At Disney Fan Fest, Even Shopping Requires Waiting in Line
At Disney Fan Fest, Even the Shopping Requires Waiting in Line
(Bloomberg) -- Vanessa Benjamin slept overnight in the convention center on an inflatable chair so she could be among the first to hit the stores at Walt Disney Co.’s D23 Expo.
The 21-year-old, who drove with her sister from Phoenix to the Anaheim, California, site of the confab, said she’d been researching “doll blogs” and fan Instagram posts to figure what exclusive merchandise would be sold at the show.
Standing outside the convention center on Friday evening, she showed off their score: a half a dozen big bags full of merchandise, including an almost complete set of the Midnight Masquerade dolls, Disney princesses in ballroom attire. She already has a spot in her home to display them. “My boyfriend has his man cave,” she said. “I have my Disney room.”
Benjamin was one of the thousands of the Disney faithful who poured into the sold-out, three-day event, named after its fan club, also the year of the company’s founding. It’s a chance for the world’s largest entertainment company to show off models of new theme-park attractions, make announcements about new films and TV shows and to sell toys and other collectibles. Lots of them. Last year Disney earned $1.6 billion from its consumer products business, on sales of $4.7 billion.
Long Wait
Fans often waited in line for hours to get into three main stores at the expo, which sell limited editions of dolls, pins and other merchandise. Disney offers a Sorcerer level pass, with early access to D23 stores and other perks such as bag check and a massage, for $2,500. It sells out quickly.
In some cases shoppers can earn the cost of their admission ticket, about $89 for a single-day pass, by reselling the merchandise available only at the expo. Gilbert Salas, 18, was hoping to do just that with a package of four Dapper Dans bobble heads he bought for $50. Similar ones were already on Ebay for $120.
He also bought a black and white doll of Woody from “Toy Story” for $70 that he thought he could quickly flip for hundreds of dollars because it had an exclusive to D23 silver sticker on it. Like Benjamin, Salas said he researches sites such as Disneypinsblog.com to decide what to buy, so “you know what the need is, what the want is.”
Fights
Even the best-laid plans can go awry. Haley Ginn, a 27-year-old teacher from Atlanta, came with her mother, Alisa Wilburn. They got in line at 4 a.m. Friday morning. After the show opened at 9 a.m., Ginn went to the Disney Studio Store Hollywood, while her mother got in line at Mickey’s of Glendale, a pop-up version of a store normally only available to Disney employees.
Ginn purchased $700 worth of pins, which she collects and uses to make decorative backpacks. Her mother saw her line cut in half by Disney staffers trying to organize the crowd. She said fights broke out as some people tried to get in ahead of them and the pins her daughter wanted were sold out before she got into the shop.
Disney said there were exchanges of words between attendees but no physical fights.
Elsewhere at the show Friday Disney staffers with tablet computers pitched guests to sign up for Disney+, a new streaming service the company is launching in November. Expo attendees got a discounted rate of $140 for three years of the service, which will feature Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars and other Disney brands.
Dennis Descoteaux, a 38-year-old technology worker from Dallas was among the first to sign up. He said all the content, which includes classic movies and Disney Channel shows, would appeal to his two-year-old son. The family had long ago canceled its cable TV subscription, he said, relying on Netflix and Amazon.com for video entertainment.
Obi-Wan
At a panel presentation for Disney+ Friday afternoon, celebrities including Hilary Duff, who’s starring in a remake of the Disney Channel show “Lizzie McGuire,” and Ewan McGregor, who’ll once again play Obi-Wan Kenobi, this time in a new series, made appearances, underscoring the talent and franchises Disney is putting behind the new service.
Marvel President Kevin Feige, who got applause from the crowd as loud as any star, revealed three new Marvel shows for the streaming service, including “She-Hulk.” Those were in addition to five others already announced.
“This is what Disney+ is doing for the Marvel universe,” he said. “It’s expanding it.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Christopher Palmeri in Los Angeles at cpalmeri1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net, Matthew G. Miller, James Ludden
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