Sunday, September 13, 2009

I went to the D23 expo this Weekend and Never Left my House

Over the past couple weeks excitement has been rising of the D23 expo that is being help in Anaheim this year. I was impressed with the long list of presentations and promised vendors. The only bummer is that I was not going. A trip to California was not in the budget. As I came to grips with this I heard a great one-liner from Lou Mongello on his show, the WDWRadio Podcast. He was going to the D23 expo and he was going to try to broadcast live from the expo. I figured that this would be a couple of minutes here or a couple of minutes there, but from the first test on Wednesday, Lou has been broadcasting live from the Expo floor non-stop from opening to closing each day. I have watched a couple hours of each day and I am watching Day 4 right now and cannot believe how addicting and fun this has been. Yesterday was unbelievable when the Tweets were coming out of the Parks Update Conference and the announcement of Star Tours 2.0 and The Fantasyland makeover. We've been seeing that blueprint that "leaked out" a couple of months ago. Today was the Pixar announcements of Cars 2 and Rapunzel and we are waiting to hear about any Muppets announcements. Right now we are taking a walk to the Lego exhibit. Lou has had a lot of help with Becci M. from MouseFanTravel. Justin Muchoney has been going to presentations and reporting back. This whole WDWRadioLive.com event could not have been better if it was planned. And right now we asked our legs, Marc, to take us to see Push the Talking Trash Can on display and he did. At one point there were 1,800 people all watching at once. This was very addictive and almost like being there. I can only hope, and I will suggest that this become an ongoing broadcast idea for various events. At one point Marc passed Ricky Brigante from the great Inside the Magic Podcast and Attractions magazine. I can also see Ricky doing this next year or at one point soon. Boy did he and his friends look tired at the end of this event. Could we get away doing something like this in the park? A live walk-around with back and forth comments? Must look into and report back.
The online chatters watching Lou's live feed gave themselves, me included, the name Box People. We the Box People are planning more events. There was even a Face Book Group out there for the Box People. GO BOXERS! This was and will be great for the rest of the night. The Imagineers and Pixar in the Parks Presentation is still in the works. I am still watching as I am writing this as I scan and crop the pictures above of Becci and Lou. The first picture is Lou, the second Beci and the third, Big Momma...don't ask. A great Thanks goes out to the Twitter Folks I had followed at the D23 Expo; Inside the Magic(Ricky), Touring Plans.com(Not sure who was there), Otisney(Scott Otis a reoccurring visitor and Of course Lou Mongello. Thank you for a truly great experience.

1 comment:

sea_bass said...

Hey Maz,

Henry here from TouringPlans.com. Thanks for the shoutout--glad you enjoyed the coverage!