Why Can’t EPCOT Add an Australia Pavilion? The Answer Is Pretty Dang Complicated

G’day Mates!

If you asked a random Disney World visitor what country they would add to World Showcase, many of them would likely say Australia. The country (which is also a continent) is arguably one of the most prominent in foreign lands in American pop culture, with influence in everything from entertainment to cuisine, yet it’s (barely, we’ll get there) represented at EPCOT? Why is that, and could it change anytime soon? Well…

The World Showcase portion of EPCOT began life as a plan for a World’s Fair-style international pavilion to be part of Walt Disney’s original Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. Eventually, it became part of the EPCOT Center theme park once plans evolved and opened with the park in 1982.

At opening, the World Showcase was made up of 9 country pavilions: Mexico, China, Germany,  Italy, The American Adventure, Japan, France, the United Kingdom, each sponsored by a company from the country they represented. Initial plans called for several more pavilions including Equatorial Africa, Israel, and Spain. At the time, Australia was a country often speculated on being added as well. However, plans quickly changed, and by the end of the 1980s only two pavilions: Morocco in 1984 and Norway (the most recent pavilion to open) in 1988.

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, rumors continuously spread about the potential of additional countries being added to the World Showcase, including Australia. According to “sources” at time, many elements of the pavilion had been designed, and it would be headlined by a re-creation of the world-famous Sydney Opera House.

However, despite years of rumblings that Australia was coming, the pavilion was never added. The closest Australia has come to representation in World Showcase has been is a popular annual booth at the International Food & Wine Festival.

So why hasn’t an Australian pavilion been built and could that change? Well, while anything is possible, we think there are several factors working against it.

First off, as mentioned above, there hasn’t been a World Showcase pavilion added to EPCOT since Norway opened in 1988. Given that that’s almost 40 years ago, and that Disney is committed to almost exclusively basing new attractions and expansions on preexisting intellectual property it seems unlikely that they would commit to a more “realistic” World Showcase pavilion any time soon. Plus, if it were to follow the layout of the rest of World Showcase, Disney would need to find an Australian company willing to sponsor the pavilion.

In addition, space may be a factor. While World Showcase technically has 4-6 of its original expansion pads still available, the amount of infrastructure built out in the last 40 years likely means that those areas would need to be heavily cleared (and the park’s backstage areas reconfigured) for any new major construction.

Furthermore, it seems likely that IF Disney were to build a land based on Australia (even around an appropriate IP like Rescuers Down Under or Finding Nemo) it would likely be based on the Australian Outback and housed at Animal Kingdom. After all, since Animal Kingdom opened in 1998, every land based on a real location built at Disney World (Africa, Asia, the upcoming Tropical Americas) has been built at that park.

Oh, and of course, we can’t forget the fact that an Australian pavilion would need to be built upside 🙃 .

While there may be some demand for an Australian pavilion at World Showcase, it seems somewhat unlikely that one will be added to EPCOT anytime soon. Stay tuned to AllEars for more on the history and evolution of EPCOT.

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Do you wish EPCOT had an Australian pavilion? Let us know in the comments below.

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