I ended up getting less than four hours of sleep that first night, and one hour in I was awoken by R2D2 when Patrick, bless him, replied to a text message Id sent before bed. Note to self: Turn off ringer before bed...
Id lucked out and gotten a World Key ticket to
D23s Epcot 30th Anniversary Celebration, which theoretically meant that I could just breeze into World Showplace right before the event started and get a great seat. However, I got the opening time for the International Gateway mixed up and arrived WAY before it was opened for attendees. Even after I accidentally stood in the World Passport admission line for 10 minutes, I still ended up being about the 12th person through the door and scored a fabulous seat in the front row, about 4 seats from center.
Primo seat-o!
It gradually dawned on me that I was sitting right in the middle of a big group of veteran D23 event attendees who all knew each other, but they were quite friendly and didnt seem to mind the interloper.
What I didnt know was that Id picked a spot that would place me right in the front of D23s official photo of the event. They took a bazillion shots of the other half of the crowd and only two of ours, but for some reason the one featuring pale, overdressed Gargantua in a sea of tans and T-shirts made the final cut...
Look, Ma, no tan!
There was plenty of time to run back and shoot the special merchandise, which you had to pre-order with a form and then pay shipping and handling to have mailed to you. I thought that was a little disappointing, and the price of shipping jumped to a jaw-dropping $15 for purchases over $25, so I bought less than Id planned to, just the event logo pin.
These are supposed to be the freaky big-head walkarounds they used to have at Epcot, which I didnt understand til we got to that part of the presentations
Teleprompter!
While we waited for the event to start, they used the giant screens to display a mix of vintage photos and waggish graphics aimed at hardcore fans.
OK, let me apologize now for many of the photos: Sitting in the front row meant having an obstructed view of the screens, and most of the event seemed to take place on the screens. Sorry about that!
Steven Clark kicked off the event with an unintentionally depressing montage of Epcot in all its long-faded glory, plus a crowd-activated re-creation of the old World Key information system.
I screamed myself hoarse voting for Adventures with Duffy The Bear, but instead we got...
Epcot: The Dawn of a New Disney Era
This was a taped presentation by Marty Sklar, since he had to be in SoCal that day for the annual Ryman Foundation fundraiser. I wish they still raised funds by selling tickets to breakfast at Club 33!
Marty called. Wants to be in two places at once
So exuberant were the fans over even a canned show that if Sklar had then burst through the screen and taken the stage, at least a third of them wouldve passed out.
He gave an overview of what it was like to work with Walt Disney and then have to build Epcot without him. The team became directionless after Walts passing, but eventually there was an idea to hold EPCOT forums consisting of industry leaders and creative folks (like Ray Bradbury) who brainstormed what EPCOT could become. This is how it transformed from a visionary community into a theme park with an educational bent. Sklar said that he felt the Land Pavilion, with its working garden and fish hatchery, came closest to Walts original intent.
He talked about how the park was built at the geographical center of Disney property, just about in the same spot as he towering hotel in the original Epcot concept art I adore.
One of the earliest Epcot concepts had two identical buildings, one housing exhibits by industry, the other exhibits of various foreign countries. The entrances to each would be identical to promote equality, but each country could expand out the back as far as it could afford to.
Harper Goffs concept art is what convinced Imagineering that the distinctly different countries of Epcot could coexist in visual harmony
Ray Bradburys initial script for the 9-minute narration of Spaceship earth was 28 pages long!
Epcot takes a dump...
...and these guys gotta shovel it!
Oh dear. Well, maybe after this report you'll switch to wanting to go to WDW for Food & Wine... much cheaper (but, really, not as cool!).
joining in. 
I mean, I go to all these "food and wine" seminars even though I don't drink!
