DCA's Opening Day
Page 8 of 22
Barry Braverman poses with an opening day map
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LaughingPlace.com: What's it like seeing all this after working so hard for so long?
Barry Braverman: Indescribable feeling. 5 1/2 years of this team working on this thing, every day putting their heart and soul into it. Now its hear for everybody for generations. It is an amazing feeling. It’s awesome.
LP: Were you watching the faces of those first guests to come in?
BB: Of course! I’ll be here just about everyday over the next couple of months.
LP: What do you want to be the first attraction you do know that the park is officially open?
BB: Oh. I don’t know. It’s like a family. You love all your kids. The ones that I’m the most attached to are the ones that were the hardest to do like Soarin’, Animation and Golden Dreams.
We also had the opportunity to have a few words with Steven Davison, creator of today's opening ceremony.
LaughingPlace.com: Can you talk a little bit about the show.
Steven Davison: We tried to decide on how you introduce Roy…should we reveal the letters or not reveal the letters ‘cause a lot of people don’t know what happened. The letters go away, the fabric goes away, whoosh, giant sun in the sky and then pow! Roy Disney. Then yay and applause. Which is funny, the closer you are to the front of the stage like the first 6 rows don’t know what is going ‘cause it is like being on stage and your eye follows here up then you notice he is down there.
LP: How long did it take to put it together?
SD: 5 weeks…fast. Disney came in the middle of Believe…Holiday. It was nuts. It kept switching. It was going to be a very simple opening for the public, then it was going to be a bigger and you [Davison] should do it. I don’t have time. I have a parade [Eureka]. It was fun. We used Michael Curry again. He made our diva and our sun. Michael made his stuff in 2 weeks then we had to show it to Michael Eisner.