EXCLUSIVE: This year’s D23 Expo was designed to heighten the guest experience

We have just a few weeks to go before the start of the 2017 D23 Expo! With thousands of guests expected to once again descend into Anaheim for the bi-annual Disney convention, a big thought on people’s minds is arguably on the thousands of the other Expo-going counterparts.

With so many attendees, D23 Expo organizers have listened to a lot of guest feedback regarding crowds and have designed this Expo to be the one with the best guest experience to date.

“For starters, we’re bringing back a lot of guest services that have been successful in the past,” said Jeffrey Epstein, director of communications for D23, to DisneyExaminer. StagePass (the “Fastpass”-type reservation system to reserve seats for panels) and StorePass (the same, but for reserving times to visit the D23 Expo Dream Store) will both be back and will include more reservations slots.

“Yes, we’ll also have chargers and water stations available again!,” Epstein continued laughingly. The official D23 Expo app will have more features and a better streamlined design so guest can better navigate the larger show floor.

In addition to guest services, Expo attendees can also expect more accessibility to their must-see presentations with more seating available. Epstein said, “We’ve taken one of our stages and put it into the [Convention Center] Arena and added even more stages to host more presentations right on the show floor.”

This includes the return of Hall D23, the 7,000 seat space where many of the last Expo’s keynote presentations took place. It will be home to many of the same presentations this year and hosted by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, the Walt Disney Studios, and more.

If you’re a D23 Gold Member, organizers have heard your feedback too, and will be giving you priority reserved seating to some of those panels and presentations (while supplies last) and early access to the show floor (one hour prior to the public opening of the floor every day).

Tickets to this year’s D23 Expo are still available on the D23 Expo website.