Shower idea.
Universal Celestial Portal Procession
New parade for Epic that can run in the afternoon or evening.
Inspirations are the Universal movie parade in USJ, Mickey's Jammin' Jungle Parade, and of course Tapestry of Nations because I have a brand to uphold. It also is inspired by the Epic Universe grand opening portal celebrations.
There will be 13 floats - two for each portal world, three for Celestial Park, and two mini CP ones. The parade route will go around the Constellation Carousel lagoon and Cosmos Fountain, starting in the space between O&S and the Celestial Nintendo store. It will go south to go counter clockwise around the Carousel then clockwise around the Cosmos Fountain, like a figure 8. It then returns back to the main entrance. See my bad diagram:
My idea for the entrance part of the parade is a larger and unique Portal design that can hide the floats some but is a little less ornate as the other ones. More like the one at the entrance of the park.
Float Order:
- Celestial Opening Float (Luna/shops)
- HTTYD Float 1
- HTTYD Float 2
- Celestial Interstitial mini Float 1 (Stardust/Meteor)
- Wizarding World Float 1
- Wizarding World Float 2
- Celestial Interstitial Main 2 (Helios)
- DU Float 1
- DU Float 2
- Celestial Intersitital mini Float 2 (O&S/Pizza Moon/Constellation)
- SNW Float 1
- SNW Float 2
- Celestial Cloasing Float (Hare/Plastered Owl/Capt Capao)
The main theme of the parade will be a celebration of the cosmos aligning, continuing the theme and plot of the land. The Celestians are celebrating the portals opening and inviting all the portals and all guests to celebrate. The opening half of the parade is a
Awakening of the Portals: the Celestians maintain the floats like a Mardi Gras like celebration. In fact I'd suggest hiring Kern to do the floats!
As the parade goes around the Carousel we see various charactres and dancers from HTTYD (first) and Nintendo (second) come out to join the floats from the portals as part of mini parade stops. The DU and Potter floats will have some-pre staged characters and dancers for this opening segment. The music is all original Celestial Park for the parade with some fanfare hints of the Portals.
The second part of the parade is the
Gathering. We complete the last two portals as characters and dancers come out from DU and then Potter as their floats stop by. One of the reasons why I want to have these moments where characters come out of the portals is I want there to be pre-parade engagement in the lands with characters and dancers (like they do in USF before their parades) but then it pulls guests out of the lands and back into Celestial Park for the parade. Music continues to be heavily Celestial Park originals but there are more and more inclucusions from the Portals. Eventually the parade will complete it's full roll out around the Cosmos Fountain.
This starts the
Celebration. In coordination with the Cosmos Fountain is a parade stop featuring the music of all the portals synchronized to lights (when done at night) and the fountains. This is a PARTY, think dancers, guest interactions, and more. Once complete the celebration continues as the parade then exits the parade route through where they entered.
Now, ideas.
The opening float should be themed to Luna that celebrates the moon and the entrance to Epic Universe. It will feature lots of green metal and brickwork to match the areas around Atlantic and the shops of Celestial Park.
Between the floats is also where we get the Tapestry inspirations. Here we have dancers and large puppetry that replicate the characters and atmosphere of the park. Inspirations here are the
World of Color preshow characters,
Tapestry puppets, and other large puppets designed by
Michael Curry Design.
The mini floats will also pull from Tapestry and Mickey's Jammin' Jungle parade by featuring live musicians. Inspirations for this are the
ToN drum floats,
Mickey Jammin' drum floats, and the
Blue Man Group monte carlo parade (yes they did one!). The music in those other parades is less the focus and more the energy that having live music playing with the backing track would really help create the energy this parade needs for the LARGE space.
Each of the portal world floats will focus on the worlds as presented in the park. Nintendo will have a Mario and a DK float with all the characters, DU will have a float for Darkmoore with the residents while the second float will focus on the rides (Werewolf/Unchained/next ride), Potter will be have one float of Paris and one float of the UK Minisitry, and HTTYD will have a float of Berk and another float that's just one big dragon with a moving head and wings!
The mid-float will be Helios themed, with full fire effects and themes of the sun and morning plus some aesthetics of the Helios hotel. The ending float will be The Hare from the opneing Luna and Hare statue as a mirror of the Luna float.
The goal of the parade is to pull guests out of the lands during the day and back into Celestial Park for food and drinks, ride capacity, and to entertain for around an hour or so. The full parade from start to finish will be around 20 minutes long but when factoring in the characters and dancers engaging with the guests it'll be closer to an hour of entertainment. This in-world entertainment is a huge part of the parade, it embrances and extends one of Epic's biggest strenghts: the worlds it builds with live entertainment.
The genesis of this whole idea was "why is Celestial Park designed like it is?" with an emphasis on the early rumors of the back end of the park designed for a parade. I tried to pull my favorite aspects of the park into this plus other inspirations I think could really flesh the parade out.