Is New Disneyland Drone Show in the Works? Drone Testing Spotted at Disney SoCal Facility

Disney has perfected fireworks and projection displays at their theme parks. The nightly shows are a perfect “kiss goodnight” for park guests that cap off an evening at the parks. Now, Disney has begun using drones at their theme parks around the world to bring new storytelling capabilities to their shows. There have been limited uses of drones at Walt Disney World, but none at Disneyland. Could that be changing?

New footage was shared on social media showing tests of a new drone sequence that featured Aladdin. Let's dive into what the footage captured and what this could mean for a new Disneyland or general Disney Parks drone show. At Mickey Visit, we bring you the latest Disney theme park news.

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Disney Drone Show Testing Captured in New Footage

New footage captured in Santa Clarita, California shows drone testing at Walt Disney's Golden Oak Ranch. This is an active movie backlot controlled by Disney with over 890 acres of active production space. The lot dates back to Walt Disney's team when he first leased the Golden Oak Ranch in the late 1950s for the Spin and Marty segments of The Mickey Mouse Club. Today, the ranch includes wide open spaces for shooting and two back lots.

The website describes the ranch – “For more than 60 years the Golden Oak Ranch has offered a unique filming experience with endless possibilities and the standards associated with the Disney name.” The ranch is located about an hour north of Disneyland and 25 minutes from Walt Disney Imagineering's headquarters in Glendale, California.

So, it isn't surprising that the Ranch was used as a testing ground for a new drone show coming to one of the Disney theme parks. Walt Disney Imagineering likely needs a secluded spot to test out a new show. Turning to the footage that was captured, the video shows massive icons from Disney's Aladdin animated movie. These include the Genie, Genie’s Hand, spinning graphics that match those from the movie, the magic carpet, and the palace from the movie. Scroll down to see the footage and images.

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There are Disney drone shows that happen around the world. Disneyland Paris, Hong Kong Disney, and Tokyo Disney have all used drones in their nighttime spectaculars. Walt Disney World also debuted a drone show at Disney Springs two summers ago to much acclaim, though it did not return this year. Drone shows generally have also crept more into special events that Disney has thrown. In the past year, I personally saw Disney drone shows at the new Fantastic 4 movie premiere and the christening of the new Disney Treasure cruise ship. Generally, I have also seen more drone shows happening at other special events.

The reason that I am emphasizing all of these other locations for Disney drone shows is that the drones seen testing in Santa Clarita could be headed to any international theme park, Walt Disney World, or even a special event. For all that we know, these could be for a special presentation by Disney Consumer Products at CES in Las Vegas in January. All of these things could have Imagineers based in Southern California working on them. Of all the possibilities, I would obviously be most excited if this show came to Disneyland or a Walt Disney World theme park. Could that happen?

Last year, the lead Disney executive over entertainment at the theme parks mentioned that they had wanted to bring drones to World of Color at Disney California Adventure. He shared: “We originally worked with Intel when they first brought the drones out. They were supposed to premiere at this water thing across the street we won’t talk about [this panel was happening in the Anaheim Convention Center the water thing was clearly World of Color]. But it's interesting because there’s so many restrictions in America with the use of drones that we're finally getting a chance to actually look at them and use them.” See that full article for more context.

There are still lots of restrictions that could be blocking the use of drones at the Disneyland Resort. Both Disneyland and Walt Disney World are officially FAA no fly zones so there is some restriction that would need to change there to make this possible. That already happened for the Disney Springs show. If that could happen again, we would love to see the drones come to Fantasmic! at Disneyland Park, if there is enough room. We know that they are very careful not to operate drones above guest areas in the theme parks, so we doubt that they would try and use the drones for a fireworks show in California. That likely also makes World of Color a more likely choice to have enough room to launch the drones, even though I would prefer to see an improved Fantasmic! show.

The Disneyland 70th anniversary is set to run through next summer and we are hopeful that we'll get some new entertainment that brings more into the celebration as it runs for another year. Perhaps an upgraded Fantasmic! with drones? Or a new World of Color addition? What do you think? We could also see this come to Walt Disney World, though their summer slate is already filling up quite nicely with big changes to rides debuting. At Disneyland, we are also getting a new version of one of the Star Wars attractions and the new Soarin' film. I anticipate that we will see more announced for next year during the first week of December, following the precedent of the previous two years when they announced the special event schedule that same week.

Here's a closer look at the footage captured of the Aladdin drone sequence.

The footage, captured by Plants_of_disneyland and shared on Instagram. Here's the video that they shared. With the audio that they added into the video, it really makes this feel like it would be an incredible show.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Sean Martin (@plants_of_disneyland)

What do you think? Would you like to see a drone show come to Disneyland or Walt Disney World? Do you like the look of the Aladdin addition?

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