Yesterday (18 May 2022) Disney Plus was officially launched here in South Africa and we had the honour of being invited to the launch event at Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit hosted by Disney Africa. It was a night of fun, food and music where local celebrities and super fans got to celebrate the streaming service and all it has to offer.
When you arrived at the event you were greeted with a large projection of the Disney Plus logo on the side of the venue and a few led light blue lanterns. After being signed in you made your way to the blue carpet where local news agencies such as Soweto TV and SABC had cameras set up to interview the guest and take pictures. Afterwards, each guest received a blue drink (can you guess the colour of the night) and popcorn as they waited for the main show to start. While waiting guests could take in the view of the city skyline, mingle, and have fun having a 360-video filmed of themselves and friends.
The main event took place in a different hall where there were no less than 5 stages! The centre stage was the main stage where they opened the event and did a countdown to the official launch. After the count down Disney pulled out all the stops showing a selection of clips from a variety of their properties such as Star Wars, Marvel, Pixar and National Geographic, the video would then seamless transition to live feeds 3 locations in South Africa, the first was the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban (which looks similar to the Disney Plus logo), where they light up the roof just like the Disney Plus Logo, next the feed went on to show Zeitz Museum Silos in Cape Town where they had projected some of their most iconic posters and some cute animations from various IPS. Lastly, the feed went to Soccer City in Johannesburg where they had a fireworks show official bringing in Disney Plus. You can watch the video here of the opening: https://www.facebook.com/DisneyPlusZA/videos/404847058167444/
The rest of the evening was made up of shows and performances highlighting the different aspects of Disney Plus. These performances were a combination of videos, live dancers, and live aerial artists from the Cirque. A separate performance was done for the National Geographic content, Encanto, Star Wars, The Stars Content and finally for the Black is King documentary by Beyonce. They surprised those in attendance with a live performance by local artist Busiswa performing some of her most popular and famous songs.
Overall, the event was extremely enjoyable highlighting what Disney Plus has to offer to its South African audience, the show went smoothly, the food and drinks did not disappoint, the staff were (as always) a dream and the best part is that the guest list was made up of people from all fandoms and walks of life.
We were also lucky enough to be gifted a Disney+ 12 Month sub from Disney themselves, I think the packaging speaks for itself with how amazing it is.
