The Disneyland Candlelight Ceremony is one of the lesser known holiday events, but it is also one of the most special if you have the chance to see it. This year, Disneyland will break with tradition and will expand the Candlelight performances to twenty nights, with dining packages being the primary way to get seats for the show.
For those unfamiliar with Candlelight, it is an annual choral performance that typically uses the Main Street train station as the stage. The show has a celebrity narrator who reads the nativity story, a live orchestra, and a 1,000 voice choir. Some of the choir members are from the Disney employee choir and they form the “tree” structure in the center. It is considered an informal honor among the choir members if you get to be the star on the tree.
A little history
The Candlelight ceremony began as a simple singing of Christmas carols in the 1950s. The performers would stand around the gazebo that used to be in town square at Disneyland. The performance eventually became a special show that was a thank you to Disneyland’s sponsors, invited guests and dignitaries. It remained this way for decades. Invited guests watched the show from seats in a roped off area. Regular park guests could hear the music, but needed to jockey for position behind the ropes in order to get a clear view of the show.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Disneyland experimented with opening the show up to the public as a premium experience. They had mixed success with this approach, due to the high demand for the tickets. The rush for dining reservations always seemed to crash their computer systems. Efforts to distribute tickets at the main entrance or to use wristbands always created a stampede or out of control crowds.
The worst received of these experiments was in 1998, when Disneyland tried moving the show to the Fantasyland Theatre. The venue was fantastic for the show because it offered better lighting, superior acoustics, much better seating, and a roof to protect from the elements. Most of all, Disney avoided the traditional traffic jam on Main Street. While the venue was great, it didn’t fit with tradition, which (to put it mildly) ruined the experience for some who had attended the show for years. There was also an unfortunate incident of people getting injured in the mad rush to get tickets.
More recently, Disneyland has experimented with a private $275-per-person Candlelight event exclusively for D23 members in 2009, offering no packages in 2010, then going completely overboard with a $2500 “Candlelight Experience” in 2011. With such a variety of packages and prices in the past, it is difficult to guess what might be in store now that Disneyland is expanding the show from two to twenty nights in 2012.
What’s new this year
Though the first two nights, December 1 and 2, are invitation only, the performances from December 3 – 20 (two performances each night) are open to “Disneyland Resort Annual Passholders and guests booking special, to-be-announced dining packages,” according to the announcement on the Disney Parks blog.
Candlelight pricing
Disney has not yet released details about the show or the dining package, which leaves many questions unanswered. However, based on what Disney has done in the past we can assume there will be a few tiers of dining packages. The more expensive packages will likely give you better seats for the show. We also suspect the dining packages will be more expensive than the $35-$65 per person you can currently expect for World of Color dining. Candlelight is a premium experience and we anticipate Disneyland will charge accordingly.
By way of comparison, we can look to Walt Disney World’s version of Candlelight where the show runs more than a month (with three performances nightly). WDW requires that you eat before your selected show, and offers lunch and dinner reservations at 14 World Showcase restaurants. Lunch packages range from $32.99 to $55.99 per person, depending on restaurant selected, with dinner packages from $49.99 to $66.99. Kids’ packages are $12.50 to $26.99, depending on meal time and restaurant. Walt Disney World’s Candlelight package includes appetizer, entree, dessert, and non-alcoholic beverage, along with preferred seating tickets for Candlelight and admission to the VIP viewing area for the Illuminations fireworks show.
Crowd Control
Managing the crowds will be the biggest issue with this expanded Candlelight schedule. The holiday season is a peak time at Disneyland, with crowds often forcing the closure of the Main Entrance at times. The Candlelight chairs, lighting, audio and bleachers make the main entrance incredible congested. This is usually difficult for the two traditional nights of the show. It will likely be a logistics nightmare to manage this for nearly a full month.
If you visit in December, it might actually be faster to take the Disneyland Monorail to the Downtown Disney station rather than push through the Candlelight crowds. Main Street gets absolutely packed each night for the holiday fireworks show. Add Candlelight to the mix and you can expect worse traffic than you’ll find on the freeway.
It is a safe bet that Disneyland will look at moving Candlelight to the Fantasyland theatre next year if this experiment proves successful. Although the venue change created concerns in the past, the theatre offers a better experience and mitigates any crowd control issues.
We’ve had the chance to see the Candlelight show several times in the past. It is a wonderful experience and is something I would consider paying extra to see. We’ll just have to wait for the official word from the mouse house before we know if the price will be worth it. We’ll keep you posted.
Source: Disney Parks blog
Photo via Flickr
[…] in August, Disneyland advertised plans to expand the annual two-night candlelight ceremony to twenty nights of performances. The Disney Parks blog also announced plans to offer dining packages with reserved seating for […]