DLRP Today

When you see Halloween pumpkins appear in your local supermarket in the middle of August or the first rows of Christmas lights and tinsel glittering as soon as mid-October and stand for a moment in disbelief that it really does start earlier every year, spare a thought for the wizards and dreamers at Disneyland Resort Paris. For them, these seasons begin as early as 12 whole months in advance.

As Emmanuel Lenormand, director of this year’s Halloween festivities explains, “for us, Christmas is in July and Halloween in May!”.

So, many months later, as those plans become real and, for the twelfth year running, Disneyland Park is transformed into a “Spooktacular” Halloweenland, what does it take to put together such a huge event so far in advance? And what new surprises can we expect from the 2008 season? Jérémie Noyer has delved into the crypts of Disney’s Halloween Festival to find out…

This Halloween season seems to announce the victory of Pumpkin Men over Pink Witches!

Absolutely. They flew away on their brooms! Actually, we wanted to give our guests a new experience. The Pink Witches were hilarious, but we preferred to focus this year on Halloween clichés like the orange colour, and the Pumpkin Men, created by Kat de Blois some years ago.

At the beginning, their intention was to paint the whole Disneyland Park in orange and, as time went by, we began to somehow let our Pumpkin citizens … doctors, children and mothers … slip aside. So, this year, we definitely go back to that “pumpkinesque” ambiance! We retrieve the “frozen” Pumpkin Men throughout the Park, along with live characters: Pumpkin Men and Ladies.

That’s brand-new this year: we gave them girlfriends! Now, these Pumpkin Ladies take part in all our daily events to make our guests’ visit even more lively and… orange!

The other great event is Jack & Sally coming by!

They are indeed our guests of honour for this Halloween season. They’re very popular among teens and allow us to touch the “rock” segment of visitors. That’s something I’ve been wanting for a long time. I did want them for my Halloween celebration! I’m a 150% Tim Burton fan! For me, The Nightmare Before Christmas is the ultimate Halloween, be it from the characters or the musical point of view! I think it’ll make a great surprise for our guests.

As I was walking through Disneyland Park, I thought that Boot Hill graveyard, next to Phantom Manor, was the perfect place to meet them. Guests would discover the manor, meet our 999 ghosts and, suddenly, they’ll see Jack & Sally as they exit the attraction!

Did you think about the Haunted Mansion Holiday … which is very successful in the US- when imagining that event?

It was mentioned, but it’s no priority at the moment. Our idea is first and foremost to celebrate Halloween with artists and new characters for everybody to meet, and I think there are better things we can do than locating everything around Phantom Manor.

That said, we may (who knows) create a kind of a mini-show featuring Jack and Sally nearby Phantom Manor, to present Jack & Sally to all of our guests, not only the ones who visit the manor … knowing that a lot of kids are afraid of going in!

That’s the reason why I decided to set Jack and Sally in that graveyard. Everybody can go and meet them!

It’s been a long time since rumours appeared about Jack & Sally’s coming. Why did that take so long?

Years go by and they’re never the same! Two years ago, our main event was the Pink Witches; last year, it was Disney Villains’ Halloween Showtime. Each year, priorities are different. This year, it’s Jack & Sally, and we created a whole bunch of new events around that, like our special Halloween parade, that we created in their honour!

Can you tell us about it?

Last year, we experimented with something much more child-oriented, a much more comedic feel, with all the Disney characters in Halloween costumes. This year, we wanted to give our guests a surprise right at the beginning of the parade. The idea is to make a single parade out of the pre-parade and Disney’s Once Upon a Dream Parade.

We noticed that, in the past, guests had to wait a certain amount of time between the pre-parade and the parade. So, we sped things up. It was a huge work to create the new music mix, just as if we added a new unit to Disney’s Once Upon A Dream Parade … a pretty orange one! There will be 25+ Pumpkins: Men, Ladies, kids, policemen … the whole village! Then, we created a float that perfectly fits the concept of Jack & Sally, very rural and pulled by dark horses. That float will be just like a natural stage for Jack & Sally. Seeing those real characters among all these Pumpkins will really be something guests will never forget!

