4. The Circle-Vision 360° film technique

Circle-Vision 360° is a technique created by Disney Imagineers that utilizes nine cameras for nine big screens in a circle, creating a unique viewing experience for people in the theater. One example is O Canada!, shown above, but the best-known is 1967’s America the Beautiful, a unique tour of America that was housed in Tomorrowland at Disneyland for a time. At the 2011 D23 Expo, then-president of the Disneyland Resort George Kalogridis shared with attendees that CircleVision would come back to Anaheim for an updated version of America the Beautiful, but there haven’t been any updates about that since.

5. FastPass

The FastPass virtual queuing system, introduced in 1999, is the innovation theme park fans probably see in action most often. Walt Disney Imagineering’s conception and execution of a system that allows guests to avoid waiting in long lines for popular attractions was revolutionary for Disney and certainly for all theme park attendees. It’s not a perfect system, but it makes the theme park experience better for many and should only improve over time.

6. Drones?!

There was a lot of noise made when Amazon revealed that it was developing drones to ship packages same-day to customers. The Disney parks’ potential use of drones hasn’t received nearly that amount of attention. Recently published patent applications revealed that new technology will be used, at the very least, over lagoons to create virtual projections for nighttime shows. Current shows like Fantasmic at Disneyland and Hollywood Studios and World of Color at Disney California Adventure do something similar, using fountains to project virtual screens. However, that method has several flaws. The new patent points out that images can’t be updated quickly for seasonal purposes and the height of the current projected water screens is limiting. 

Disney’s solution is something they’re calling ‘flixels,’ short for floating pixels. An army of unmanned aerial vehicles (a.k.a. drones) with projection screens and light diffusers will work together to create spectacular 3-D images. The drones should be able to either follow a script or be controlled by someone on the ground. The picture above shows something even more innovative, a drawing in the patent demonstrating how drones could possibly even hold a giant marionette puppet. That would be puppeteering on a whole new scale. Walt Disney himself probably could never have envisioned something like that. Hard to imagine, but exciting to think about. Just another in a line of incredible innovations from Walt Disney Imagineering.