Don’t get us wrong — we’re BEYOND excited to see what Festival of the Arts in EPCOT brings to the table this year, but we have to admit there’s one problem we’re really hoping to see fixed.
Festival of the Arts
Don’t worry, it has nothing to do with the incredible entertainment or art offerings around the park in honor of the festival, but it does have something to do with the food. It’s not the food’s taste or presentation, necessarily. We’re talking about the menu boards.
Now during the day, the menus are perfectly fine! We can read them with no issues and understand everything they’re telling us. However, once that sun goes down, which happens VERY early during the winter, we can’t see a thing.
Refreshment Outpost Menu (2024)
As soon as the sun goes down and we can’t see things as well any more, the menus are near impossible to read. Now, if you want to pull your phone out and use your flashlight to see what’s written there (we’ve been there, trust us), you do what you gotta do, but we really do think there’s an easy way to solve this issue.
Festival of the Arts
We suggest just putting lights INSIDE the paneling of the menus to make sure they’re bright at night! Whether that be a literal small spotlight shining on it from the ground, putting lights in the sides of the holders to shine on the menu when it gets dark, or building something onto the top of the menu board, lights SOMEWHERE would certainly help everyone out.
2024 EPCOT Festival of the Arts
We want to be sure we know what we’re grabbing and trying so we can tell our readers exactly what to grab when they experience the festival themselves, and that gets much harder when we can’t read the menu. Now, this isn’t much of an issue during the Flower and Garden and Food and Wine Festivals since it doesn’t get dark until much later, but for these fall/winter festivals, we feel like we need headlamps once the sun goes down.
Hey Figment!
We can’t wait to experience all this year’s festival has to offer, so be sure to stay tuned to DFB for all the latest news and for live coverage during the opening day!
Learn everything we know about the 2025 Festival of the Arts right here!
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What are you most looking forward to experiencing at this year’s festival? Tell us in the comments!
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So important! Last year I was at the Brazil pop up food cart right after Mexico. They have the best Pão de queijo on a stick. It was just after dark and I grabbed a cup of their Moqueca for $11.99. It turned out to have Talapia! I am so allergic to Talapia. Flounder or Mackrell, we’re good, no problem but Talapia brings me a serious finger rash. A cast member (Pedro) made it up to me by hand feeding me their chocolate Brigadeiro. Delish! Anyway, you’re 100% right. A simple strip of LED lights on the menu board would do the trick. Surely Amazon or Wish has some little LED light strip from China Disney can afford. Oooh, maybe it could change colors to the music like those ones for your TV! Or have one of those College Program kids dress up as a taco or something with a flashlight. Accidental Talapia ingestion could have been avoided.
Totally agree! I would actually advocate for this on any of the festival boards year round!
I wouldn’t count on Disney making these changes. The signs are already done and Disney is not in the market of spending money until something breaks down.
Easier said than done. Power would need run under the ground to each menu location in order not to create a trip hazard. There is a lot of man hours and expense involved to do that. That or solar powered lighting which tends not to be very bright or last long.
I don’t care for the items on the menus. There is a lot of seafood. We need a bigger variety.