The EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival is underway.
Most of the festival is the same as in previous years: there’s lots of great food to try, fun entertainment, a scavenger hunt, and more. But one thing is noticeably different: this year’s festival is ending earlier than usual. We think we know why.
This year’s EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival is scheduled to end on May 27th, a whole month before we originally expected it to end. So why would Disney decide to do this? Well, we think it has something to do with the FULL completion of the EPCOT transformation.
Disney recently announced that the last part of the EPCOT transformation, CommuniCore Hall and CommuniCore Plaza will open on June 10th. CommuniCore Hall will act as a “hub” for EPCOT’s festivals with a demonstration kitchen, mixology bar, gallery space, a Mickey meet-and-greet, and more. Although its primary function revolves around EPCOT’s festivals, it will be open year-round.
So let’s look ahead to the NEXT festival of the year, which is the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival. This is probably the BIGGEST festival at EPCOT and before 2020, this festival included things like food and beverage seminars, tastings, and more. This gives us the idea that the EPCOT Food & Wine Festival might open a month earlier this year to take advantage of CommuniCore Hall to bring those activities back for the first time since 2019.
CommuniCore Plaza is an outdoor space that’ll have the ability to host a giant concert on a stage or a more intimate performance. Disney recently revealed that an Encanto singalong show will be coming to that space as of June 10th — that show will run through September.
So to sum up, yes, we think the EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival is closing earlier this year to make way for a much bigger EPCOT Food & Wine Festival. We’re hopeful that the demonstrations, classes, and seminars will return with that festival, and we can imagine that Disney may even have bigger plans now that it has new festival space to use.
Of course, we won’t know anything for sure until Disney announces the EPCOT Food & Wine dates, but we’re keeping an out for that news any day now.
Check back with AllEars again soon for more!
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Are you interested in a bigger EPCOT Food & Wine Festival? Let us know in the comments!
We will be there June 10th! So exciting!
I think Disney is just going back to pre-Covid timelines. The Flower and Garden Festival always ended around the end of May, first of June before Covid. When they reopened they limited the amount of guests into the parks. Extending the Festivals gave more people a chance to experience them, and for Disney to sell merchandise. They don’t need to do that now. I REALLY hope Food and Wine doesn’t open until close to Labor Day. Starting in mid July is too early, too hot, and too many summer thunderstorms to deal with. Food and Wine was better when it was late September to early November.