Disney Is Developing An ‘Immersive Experience’ That Will Tour Globally

Here’s what we know about the project:
Walt Disney Animation Studios is teaming with Toronto-based Lighthouse Immersive Studios to develop Disney Animation: Immersive Experience, a traveling experience of Disney animation which will world premiere in Toronto this December before heading across the U.S. and other territories in 2023.

• Disney Animation: Immersive Experience will include immersive projection exhibitions showcasing the music and artistry from Disney’s catalog of animated films, including modern features like Encanto, Zootopia, and Frozen, as well as classics from decades ago such as The Lion King, Peter Pan, and Pinocchio… the original 1940 version.
• The exhibit will debut at Lighthouse Artspace Toronto before heading to stops in Cleveland, Nashville, Detroit, Denver, Boston, San Antonio, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, and Columbus in the first four months of next year. Additional cities are being scheduled for the future, with Tokyo lined up as the first host city outside of North America.
• The creative team working on the experience is headed by Oscar-winning producer J. Miles Dale (The Shape of Water). Mexico City-based Cocolab is working with Dale and Walt Disney Animation Studios’ creative legacy team to develop the program for Lighthouse. Special projects producer Dorothy McKim (producer, Meet the Robinsons, Get A Horse!) is heading the project for Disney Animation.
• Lighthouse’s global creative director David Korins is leading development on new interactive lobby elements for ticket holders to participate in both before and after their time in the immersive gallery.
• Lighthouse is best known for its traveling Van Gogh Immersive Experience, although whether or not that’s a good thing is subjective. Commercially, there is no doubt that the company’s numerous exhibits have been a smash hit, and by the end of last year more than 4.5 million people had attended the company’s expensively priced exhibits. More discerning visitors however, particularly those from the art world, have not been kind in their judgement of the Immersive Experiences. Tom Campbell, art historian, former director of the Met in New York, and current director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, provided a damning critique of the Van Gogh exhibit, linked below.
• Other Lighthouse Immersive exhibits include Immersive Frida Kahlo, Immersive King Tut, Immersive Monet & The Impressionists, and Immersive Klimt: Revolution.