Monday, April 5, 2010

It's Disney and more Third Anniversary...and probably also the last one

It's Disney and more's three-year anniversary this week, and I have some good news and some bad news for you. Let's start with the good news: To celebrate our third anniversary, I will have some great articles for you in the next two weeks. Also, I will introduce not one, but two new D&M sections, and one of them will be a tribute to a great man and will have rare stuff you've never seen before. That's not all, as I will also disclose one of my most secret projects: a BIG Dinosaur attraction concept that I designed with Imagineer Jeff Burke seven years ago. And believe me, it's a real E-Ticket, the kind of ride that would cost $150M at WDI!

Now for the bad news: This third D&M Anniversary will be probably also the last one, because one month from now I will stop Disney and more. Nothing will disappear and the site will remain like it is, a fantastic source of theme park artwork and pictures, but I will stop doing articles every day as I have done for the last three years. I might come back from time to time for a special report when a new attraction will open, and chances are I will not be able to resist adding the Shanghaî Disneyland renderings to the D&M artwork collection when they become available!

There are several reasons for my decision, the first one is that it's exhausting to do articles every day in a language which is not your native language, and it's especially exhausting when you're as much of a perfectionist as I am. I also want to do something different with my life. But I have enjoyed very much doing the site during these last three years, and I want to thank all of you who have been so faithful to D&M. Last month D&M had a new record of visits with more than 120,000 visits, around 4,000 visits per day, which is really good considering that I don't really advertise the site. I want to thank Mice Chat and Disney Central Plaza who were the two D&M forums, and also Screamscape, Disney Report, Blue Sky Disney, the Disney Blog and many others who kindly posted links to D&M during these three years.

Those of you who have lived the Disney and more adventure since the beginning will probably remember it as a great experience. All I've tried to do was a really good theme park website, something as close to the ideal as possible, and a true tribute to WDI Imagineers - just like I did with my DLP book. And, as I know that sometime I have transgressed - though not too far, as I know where the not-to-be crossed "red line" is - I sincerely want to thank Walt Disney Imagineering for letting me post D&M articles for the last three years without censorship.

One of my reader kindly told me six months ago "Keep the Momentum, Alain!". Well, with more readers than ever, it's not the momentum which is leaving me, it's me who is leaving the momentum! Anyway, don't go away during this last month as you'll discover great articles, starting tomorrow with rare Imagineering pictures in part two of the Pirates of Caribbean "behind the scenes" article!