Community PROJECT: Magic Kingdom Hearts Aftermath

PROJECT: Magic Kingdom Hearts was a success!

Over 120 Kingdom Hearts fans came out to Disney’s Magic Kingdom in Orlando, Florida, to showcase their love for this spectacular franchise.

And the best part? Disney took notice!​

​

​

Cast members, and even Disney characters, were overjoyed to see us all, and even more excited when we told them about the project. Many of them were aware of the event, and assured us that we had their full support. Jack and Sally called our characters out by name, and Jack even made a joke about how “Riku had lost his eyes again.” I was cosplaying Deep Dive Riku at the time.

At our massive Kingdom Hearts photoshoot in front of the Disney Castle, many guests came by to snap pictures of us. We even heard reports that attendees who didn’t know about the event took notice of how many Kingdom Hearts fans and cosplayers were at the park on the 25th.

​

We auctioned off a rare Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Launch Event poster and were able to raise over $160 towards next year’s event. Our other activities included a park-wide photo scavenger hunt and a Kingdom Hearts Trivia Challenge, where the winners took home Kingdom Hearts 1.5 + strategy guide and Shiro Amano’s Kingdom Heart’s II manga.

Two of our park attendees put together a Cosplay Music Video, showcasing some of the fantastic costumes at the event. You can check it out here:

This year, we are aiming to make PROJECT: Magic Kingdom Hearts even bigger and better, with registration beginning early in January 2014. We have plans to fly in special guests and even host a panel or two prior to the event. Our most ambitious goal for 2014, however, is to bring the event to California. We’re calling this branch of the event PROJECT: Disneyland of Departure. Our ultimate goal is to have the event occurring in both Florida and California at the same time. Keep an eye on our website and social networks for more updates about this!

​

Everyone is already revved up and ready to go again next year. Here is some of the feedback that we’ve received:

“This meeting was worth all the munny put into it and it was so much fun! XD cannot wait until next year!”

“It was so much fun! You guys did a great job - I think the most surprising thing for this mom was the number of cast members who thanked our girls for coming as Kingdom Hearts - so, that definitely means that y'all are on the right track.”

“It was the best night of my life. Ever. I had soooo much fun being around so many Kingdom Hearts cosplayers! It was extremely overwhelming!”

“All in all, it was probably the most amazing cosplay experience I've had and everything was so fun.”

“Had an absolutely fantastic time at PROJECT: Magic Kingdom Hearts. I made a lot of new friends, met some cast members who recognized us. Jack and Sally knew our entire group, and bantered with all of us in character.”

Perhaps the best news of all is that Disney is beginning to recognize Kingdom Hearts on a larger level. Just a couple weeks after the event, we received exciting news from a cast member—Disney will be releasing Kingdom Hearts pins in two months! The pins will feature Sora, Riku, Donald, Goofy, and apparently some other characters. Whether or not this change was a direct result of the project, we don’t know. But we are very enthusiastic about the direction that these developments are heading.

​

You can check out our full event-day album: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Project-Magic-Kingdom-Hearts/351463924964961

You can click on the links in my signature to access our other social networks and website.

Thank you all for the enormous support that you have given this project. I extend special thanks to the wonderful staff at KH-Vids for promoting and encouraging us to move forward. It was on the KH-Vids forums that this project first took root, and I won’t forget that.

I hope to see some of you at next year’s event in 2014!

Thinking of you wherever you are,

Cutsceneaddict
Project Manager of Magic Kingdom Hearts

 

There's always this coming year, right? :D I'd love to see you there next time. Thanks for all your support! We're doing our best to ensure that this event times place in both Florida AND California in 2014!

 

Ha, you guys are a great example of the internet community at its best. I really am so happy to see this, truly, its mind-blowing to think about this to me, seeing how it happened and then boom, wow!

Ha, as much as I wish I could go, unless you move it to my continent, it'll be a bit tough... then again, you guys are expanding at a quick rate. Keep up that fight! : D

 

This is awesome guys! I'm so glad that you were successful and Disney took notice. Even if they didn't, though, it's great to see so many KH fans getting together. All of your costumes look incredible and I'll definitely be picking up some of those pins. Known correlation or not, I'll tell myself that y'all influenced Disney into producing them. ;)

Thanks a bundle for sharing this with us and good luck at future events! Hopefully I can attend one someday.

 

Keep up the good work guys!

 

Thank you so much ^^ We are indeed expanding quickly. We hope to extend the project to ALL Disney theme parks--the sooner the better!

Thanks for the response :) We'll keep moving forward, and plan to continue this project/event annually. Who knows? Perhaps you'll be able to come to one someday.

Haha, thanks Misty! ^^ We'd be honored to have you attend. Stay in touch!

You betcha! ^^7

 

Goodness, it'd be nice to take part in something like this! I do plan on going to university in the US in 2015, so hopefully I could join in if you end up hosting it then, as well! Apart from that, I'll just have to watch from the sidelines like Phoenixkh93, haha.

Also, in that group photo, I love how the Zexion cosplayer is the tallest. Ironically fitting.