But, let’s not forget our Disney Villains. Of course, there’s the Dreams of Power float in the Disney’s Once Upon a Dream Parade, featuring Chernabog, Hades, Maleficent and the Evil Queen. Yet, there are so many other Disney Villains. So, I invited them, and they immediately accepted the offer to be part of our parade. Gaston, Governor Radcliffe, Frollo and, above all, Shan-Yu. They will all be on Stitch’s float in a cabaret-like number! Music-wise, we’ll have a fantastic medley of two cues I love, magnificently re-mixed in Florida, This Is Halloween and Grim Grinning Ghosts.

We’ll make people sing, we’ll make kids scream! And all that in a fun way, while Prunella the Witch, our host, will tell the story of the parade, announcing the arrival of the first float of the parade, Dreams of Imagination, with Mickey & Minnie in their special Halloween costume, created for the occasion.

Actually, it’s a new project we’ve been working on for a year: the idea is to be in synergy with all the Disney parks around the world costume-wise. That means Mickey & Minnie will wear the same Halloween costume in every Disney park in the world, designed in the same style as that seen on the Halloween merchandise, and so on.

Disney Villains’ Halloween Showtime comes back this year, but with new surprises, I guess…

First, you won’t retrieve the Pink Witches, of course. This time, the Pumpkin Men naturally invited the Pumpkin Ladies for the ball. Then, I added a new number where I could present even more Disney Villains, with Shan-Yu and Radcliffe.

Shan-Yu for me is such an amazing character when you see him live. He was brilliantly treated in Mulan, the animated feature, and he’s physically scary for our guest! In the show, he’s fighting Radcliffe on the music of Pocahontas’ Savages. Just for fun, of course!

Music will also make the event this year, in Halloweenland!

Absolutely. In addition to the fact that Minnie and the Bat Boys are coming back, I’m so proud to tell you that, for the 25th Anniversary of Michael Jackson’s album, Thriller, we’ll have a medley of Thriller and Bad live on stage. The band is really thrilled about that, all the more when they found out they’ll play it during the Halloween Party, on October 31st!

You’ll also rediscover the Goofy and the Magic Cauldron show, with its hip-hop dancers, to which I also added new things musically, along with the Crypt Quintet, which I had created last year, that is specialized in the music of The Nightmare Before Christmas. They’ll play that repertoire nearby Jack & Sally at Boot Hill, during their meet ‘˜n’ greet!

What about Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Parties?

It’s an event that will be held four times during the month of October. At the very beginning, the idea was to locate it in Frontierland. Yet, immediately, my reaction was to say that, during the night in Frontierland, trees can appear very scary for young children, and the same with Phantom Manor. It was too far removed from the idea of these parties, intended to be “not so scary”, aimed at our younger guests. So, I proposed to move it to Fantasyland, and it was immediately approved.

Since the idea is not to scare, we will redecorate Fantasyland so that it looks like a kind of big birthday party, with a rather naive and fun touch to it. It’ll be very family-friendly, with numerous Disney characters and magic. It was pretty easy to design the transformation of Fantasyland that way since it’s already so magical. There will be special Halloween decorations, lights and smoke to create the right ambiance, but not too much. The important thing is to stage a kind of private party where guests can feel privileged, being the only ones to be in Disneyland Park after dark!

The concept of Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Parties was created in America. How did you adapt it to Europe?

I decided that, during these parties, guests meet incredible and magical characters. In that vein, I created a brand-new show, Merlin and the Witch Academy, to be played at Castle Courtyard. There will also be a magic show at Fantasy Festival Stage, during which a magician will enter the Hundred-Acre Wood to do tricks. Winnie and his friends will all be there, along with the Queen of Hearts who will be strolling around Fantasyland with an armada of incredible, red, white and black toys and other fabulous characters like fire jugglers. The ambiance will be magical and fun.

Then, the party will end with the Halloween Disney’s Character Express that will accompany guests through Main Street USA to Town Square to say goodbye. It will all be really special and will be a unique opportunity to go back to the Park at night and see it a new way.

Even Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant will be re-decorated, with new sign and flags. The background music will be changed also, to bring a new feeling to Fantasyland. It’ll be a “Happy, happy, happy, happy Halloween”, with everybody clapping their hands! There will be so much fun and happiness!

The highest point of the season is always the Halloween Party. Can you give us a sneak peek at it?

