r/D23Expo

My friends and I (all ~30y) have never been to Disneyland or D23, but are lifelong WDW fans, and have always wanted to go to both.

We're considering doing a joint Disneyland/D23 (potentially also Oogie Boogie, depending on timing) trip in 2028, but given what I'm seeing I'm a bit hesitant to go cross country for what seems to be kind of a mess.

For context, I'm also a longtime congoer, having been to (and worked at) conventions ranging from 200 to 200,000 attendees, and D23 reminds me of early stage cons who grew too big for the teams running them, when they should have worked with an actual con management agency.

Which brings us to the title of the post - would you go again, if nothing changes? Is it worth dealing with the unorganized chaos? All thoughts are welcome!

Since it's been a few days, I figured I'd spill a few of my thoughts about my experience.

- First and foremost, my son and I had a great time. Aside from what I read here, I didn't know what to expect and was blown away by the size and layout of the whole thing.

- Entry was a train wreck on Friday with the mad dash that started the day. But if you have tape on the floor to hold people in line, that's bound to happen.

- At first I was mad that I didn't get any VQ for shopping either day we were there, but by 3 pm on Saturday, the stores I wanted to get into were standby, so I got to go in anyway.

- D23 Marketplace was a letdown. For the size of the store, they should have had more items to purchase IMO. Thankfully, it was a short line because I didn't see anything in there I wanted.

- I really wish I had gotten access to attend more panels. We attended the Simpsons panel, and it was one of my favorite parts of the whole weekend.

- The entertainment presentation on Friday evening was amazing. I'm so glad I did that one and skipped the Saturday one.

- Panels and shows aside, the whole expo floor is so fun to walk around and see everything. The cosplay, the displays, and the freebies made the event well worth the time and money. We also got to meet one of my favorite podcasters, Lou Mongello, and Jim Hanks in the Atari booth.

I think that's it for now. I just wanted to share some thoughts and see if anyone else had some similar thoughts as me. Thanks, Disney cast members, for a fun weekend!!!

I think they need to modify it like making it so you can only join it if you have a valid badge and if you make it in the queue make it max 1 or 2 per person TOTAL. not per day. Then i think it would work good. I'm used to VQs at WDW so I didnt mind it. Id rather do that than wait in line for hours.

Overall this is my first d23 and we got the merch we wanted (no pins tho) so we are satisfied overall. I think next time I would try for the pins but I'm not a huge collector so it didnt matter to me as much as the spirit jerseys or other merch

I currently have a size large Genovia sweatshirt on the way in the mail. I am looking to see if someone would be willing to trade a pair of the Princess Diaries ears for the sweatshirt. Figured there may be someone out there with two pairs of ears that wanted the matching set of both items.

Also curious about other first-timers' experiences.

This was the first D23 for myself and my husband, after watching it online for a decade. It was probably our last, as we determined we aren't intense enough for conventions. Our experience wasn't terrible, but it wasn't great, either.

We arrived shortly before 4:00 on Saturday and spent the first 30 minutes feeling totally overwhelmed by crowds, traffic jams, and hour-long lines on the showfloor. I felt completely out of my element, despite being the biggest Disney fan I know, which surprised me. We did find our way to the Marvel panel as well as the Great Moments with Walt Disney panel, which we enjoyed. I got a picture with Floyd Norman, and we loved the Imagineering pavilion. We were able to get into the Marketplace with no line, but didn't buy anything. I would have liked to check-out the other stores, but the standby lines were long and were starting to close. We left the convention around 7:45 empty-handed, which was fine, but again, surprising to both of us.

I'm not mad that we went, because I was able to cross it off the bucketlist. I'd say that we probably got what we paid for considering the discounted ticket and limited hours. But overall, I left feeling a little disappointed. I'm torn on whether or not I would have felt more fulfilled with a full-day ticket because on one hand, I would have been able to experience more and possibly get some merch, but on the other hand, I'm not sure how much more I could take.

My experience did teach me a few things:

1. For me, it is more fun to watch from the comfort of my couch through the eyes of FreshBaked and Offhand Disney.

2. What influencers and Youtubers choose to film, show-off, and say isn't always the full picture.

3. I am not a "Disney Adult," rather an adult who enjoys Disney. (Good luck convincing my family of that, haha!)

Questions: Could/should they have done a virtual queue at 4:00? Do you think they'll do the afternoon ticket in 2028? If you did the Afternoon Only ticket, did you feel it was worth it? If this was your first-time, would you go again?

Also, I think having the huge Mundo Pixar setup right up front blocking the view of everything behind it wasn't the best idea as far as layout.

