A Friday Visit with Jim Korkis: The Electrical Water Pageant
By Dave Shute
Welcome back to Fridays with Jim Korkis! Jim, the dean of Disney historians and author of Jim’s Gems in The easy Guide, writes about Walt Disney World history every Friday on yourfirstvisit.net.
THE ELECTRICAL WATER PAGEANT
By Jim Korkis
The Electrical Water Pageant first premiered in the Seven Seas Lagoon in October 1971.
Weather permitting, it is performed every night. The pageant barges are stored in the canal behind the Production Center building at Magic Kingdom located behind Splash Mountain.
The pageant includes two “strings” of seven barges each. Each string extends approximately 456 feet in length. The two together are barely one hundred feet shorter than the length of an aircraft carrier.
Each of the 14 barges features a twenty-five foot high, thirty-six foot long wire screen decorated with lights.
Five people are required to operate the fleet: two pilots, two co-pilots and one safety-boat operator. The job of the safety-boat operator is to handle any problems once the barges are underway as well as assisting in pushing the barges around corners since the turning radius is literally a quarter of a mile unassisted.
The crew reports to the Production Center at 8:30pm each night where they don headsets, radios and appropriate clothing in case of cold or foul weather. They head out to the barges roughly ten minutes later.
A pilot sits in a booth on the first barge and the co-pilot sits in a booth on the last barge of the string. Both are connected with the audio headsets. They untie the barges and take off to head for their first show at Disney’s Polynesian Village Resort at approximately nine o’clock.
The loop continues with shows roughly fifteen minutes apart at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, Disney’s Wilderness Lodge, Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort and Campground, Disney’s Contemporary Resort and finally outside the entrance of the Magic Kingdom park.
The barges arrive just a few moments before each show primarily because of the wind. They can not simply sit in one spot because the screens act as sails so any wind can play havoc even though the pilots try to form a sort of rainbow arc. Basically, there are just platforms on pontoons so are more fragile than most guests suspect.
The show begins immediately everyone is in position. The first string will signal the second string by light, letting them know that the show is ready to go. The co-pilot on barge 14, the last barge on the second string, has master audio control.
He flips a switch and it pumps music through a transmitter from his string to the first string’s receiver so everything is in sync. The co-pilots on each string flip switches to activate the lights on each screen when he or she hears the music cues.
The Paul Beaver version of Gershon Kingsley & Jean Jeaque Perrey’s “Baroque Hoedown”, created specially for the Electrical Water Pageant, was used from 1971 until 1977. The very same soundtrack was later used by Disneyland’s original Main Street Electrical Parade from 1972 until 1974 when it was re-recorded and updated by Don Dorsey.
The Electrical Water Pageant that guests see today consists of much the same floats in the same formation dating back to 1977. The only difference is in 1996 a new musical score was created for both the opening and closing of the Electrical Water Pageant as well as each creature depicted in the pageant.
Going over the water bridge between Seven Seas Lagoon and Bay Lake is “like dragging a garden hose through your house without touching anything” said coordinator David Kaumeier who operated the show for three decades.
“We can hear guests hooting and clapping 100 yards away and we get a great satisfaction from that. We’re the only crew that does this type of work in the world.
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Thanks, Jim! And come back next Friday for more from Jim Korkis!
In the meantime, check out his books, including his latest, Secret Stories of Disneyland, his Secret Stories of Walt Disney World: Things You Never You Never Knew
, which reprints much material first written for this site, and his contributions to The easy Guide to Your Walt Disney World Visit, all published by Theme Park Press.
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1 comment
Very cool.
I always wondered how many operators it takes to run the water parade.
I also never thought about the skill required to make it across the water bridge twice every night.
That’s definitely something I’ll go and watch next time I’m staying at the Contemporary/Bay Lake.
Thanks.
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