Each year, it becomes even more popular! In the past, it was located more in Frontierland and Adventureland. Yet, since last year, it’s been extended to Discoveryland, and it works really well! It’s an event that is really fun to elaborate. I’d say it’s a kind of melting-pot of the daytime events in a three-to-four hour format. Shows like Goofy and the Magic Cauldron and Disney Villains’ Halloween Showtime come back, yet in the magic of night, with projections, lights and special nightly ambiances.

We’ll also have incredible remixes with Cruella’s Showtime created last year, and pirates and Disney characters, all in a brand-new musical atmosphere, totally different from the one playing during the day. And just after Disney’s Fantillusion Parade will be our fireworks, the highest point of the night!

It won’t be just a fireworks display this year…

Actually, I call it “my 3D show” since there will be fireworks, performances and projections. Three kinds of show at the same time, and it will be called Mickey Presents: Halloween Magic in the Sky. And I’m especially proud to have Sorcerer Apprentice Mickey as our host that night! He’ll get out his magic spellbook, from which all the spirits of Halloween will be raised.

Then begins a pyrotechnic medley with ghosts dancing on stage to that rhythm. Jack & Sally will be there, too! At the moment, we’re working intensely on that! It’s a “one-shot”, you know! We only get once chance. I think it’ll be a memorable night!

This year, there will also be something totally unheard-of, be it at Disneyland Resort Paris but also in any Disney park, the Disney Terrorrific Night. Can you tell us about it?

Halloween never stops this year! It’ll be on October 25th. The idea is to spend a whole night up to 1:00am in Walt Disney Studios Park, that usually closes around 6pm, and to transform the whole park. It will really be about having fun in being scary, with all kinds of night creatures that will come out along with the Disney Villains.

After going through Disney Studio 1, you’ll be able to experience your favourite attractions from a brand-new angle. Ghosts will appear in The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. It’s been even suggested that the Studio Tram Tour will stop and ghosts will get out of the woods. It will be extremely fun! Vampirella will perform a one-of-a-kind concert on the Production Courtyard stage, all finishing with a disco-party in Studio 1.

Guests will lean the choreography of Thriller and be able to dance just like Michael Jackson! The background music of the park will be all different, creating a new ambiance especially thanks to lots of smoke-machines located everywhere. I hope people will come with costumes and masks, in the very Halloween tradition where people get scared… just for fun!

A Disneyland Resort Paris-exclusive, isn’t it?

Absolutely, and we’re thinking about extending it throughout the year. More and more guests stay in Disney Hotels and we want to offer them exclusive privileges. When you stay at the resort, you can enjoy the Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show or go to the cinema at Disney Village, but what about going back to the parks at night?

That’s what guests are going to be invited to do for Mickey’s Magical Christmas Dinner in December or for the upcoming Princesses & Pirates Event next February: new Disney experiences, where guests really feel privileged!

How did you integrate that Terrorrific Night within the storyline of the Walt Disney Studios Park?

The difference is that this Terrorrific Night is held on October 25th but it’s not directly connected to Halloween. It’s more of a Premiere than an extension of the Halloween season. Our idea is to have guests jump into The Twilight Zone and enter a horror film.

Believe it or not, it’s almost by accident that this event is set during the Halloween season. Our idea was inspired by the The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, by getting from a world into another and is aimed at initiating all sorts of private parties of the same kind… And what about one party like that each month? Wouldn’t that be wonderful? So, who knows?

Will Toon Studio even get into The Twilight Zone?

We won’t open all the attractions, but surprises are definitely awaiting guests in Crush’s Coaster!

There’s a huge program this Halloween season, indeed!

Yes, it’s huge. Actually, I know that, shortly enough, I will be asked to deliver the program of the Halloween 2009 season! We always start one year in advance and things get even more serious ten months in advance. New characters need to be designed. Ideas need to be shaped out. Then, it’s choreography time, studio rehearsals, and costume making. All that takes time!

As I always say, for us, Christmas is in July and Halloween in May! It’s a huge amount of work, far in advance, building on years of rich experience. That’s why it’s so magical.

– Disney’s Spooktacular Halloween runs from this weekend (4th October) to the 6th November 2008, including Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Parties on the 10th, 17th & 24th and Disney’s Halloween Soirée on the 31st October 2008, which are extra-ticketed events. Tickets available for advance booking only, via the official website or your local booking hotline.

– Our full DLRP Magic! guide to the 2008 festival is coming very soon!