Has anyone had any success in obtaining missing media from their badge? I really wanted my Super Bowl video ugh

I want to say upfront that I had a pretty good time at this year's D23. This has been my fourth D23 expo and I keep coming back mostly because it is nice how much more structured and clean the convention experience is compared to stuff like SDCC or AX. D23 has always been a lot more corporate, a lot more advertising, a lot more controlled. ACC is a bigger convention hall than most places, the virtual queues and line management is better than the lotteries and outdoor camping you have to do at other cons, and the staff are way better. There's so many hotels nearby that even public transit seems like a waste of time, which is good now that ART is out of business!

Also, in my extremely personal experience, it felt like this year had way less problems with crowd management. Queuing everyone in the North Hall before the con opened was a super smart choice compared to the Lorcana tramplings that happened in 2024 when everyone was staged in Hall D, and I absolutely dread the old days camping overnight in Hall E on the hard concrete to try to get into the panels. It's also great to see Ravensburger join the list of virtual queue shops alongside the first party stores.

But I think it should be said what was missing from this year's con that left me pretty bummed out after walking the whole show floor.

First, the lack of marketplace vendors really took away a lot of fun on the floor. Say what you want about the difficulty of getting into virtual queues, but I think what sucked even more than getting up at 6AM to book a virtual queue is that if you didn't get one, there was basically nothing to do other than sit in lines for panels or look at the exhibits, and I'll get to my gripes with the exhibits in a minute. The marketplace at its peak when they would fill all of Hall A would take hours or days to go through. Tons of vintage stuff, hard to find pins, unique vendors, etc. And none of it required waiting in a 45 minute line.

It's like a lazy river at a water park. Is it the most exciting thing? No. But it's a reliable thing to do with no lines and tons of capacity that's always there if you're tired of waiting in lines for the big stuff. That's important for a large convention like this.

I get from Disney's corporate perspective that managing dozens of tiny vendors is a lot of work and risk for something that they don't get the lion's share of the profits from, but Disney didn't even try to replace it with anything. They just moved things back from the North Hall and moved the Premier stage so they wouldn't have to use the Arena and save money this time.

Second, I no longer felt like a customer at any of the "activations" that anyone was putting on. Everything was targeted at influencers and social media. The Disney+ Hulu area is the best example. For anyone who didn't go over there, there was a freebie that was marketed as a scavenger hunt. You go to a bunch of stations dressed up as different shows, and collect stamps. If you get four stamps, you get a free pin from a random show. What do you have to do at each station? You have to take a selfie. That's it. No learning about the show, no cool props or games involving the show. Nope. You just take a selfie. Why did I not like that? Because it's clearly just fishing for influencer and social media engagement. We asked if we could just take an empty photo of the set because one of our group members felt uncomfortable posing for a picture, and we actually got pushback from the attendants. After asking a couple times, they would let us, but every time it felt like, no, the requirement is that you're in the photo. You don't get the prize unless you take a photo that you can get tagged in, because they wanted the social media engagement. Did I learn anything about the new Simpsons movie or High Potential? Do I even know what High Potential is about? Nope. But it looks like it's about a woman who sits at a desk in an office. That's cool I guess.

Avatar was the same way. Was there anything there about the upcoming movies? Nope. Just a cool maze that you can post on Insta.

Disney/Pixar was the same thing. They had a much smaller area than years past and except for three walls with past concept art, all that was there to interact with was a bunch of photo ops, for Instagram. The other half of the space they were usually in was given to Mundo Pixar, which is, you guessed it, a maze with photo ops which you can take selfies with.

Bluey was the same thing. They have a new Bluey movie coming out. Was there anything there representing something specific about the new movie? An exclusive trailer or a poster? Nope, they just borrowed the character costumes from Disneyland and offered you a freebie keychain plush if you took a selfie with them.

Same with M&Ms. Tiny booth and all there is was a photo op with cardboard cutouts and a free fun size M&Ms packet.

I don't want this to be an "old man rants at the Instagram generation" but after walking the entire floor for 6 hours on Sunday, literally the only cast members that even talked to me about anything substantial was one girl at the Music Emporium booth who acknowledged my costume, a couple people at the Imagineering pavilion, and the DVC rep who tried to sell me on a timeshare.

And honestly, I learned way more about DVC and had more fun in that timeshare pitch than I did taking constant selfies.

Even in recent memory, we had mini golf courses, massive Archives exhibits, Avafest, trivia, etc. The point is, usually every "activation" usually has a unique fun quality to them. It's not normal for a majority of the floor that isn't shopping to just be selfie frames.

Credit where credit is due, I really liked the Heinz booth, which not only had free bbq sauce, custom bbq sauce vending machines, hot dogs and pretzels for sale, and an online poll for the best bbq sauce! I also liked the Music Emporium booth, which used their entire space for demonstrations and a prize wheel and put all their sales online so they could maximize the space. The Marceline museum also had a really cool model of the Carolwood Pacific railroad.

