Imagination Gala Pin Event Recap

Well, the 2014 Trade Celebration event at Walt Disney World, Imagination Gala, has come to an end. It was an amazing two days filled with pin trading activities, silent auctions, live entertainment, meeting new friends and more!

Here is a quick recap of my experience at the event.

Friday, September 5, 2014:

I was staying at Disney’s Beach Club Resort so it was a short walk over to Epcot. Once I entered the park, I headed straight for World Showplace Convention Center where the event takes place. By this time, it was a little after 9:00 AM and the event started at 9:30 AM if you didn’t purchase the breakfast. The line was extremely long, almost to the entrance to Future World. I waited until about 9:45 AM when they finally started letting us in. Since they didn’t let us in until 9:45 AM, Disney extended the event that day until 6:15 PM which was nice.

Once I was inside, I had to get my event registration and RSP pins since I did not go to the pre-registration the day before at Coronado Springs Resort. That process was pretty quick and then I made my way inside for pin trading activities!

The first line I went to took about an hour and 20 minutes. Disney released six surprise Figment pins which I was able to collect in the first day! All were limited edition of 1000. Here they are:

After about two pin board lines, I went to pick up my pre-purchased bag lunch. I ate in the pin trading tables room and people watched for a little. 🙂 After lunch, I checked out the silent auctions and store. I was able to purchase the hipster Mickey and Minnie Mouse limited release pins as well.

After lunch I headed back to the pin boards all afternoon. I traded for a lot of limited edition and Artist Proof pins, it was amazing! I also got to meet a lot of great people including Michael and Dana from Cruise Planners, a nice lady who has been attending pin events since the early 2000s and a Cast Member that I became friends with. It was so much fun!

Around 6:00 PM I decided to leave and went over to Via Napoli in Italy to meet Jennifer (writer at DisneyPinsBlog.com) and her husband for dinner!

Saturday, September 6, 2014:

Day 2! I woke up early and headed over to the BoardWalk Bakery at Disney’s Boardwalk Inn Resort. I got a really tasty breakfast sandwich and enjoyed the beautiful Florida morning.

Saturday was filled with a lot of pin trading activities and upcoming pin previews. Disney had live entertainment again along with the pin preview presentation in the afternoon. We got to see the upcoming Halloween and Christmas pins for WDW and DL. We also got to preview a lot of the open edition, limited edition and mystery sets for 2015 at Disney Parks. It was fantastic and I am really excited about the upcoming pin releases for 2015!

On Saturday I also got to hang out with Amy and Elizabeth from Disney Pins $1.15 + Up on Facebook! I met them at last year’s event and have kept in touch throughout the year. If you are looking for great scrapper free pins, check them out on Facebook!

Towards the end of the day they announced the winners of the silent auction. This Frozen pin set sold for $14,000! A Disney executive was escorted by two security guards after the silent auction was over to get this out of the case for the buyer.

The day was winding down and I went to pick up my exit gift, which was a figment pin!

Here are the pins I bought via Random Selection Process:

Overall:

I really enjoyed this year’s pin event at Epcot. I think the theme was pretty cool and enjoyed the live entertainment and classical music throughout the day. My only complaint, and I heard the same thing from others, was that the lines were moving too slow. Last year’s event, I waited on average, 30-45 minutes per pin board. This year I waited at least an hour for each board. This didn’t allow for much trading and some people were getting frustrated. Hopefully next year they have more pin boards, enforce the one minute per board rule, or expand a little more due to the popularity!

2015 Pin Event:

Disney announced the event name for next year, it is called GenEARation D! This pin event celebrates the moments in life, young or old, when you knew you’ve become a Disney fan. Can’t wait!

-DPB