Monday, January 13, 2014

PI Update: Celebrate Today, Celebrate Tonight

Continuing with our coverage of Pleasure Island after the clubs closed.  In our most recent article on the subject a couple weeks ago we talked about how PI had become a ghost town at night because not only had the clubs closed but so had the PI Live DJ booth (no more music) and the bars (no more people hanging around). By March, 2009, the booth had been reopened as had the bars. But those were the quick fixes. In April, 2009 something more permanent was introduced.  In conjunction with Disney's advertising slogan that year "Celebrate Today", late afternoons and evenings on Pleasure Island beget "Celebrate Tonight" taking place at West End Celebration Plaza.


Afternoon show.


Evening show.
DJ Willie is featured in both of these videos. Celebrate Tonight would draw crowds at times but there were also many times when a handful of kids would be the best they could do. The DJ's and staff worked hard in both the heat of summer and the cold of winter. In February of 2010 the Blog noticed that Celebrate Tonight had been taken off the Downtown Disney Guide Map and in June of 2010 they held their final show.  Another form of evening entertainment was coming to the Island instead. (to be continued)

2 comments:

  1. Rumor at the time, from a fairly credible source, was that a VP from Burbank had been in town for the opening of the T-shirt store with Haines officials, was embarrassed by the empty buildings. Ordered them reopened immediately.

    In an effort to save face, TDO offered up CT instead. Entire show was written and cast in less than a month, rocket speed for Disney. It was always about making TDO not look incompetent.

    ReplyDelete
  2. 71, I need to go back into the Blog's archives and look into that. I recall publishing something along those lines, a very long time ago.

    ReplyDelete