But I'm really sad if this is the way conventions are going. The big conventions are pushing "influencer engagement" and "exclusive merch" over fan experience and the smaller conventions are overwhelmed by 3D printed dragons.

Just curious. I ended up with a spot on Saturday for VQ at the company pin store group 4…

Someone offer me $750! For my second spot and it paid for my tickets and hotel. I was shocked. They Zelled me the money and I felt sleezy.

Kinda secretly hoping they didn’t get the value out of it but I’m sure they did. So how did resellers make out? Felt like the whole convention was resellers and influencers

We had a very unpleasant experience with one of the D23 cast members yesterday while waiting for a panel. When we left, it was at the end of the Expo, so we didnt bother with looking for a supervisor. How do I make a complaint about the cast member now?

this was the first year that i went alone, and i wasn’t as tuned in to the announcements so i missed the reservation system. however! i still had a great time and i wanted to share what it was like doing basically everything standby

i’ll also add, i did all of this while having to drive about 45 ish minutes to the con everyday

friday:
- arrived around 12 pm due to working late the night before
- got my d23 gold member poster
- waited about 20 minutes standby for the michael giacchino panel. i was part of the last few people they let in and we missed the first few minutes of the panel, but it was great and we got an UP vinyl at the end!
- walked around the floor a little bit
- waited an hour and a half for a signing and lithograph from the luca director
- enchanted panel with a friend’s reservation, but i believe i would’ve had enough time for standby, based on the line when i arrived
- went to the disney rewind concert with standby
- went to disneyland after for fun

saturday
- avatar experience standby (about 5 minutes)
- disney+/hulu theater standby (about 30 minutes)
- frozen photo op and lithograph (about 15-20 minutes)
- walked around the floor a bit, ate some food
- standby for spider-man 65th anniversary panel, 25 minutes before panel start
- got a few freebies on the floor and waited an hour 15 for the loungefly pier and got a stitch pin which i then gave to a little girl since i didn’t really need/want it
- waited for an hour outside d23 marketplace pins for them to open standby at about 5:00 pm, was 3rd in line and got what i wanted!!
- joined a friend for the tinkerbell panel but the standby line was short by the time i was there so im sure i would’ve gotten in with standby as well
- dinner at pixar pier hotel + walking through downtown disney

sunday
- finally woke up early enough for a VQ and got d23 marketplace, most things had sold out by then, so i just got 2 things
- did the heinz photo op, freebie, and made my own sauce (very tasty!)
- walked around a bit to wait for standby for alex hirsch signing to open up
- waited from about 1:30 pm-4pm for the signing, unfortunately they ran out of time when i was 1 person behind being able to get the full experience but we all did get a signature and a quick drive by signing experience lol — this is definitely the main thing i wish i would’ve gotten a reservation for
- waited about 15 minutes standby for mickeys of glendale and for some things i wanted + christmas gifts for my mom
- explored the imagineering pavillion, star wars and broadway costumes
- then did standby for the alan menken concert about 30 minutes before showtime to end the weekend (this was fantastic!!)

for next d23 im definitely going to try to coordinate with the people i know, before the con to make line waiting and buying things smoother, but all in all it worked out for me even without honda center tickets this year! i think the reservation system can bog people down into thinking those are the only things that you can do and if you don’t get a reservation your SOL but from my experience you aren’t! you just have to be diligent and pay attention to crowds and ask questions!

Did anyone else’s feet make them feel like they did 17 hour work shifts requiring marching nonstop? Am I just that old now? I don’t remember my feet hurting this much at the last expo & I don’t remember doing less or walking around less.

I did feel like I heard more people talk about their feet hurting than last time. Maybe it’s just bc of how I felt. I shifted a lot in line, just left foot right foot, not all the way standing on one the whole time. I felt like I noticed more people doing this too. Sometimes I just flat out sat on the ground in the lines bc I couldn’t handle it anymore. Was it just me? Did anyone make it through the expo without anything causing them pain?

I know it hasn't even been 24 hours since the doors shut on the 2026 D23 Expo, but I wanted to ask how everyone felt about the subreddit itself. What worked well and what didn't these last few days. What content did you like, dislike, or would think would be helpful with future Expos? What mod actions were good, bad, or didn't go far enough? Let us know in the comments below so we can consider what we, as Mods, can do better for you all in 2028 and beyond.

Thanks.

I’m pretty disappointed overall this weekend tbh. It was fun maybe the first day but the endless lines and the need for virtual queues really killed it pretty fast for me. Felt like all the shopping I wanted to do was virtual queue only I surprisingly spent very little overall since I didn’t get a single virtual queue lol.

I luckily got 1 panel but the fact that I only got 1 out of the 12 I requested is pretty crazy. I’m not sure what the solution should be to make the shopping easier but I don’t think this is the correct system either. If it’s the exact same next expo I can’t imagine myself going again.