Please tell me all about eat to the beat

[Dolby1000]

Never been down here for any of the Food and Wine events and now that we live in Florida and got our annual passes, well, I look forward to this festival.

So, how does this eat to the beat thing work? There are several artists I'd love to see. Do these concerts require extra admission? If not, do you need to buy some sort of dinning package to guarantee decent seats?

If anyone has gone in the past, what was your experience? How early should we get there?

Thanks in advance for all your responses.

Dolby1000

 

[erionm]

The Eat to the Beat Concerts are included with Epcot admission.

 

[AngiTN]

Depends on what you call decent seats. You will be able to hear from anywhere in the seating area. You may or may not be able to see well from anywhere in the seating area.
If you plan to eat at Epcot that day and it's at one of the restaurants with the dining package it almost makes sense to go on and add on the dining package, just to kill 2 birds with 1 stone, so to speak. But I wouldn't go out of my way to eat a meal to get a pass to a show.

 

[stephtron312]

Also, there's usually a couple of showings too, so they'll do the concert three times a day. The earlier shows are usually much less crowded than the last night one. So if you can, I'd recommend catching the earlier one and you'll be able to grab a better seat without having to line up as early!

 

[okduke]

Have the dining packages already sold out? If not, any idea when they might become available?

 

[DOOM1001]

Also, there's usually a couple of showings too, so they'll do the concert three times a day. The earlier shows are usually much less crowded than the last night one. So if you can, I'd recommend catching the earlier one and you'll be able to grab a better seat without having to line up as early!

I've been going to these shows many years and I'll have to disagree about the first show being the least crowded.For the most popular groups like Boyz II Men every show will be crowded but for many other groups the first one will always be full and for the third one it either takes a longer time to fill up or it might not fill up at all and there will be empty seats near the back corners,again I've seen many shows there,last year I saw every group play except Living Colour.The reasoning behind the first show being the busiest probably has to do with many locals who come to the first shows but are gone by the third,you will see many of them either in line or sitting in the theater for the 3:45 or 5pm American Music Machine shows to get a good seat for the 5:30 concert.American Music Machine is a group that sometimes plays the theater during the day before the concerts.

 

[PSUGuy]

As a previous poster said the first show seems to be the most crowded, the last the least. Boyz II Men were jammed all 3 times on our 2014 trip, might have been 2015. For most of the acts we roll in about 15 - -20 mins before show time and we get good enough seats.

Bill From PA

 

[lpizzuro123]

We love the F&W Festival and try to get there a few times each year. We do not do the dining package as we love eating at all the different food booths set up for the festival.

 

[NH-to-FL]

We usually target the first show and, like Bill from PA, just show up about 20 minutes before the show. By that time they have usually opened the seating. We have always gotten a seat. Unless you need to be "front and center" you do not need to get into line or buy the dinner package.