As you may or may not know, I was one of the lucky people who got to attend the D23 Expo when it rolled around this year. I had tons of fun, and even though we had to wait in line, we got into some panels we really wanted to see! But hey, that’s not what this article is about — it’s about all the free things I was able to get my hands on throughout the weekend!
Let’s start with the ‘basics’: the first day you scan yourself in (you were able to do that now — badges were RFID enabled!), you were encouraged to grab both an event guide and a lanyard, so those were the first two free goodies up for grabs! The event guide had a timetable for every official event that was going on within the convention, as well as general information about the expo, information about the show floor, and an entire floor plan. Not shown: a reusable bag with the D23 2019 logo on one side and an ad for Disney+ on the other side.
Moving on to things we got from the big panels we attended! We were lucky enough to attend the Disney+ panel, and not only was that an amazing panel to be at (I almost lost my voice screaming at the surprise guests, oops!), but we also got a hat and a pin. Which, ouch — that we love you 3000 one really got me! And who doesn’t love a good hat?
The next big panel we were fortunate enough to get into was the Parks, Experiences and Products panel on Sunday! Here they revealed some pretty cool stuff that’s happening in and around the parks over the course of the next two years, showed us that Target is now going to have in-store Disney Stores (goodbye, money!) and at the end some kids from the make-a-wish foundation came out and gave some of us a good cry! After the panel, however, we all received a little bag with a $10 Target gift card, an exclusive Avengers pin (since Avengers Campus is coming to California and Paris!) and a little button with Target’s mascot, Bullseye.
At the Music Emporium, we also got multiple things. With my purchase (I got the Moana picture disk so I could meet Auli’i Cravalho!), I got a button from the Music Emporium and a CD with recordings of Walt himself. When we came back the day after to meet Auli’i, they were also handing out more buttons and stickers, both for the ‘For Scores’ podcast!
We stumbled upon the Gameloft stand and there we were given 6 sets of stickers, a button, and a Stitch fan; something we desperately needed that day as it was pretty warm both inside and out!
We had to wait a little bit before we could queue up for the Haunted Mansion panel on Saturday, and since the expo Emporium was so close to that, we decided to take a little stroll there! At the WDW Radio/Mouse Fan Travel stand, we noticed you could sign up for a Mystery Giveaway, and who doesn’t want that? As we were signing up, the lovely ladies at the booth gave us these two freebies; a bag and a webcam protector! We didn’t win the giveaway, but at least we got these two free things!
This brings me to my last picture; the miscellaneous stuff! This is stuff we got all over the expo, and from left to right, I’ll talk about each item a little bit.
Top left corner is the cutest little Stitch enamel pin that we got from BoxLunch! Every day, BoxLunch did an enamel pin giveaway to the first 200 people every day, and on Saturday, we were part of the lucky few! We were actually the very first few people in line, so we really did get very lucky!
Underneath that is actually the first freebie we got! It’s a lanyard with the DisneyAspire 1 Year logo.
Moving on, we have a picture of Mickey that is actually a little flyer for the Walt Disney Family Museum, but when we passed that stand, they told us Eric Goldberg (animator, voice actor and director) was signing autographs and taking pictures with people, so I got my little flyer signed and took a picture with him!
To the right of that, you might notice a little button of Sven! We got this at the Frozen 2 statue of Anna and Elsa, where they were handing these out.
Another fan was given to us while strolling through the expo Emporium! This one was given to us by the people of the Disneyana Fan Club.
On that fan, there’s another pin! This one is a pin we got at the Hulu stand, where they were displaying multiple props from different Hulu series. The pin says ‘better ruins everything’.
And last but not least: after seeing the entire ‘Heroes & Villains: the Art of the Disney Costume’ exhibit (which was really, really cool; you might’ve seen our livestream on Instagram Elizabeth did!), we walked out of the exhibit and were given bookmarks, which displayed some of the costumes, by the cast members!
Alright, folks, that was really everything I got for free at D23! I hope you enjoyed reading this post, and if you got something for free at D23 I missed out on, please leave a comment below or tweet us @BoardwalkTimes on Twitter!
Iris Nijholt is a Columnist for the Boardwalk Times
