After months and months of waiting, Disney finally dropped some exciting news about the 2024 EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival! We’ve got festival menus, people. We’ve got merchandise previews. We’ve even got the full Eat to the Beat concert lineup! We’re all set, right? Well…yes, and no.
EPCOT Food & Wine Festival
This year’s festival runs from August 29th to November 23rd, 2024. We know that some of the most popular food booths will return, along with the Eat to the Beat Concerts each evening. But the announcement we have been most eagerly anticipating? Well, it didn’t happen. Hey, Disney? We’re here to gently poke you. Pssst. Can you bring back this classic EPCOT Food and Wine Festival event?
OK, it’s time for a little history lesson with DFB. Before the pandemic-related closures in Disney World in 2020, there were months of special programming that were part of EPCOT’s Food and Wine Festival. Almost daily, you could attend a wine, beer, or cheese seminar. Additionally, celebrity chefs came in to host special meals, book signings, and cooking demonstrations. For example, in 2019, you could have brunch and a meet-and-greet with celebrity chefs like Cat Cora, Carla Hall, Buddy Valastro (yep, the Cake Boss guy), or Andrew Zimmern.
Buddy Valastro Demo at the Epcot Food and Wine Festival
When the Food and Wine Festival returned in 2020, seminars and demos were not on the calendar, and the festival has continued without them ever since. Seminars and demos were an amazing part of the festival, and we miss them dearly.
Demonstrations available in 2019
Why are we bringing this up? Well, it seemed to us like EPCOT had a prime opportunity to bring back seminars and demonstrations this year. CommuniCore Hall was originally billed as EPCOT’s new dedicated Festival area. Disney called the new “home base” for EPCOT’s seasonal Festivals and live events. CommuniCore Hall and CommuniCore Plaza are located in EPCOT’s World Celebration and were supposed to bring EPCOT International Festivals “to the center of Walt Disney World,” according to Disney.
CommuniCore Hall…there’s nothing here.
But, according to the Disney World website, those live Eat to the Beat concerts will NOT take place at CommuniCore Hall, and we haven’t heard a peep about seminars and demos returning this year. In fact, there’s not even a section for seminars and demonstrations on the Food and Wine Festival website! That seems like a bad sign, right?
©Disney
CommuniCore Hall is basically a big, open seating area right now, and Disney hasn’t made any announcements about updating the space. But hey– if you like airport lounges and air-conditioned buildings, come on in! At least there’s plenty of seating.
CommuniCore Hall
Perhaps Disney is saving this space as a place to eat your Food and Wine Festival snacks? It might be a bit of a long walk from the World Showcase festival booths to CommuniCore Hall, but if you’re determined to sit at a table in the A.C., this could be a new option for ya.
Char & Chop Booth 2023
We’ll be sure to keep our eyes out for updates. Who knows! Maybe Disney still has some tricks up its sleeves. In the meantime, we’re always on the lookout for the latest Disney news, so stay tuned for more.
FULL MENUS Announced for the 2024 EPCOT Food and Wine Festival
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This is so deeply disappointing. The wine tasting seminars were one of our favorite events, and the Parisian breakfast. We are SO sad bc we thought the communicore hall signaled their return. We actually scheduled a trip for September… hardly our fave month, to be SURE food&wine fest would be running. We haven’t been in years… since 2017/2018, in large part due to the festival changes over covid that never “came back”.
The boothes are fun but the fest overall is kind of a shadow of its old self to us. 🙁