“¡Celebración Encanto!” is a limited time sing-along show at Walt Disney World that debuted for the summer as part of the EPCOT overhaul’s completion. This shares everything you need to know about the new entertainment experience at CommuniCore Hall, including dates & showtimes, other details, and our thoughts on the offering. (Updated August 20, 2024.)
Let’s start with the latest news, which is that Walt Disney World has announced an extension of ¡Celebración Encanto! at EPCOT. Originally set to end on September 6, the limited-time ¡Celebración Encanto! sing-along show has been extended until at least October 15, 2024 to to celebrate Hispanic & Latin American Heritage Month.
It’s unknown whether ¡Celebración Encanto! will continue beyond the “Together We Are Magia” celebration in mid-October, but our expectation is that it will. It’s relatively low-cost by entertainment standards, and it hasn’t really gotten a fair shake this summer since the weather has been hot and, perplexingly, this area doesn’t have much shade. With October through December being cooler and busier–and no sign of any seasonal entertainment taking its place–our expectation is that ¡Celebración Encanto! continues through Winter 2025.
During ¡Celebración Encanto!, you can dance, sing and celebrate with the marvelous Madrigal family at CommuniCore Plaza Stage. Featuring beloved characters and songs from the film along with fun trivia to test your knowledge on all things “Encanto,” the show runs several times a day at EPCOT and is perfect for your amigos and familia. Bruno and Mirabel may even stop by to join in on the fun during the show!
Currently, ¡Celebración Encanto! has shows at 9:45 am, 10:45 am, 11:45 am, 1:30 pm, 2:30 pm, and 3:30 pm. It remains to be seen how these showtimes will change in October and beyond. Personally, I’d like to see options that are a bit later. Having something when the sun is lower in the sky would be great. But then again, proper nighttime entertainment might make more sense during the holiday season at EPCOT.
We had the chance to catch ¡Celebración Encanto! once, and it wasn’t really my cup of tea. Not really a huge shocker there, as I’m not the target audience. But unlike some of the other shows of this nature–the Frozen Sing-Along being a prime example–this doesn’t really have anything for adults. At least during the performances we saw, there’s no humor that goes over kids heads or anything to engage audiences over the age of, like, 8 years old. If you’re going to enjoy it, that’s going to happen vicariously through the eyes of your child.
Although we now have a daughter, she’s still too young for this. (She’s more of a “Grim Grinning Ghosts” gal, anyhow. I’m not kidding. That is, somehow, her favorite song. It is not something we encouraged. It just sort of…happened…and now it’s the only song she wants us to sing.) Point being, we’ve only seen ¡Celebración Encanto! one time in full, and a few others in passing. Perhaps we’ll make more of an effort if it sticks around through winter and has showtimes around sunset.
What follows is our original commentary about the ¡Celebración Encanto! announcement, including a tease for summer at EPCOT. We’re preserving this for the sake of posterity even though it turned out to be (very) wrong. It shouldn’t have been, and after EPCOT’s slow summer, perhaps it’s something they’ll revisit for 2025…
As you know if you’ve been following our commentary since the EPCOT Flower & Garden Festival was announced, we’ve been predicting that Walt Disney World would introduce a brand-new summer festival for by further scaling back both Food & Wine and Flower & Garden to allow for the new event.
No need to read the rest of this if you’re familiar with our tinfoil hat dot-connecting theory as nothing that follows is anything new (same stuff we’ve been saying since like last December). Suffice to say, we believe the plan is to make the grand debut of both that new summer festival and CommuniCore Hall all at once. That’d actually be pretty savvy and splashy on Walt Disney World’s part.
As for what this theoretical EPCOT summer festival featuring Encanto could be…how about simply the EPCOT Summer Festival. Simple as it sounds, summer festivals are common in Europe, Asia, and even the United States. An open-ended summer festival could encompass a wide variety of celebrations.
When it comes to Colombia, the obvious candidate is a carnival. There’s the Bogotá Carnival every year in early August that could serve as inspiration. Not only that, but it’s not hard to envision Walt Disney World offering a carnival-like celebration with vibrant street dancing, music, and masquerade parades. Even if it’s not called carnival, it could evoke the spirit of the event–and would “feel right” for summer in Florida. (It could also be a test for a permanent pavilion concept–there have been plans for carnival in World Showcase for years.)
It wouldn’t need to stop there. If the EPCOT Summer Festival is to be, it could include a ton of stuff in different countries. There could be celebrations for Bastille Day in France, Dragon Boat Festival in China, Summer Solstice in Norway, Independence Day in America, and various other music and fire festivals around the world–plus other events I’m probably forgetting or don’t know about.
I’m admittedly biased to this idea because it would also mean celebrating my favorite event, which is Matsuri in Japan. This is an event in various cities, with the highlight being Gion Matsuri in Kyoto. For several years, Tokyo Disneyland did an excellent event called Natsu Matsuri (literally translates to Summer Festival) that melded authentic culture with characters. It would be awesome to see something like that, but expanded across the entirety of World Showcase.
Closer to home, it could be like Viva Navidad or Lunar New Year at Disney California Adventure, which are a bit more narrow in focus but are arguably very EPCOT-y in nature. Something like those events, but make it summer, would be a perfect fit for World Showcase and the newly-opened CommuniCore Hall & Plaza.
As noted above, food & beverage have been huge for EPCOT over the years, sustaining the park even as it stagnated. While it’s entirely possible that the Flower & Garden Festival shortening is simply a repeat of last year with Walt Disney World cutting dates due to diminishing returns, my money would be on a brand-new event that “solves” both that issue and sustains elevated food & beverage spending that EPCOT enjoys during its other events. Disney loves fresh revenue streams!
Anyway, I think that’s the perfect idea and hope it happens. With CommuniCore Hall finally opening on June 10, a new event would be the perfect way to commemorate that addition, too. Given how open ended ‘Summer Festival’ is, Disney could weave some sort of tech expo or something futuristic into the front half of the park, too. Ample opportunities to do something fun that would resonate with tourists and locals, while also being in the ‘edutainment’ spirit of EPCOT Center.
Festival of the Arts is EPCOT’s newest festival and also its best. So I’m confident that Walt Disney World could create something excellent. A cultural celebration featuring the characters from Encanto…now that could work. I’m sure it’ll elicit groans from the “no characters in EPCOT!” crowd, but that ship sailed long ago. Marrying Disney characters with culture is very obviously the compromise solution and path of the park going forward.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Are you excited for the new “¡Celebración Encanto!” sing-along show? What about the opening of CommuniCore Hall? Think an EPCOT Summer Festival would be a fun event with a lot of potential? Agree or disagree with our take? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
