the pirate walk around the land, Disney was able to figure out the logistics of story-driven interactive experiences, to see how they compared to traditional meet-and-greet experiences.
“If Captain Jack Sparrow was just walking through the land, how would guests react? And how can we create constructs that allow the story-driven experience? How can we let those story-driven experiences happen and still allow people to get the photo they want, but not turn it into a line of people waiting to take photos?,” said Imagineering portfolio creative executive Scott Trowbridge to The Orange County Register.
Of course, guests weren’t told of this underlying purpose of Jack’s free walking around the theme park, which gave Disney Imagineering an unbiased look at what they could expect if they replicated the experience at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.
Some might question whether or not fans wouldn’t just line up wherever the character might pause in the land, forming a similar meet-and-greet queue experience. Although, with these tests, Disney was better able to understand these guest interactions and how to manage them to avoid this problem and others.
Trowbridge admits that there are some things that Disney Imagineering will not know until they actually try them in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. Although, the company is confident with the research they’ve already conducted and what it means going forward into the new Star Wars-themed land’s story-driven experiences.
We can’t wait to see these interactive experiences first-hand when they premiere in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge on May 31 at Disneyland and August 29 at Walt Disney World.
What are your thoughts on Disney conducting this test on its guests? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: OC Register