EPCOT Set for Early Closure Today, October 22, 2024

4 hours ago in "EPCOT"

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Posted: Tuesday October 22, 2024 6:23am ET by WDWMAGIC Staff

Guests visiting Walt Disney World today, October 22, 2024, should be aware that EPCOT will close significantly earlier than usual due to a private event.

EPCOT will close to guests at 5 pm on October 22, 2024

The park will close to guests at 5 pm to accommodate the Gartner IT Symposium, a large-scale conference running from October 20 to October 24 across the resort.

Despite the early closure, the price for a single-day EPCOT ticket remains $174, the same rate as on days this week when the park operates from 9 am to 9 pm.

For those planning their day, EPCOT will be open from 9 am to 5 pm, with early entry for resort hotel guests beginning at 8:30 am. Guests with park hopper tickets can explore other parks after EPCOT closes, as they will remain open later:

Magic Kingdom: 9 am to 10 pm (Early entry at 8:30 am)
Disney’s Animal Kingdom: 8 am to 6 pm (Early entry at 7:30 am)
Disney’s Hollywood Studios: 9 am to 9 pm (Early entry at 8:30 am)

Make sure to adjust your plans accordingly if EPCOT is your park of choice today.

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JIMINYCR21 minutes ago

We are at EP now and the park is presently empty of guests. Pleasure walk around . Kiosks beginning to open. We have PH so we are taking full advantage of it being less crowded. We stopped in yesterday morning and it was wall to wall guests.

wdwmagic1 hour ago

I don't know for sure but I would think its a given that it is.

Ayla1 hour ago

The conference happens every year and is probably booked years in advance.

mattpeto2 hours ago

Any idea if Luminous is playing tonight at the event? I wanted to try to encourage somebody I know to attend if they are running it.

PuertoRekinSam2 hours ago

I over simplified my answer, but unless something has drastically changed in the last 15 years from when my brother worked in the parks as an attractions coordinator as he explained to me, Disney tries to optimize the “ride percap”. A magic number that says if the average Guest does X number of attractions in a day they feel they got their money’s worth. There are many levers they can use to get this number to hit where they want it. In the 2000s I remember many times my brother having his hours extended the day of at MK because they were not hitting these numbers. Now they have more levers they can use to adjust the equation. Need more attractions for the expected Guest? Increase park hours.(a cost to Disney) Need less Guest? Increase the price.(no cost increase, but less revenue … so many less profit) Another factor to consider is when the conference was booked? Were tickets already available for that day? I wouldn’t be happy if I bought my tickets a year out only for the price to be dropped six months later. This isn’t an airline.

Fido Chuckwagon3 hours ago

Disney sets their park prices based upon expected crowd levels, not based on how many “things” you can do in the hours the park is open. The higher the demand level and the higher the crowds, the higher the price point. This isn’t how supply and demand pricing works at all. Disney sets its pricing to maximize profits, not to hit some “breakeven” point. On days with higher demand Disney knows it can charge more. That’s it, pure and simple. Disney isn’t leaving money on the table.

PuertoRekinSam3 hours ago

Disney doesn’t set their prices based on how many hours the park is open, but by how many “things“ you can do in the hours the park is open. A lot of people will opt out of going to Epcot today because it closes at five meaning lines will be shorter And the net number of things you can do if you do attend should remain about the same. If they lower the price because there’s less hours more people will show up looking for a deal, resulting in longer lines and less things being done per person. I will give you that there is no nighttime spectacular, but generally speaking that is the one loss for the average guest. People who are upset about the pricing are not going to show up, and it won’t reflect badly on their guest surveys. But if it was a lower price, less things done per guest because more people were there that would show up on the survey. It’s a balancing act that they’re trying to get the best of everything money survey scores, etc.. By lowering the price, it’s less profit per ticket, which means they need more people to hit the same breakeven point. But if that’s a negative on their survey scores, why risk it if they could hit the same breaking point with less people in the park and possibly have the same survey scores?