Sounds of a New (Adventure) World: Music and the Walt Disney Studios Makeover
Location
Moore Auditorium
Start Date
18-6-2026 2:30 PM
Description
Opened in 2002, Disneyland Paris’s “second park” is set to inaugurate a new phase in its history in March 2026. After seven years of major construction work, Walt Disney Studios Park will give way to Disney Adventure World. This unprecedented change of name signals a profound reconfiguration of the park’s spatial, thematic, and experiential design. The park’s surface area will be doubled, a central lake will be created, and new lands—most notably the World of Frozen—will reshape both its layout and its identity. Rather than offering a behind-the-scenes exploration of movie-making, the park will now invite visitors to immerse themselves in a series of themed environments based on distinct intellectual properties. This paper intends to examine how music contributes to this new spatial organization and storytelling. It will focus on how music works as a tool of world-building, endowing each themed area with a specific identity while also guiding the visitor’s journey from one land to another. It will analyze the role music plays in the park’s creative and commercial development by considering both the artistic choices involved (which music is used, where, and why?) and the ways in which Disneyland Paris foregrounds music in its promotional discourse, notably as a potential selling point. This paper will also investigate visitors’ perceptions of music in relation to their understanding of the park’s new spatial logic and narrative coherence. Particular attention will be paid to live entertainment, which is expected to undergo significant reconfiguration, notably through the reuse and adaptation of street performances originally developed for the Disney Music Festival held in summer 2025. Methodologically, the paper will adopt a mixed approach, combining ethnographic fieldwork (based on repeated site visits between January and May 2026) with an analysis of promotional materials, fan-produced content, and interviews with park visitors.
Recommended Citation
Beuré, Fanny, "Sounds of a New (Adventure) World: Music and the Walt Disney Studios Makeover" (2026). Theme Park Music and Sound. 6.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/tpms/2026/thursday/6
Sounds of a New (Adventure) World: Music and the Walt Disney Studios Makeover
Moore Auditorium
Opened in 2002, Disneyland Paris’s “second park” is set to inaugurate a new phase in its history in March 2026. After seven years of major construction work, Walt Disney Studios Park will give way to Disney Adventure World. This unprecedented change of name signals a profound reconfiguration of the park’s spatial, thematic, and experiential design. The park’s surface area will be doubled, a central lake will be created, and new lands—most notably the World of Frozen—will reshape both its layout and its identity. Rather than offering a behind-the-scenes exploration of movie-making, the park will now invite visitors to immerse themselves in a series of themed environments based on distinct intellectual properties. This paper intends to examine how music contributes to this new spatial organization and storytelling. It will focus on how music works as a tool of world-building, endowing each themed area with a specific identity while also guiding the visitor’s journey from one land to another. It will analyze the role music plays in the park’s creative and commercial development by considering both the artistic choices involved (which music is used, where, and why?) and the ways in which Disneyland Paris foregrounds music in its promotional discourse, notably as a potential selling point. This paper will also investigate visitors’ perceptions of music in relation to their understanding of the park’s new spatial logic and narrative coherence. Particular attention will be paid to live entertainment, which is expected to undergo significant reconfiguration, notably through the reuse and adaptation of street performances originally developed for the Disney Music Festival held in summer 2025. Methodologically, the paper will adopt a mixed approach, combining ethnographic fieldwork (based on repeated site visits between January and May 2026) with an analysis of promotional materials, fan-produced content, and interviews with park visitors.