Disney confirmed after a few days of speculation that all existing exhibits inside Innoventions West at Epcot will be closing. The expected closing date is April 30th.

While it isn’t rare for Innoventions exhibits to close and be replaced, the last time that the entire pavilion or a whole side of it was shut down was when it was converted from Communicore to Innoventions in 1994.

We are also led to believe this has been in the works for a long time now as replacements for the now long-closed Velcro, Segway, and Rockin’ Robots exhibits never materialized, even after years of vacancy in those space. Where’s the Fire, IBM Think, and the Great Piggybank Adventure will now follow suit.

“We’ve reached the end of our sponsorship agreements with the exhibitors in Innoventions West and will temporarily close the space in early May to begin preparing for a new experience.” – Disney spokeswoman earlier today, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

Innoventions at Disneyland is closing permanently at the end of March 2015, so is Innoventions West at Epcot coming back, or is this the start of something else planned for the park? Now, it is possible they are just taking this opportunity to remodel the space before new tenants move in (the last time this happened was 1999), but it seems odd at a time when Disney is often hard-pressed to find sponsors for Epcot attractions. We will just have to wait and see…

Tom Corless