Event Recap: Disney Infinity & GMA Takeover Times Square

If you watch Good Morning America on a regular basis, yesterday you might have noticed that the 8 o’clock hour of the show had a takeover… of the Disney Infinity kind. To celebrate the launch this Sunday (August 30th) of Disney Infinity 3.0, Vice President of Production John Vignocchi (better known to the Disney Infinity community as JV) and some of his Star Wars friends (the newest addition to the franchise) joined Robin Roberts and the team from GMA in Times Square, where Military Island was decked out with a giant Disney Infinity arch and a larger than life Yoda statue.

 

I got there just before 7am to find a small gathering of Disney Infinity fans waiting for the “event” that was scheduled. I think the only major negative about this whole GMA venture was that the event did not go as planned. At 7am, a Disney Infinity rep was supposed to be handing out free figures to guests who walked up showing that they posted a picture on Instagram or Twitter using the hashtag #DisneyInfinityGMA. The first 100 guests who did this were to get a free figure, which ended up being Chewbacca or Yoda. Well, for one reason or another, no rep showed at 7am, so by 7:45ish, members from what looked liked the GMA team, ended up handing out the figures, as well as some Disney Infinity fans and character placards, just out randomly to the crowd, which thanks to the hoopla and flashy lights were mostly made up of men and women who probably knew nothing of Disney Infinity, they just wanted free stuff. It was a scramble, the, to secure a free figure, of which not everyone was successful. I know of this “lovely” woman who was just passing by who got a Yoda figure. How? She snatched it away while the GMA rep was trying to hand it to me three rows back. I already got Yoda (and Chewbacca) at D23, so it wasn’t necessarily important to me. However, this woman was literally in that crowds for, at most, three minutes. She barged in, got a free figure, and then just left. I did end up with a fan and a character placard of Leia (I believe there were eight total), so that was enough for me.

Before taping got underway, I got to spend some time with Frank Soto… who most of you know as “thebaroness89” in the Disney Infinity Community. Frank is one of the top Toy Box Artists out there. During 2.0, Frank created 50 toy boxes, submitted entries to challenges 30 times, and was a featured artist almost every time. I had the opportunity of meeting him for the first time at the Toy Box Summit and D23 a couple of weeks ago, and was happy to see that he came out before his acting auditions to cheer on JV. Also, congrats to Frank and the rest of #TeamHanShotFirst for winning the Toy Box Summit community vote for best Star Tours Themed Toy Box, which they did of the Death Star. For winning, they will join Lauren (aka MightyGitis) as townspeople in Disney Infinity… which means more characters for me to mercifully kick off cliffs again and again.

Finally, after shooting some B-Roll around Times Square, JV came out and did a brief walk through, where they went over what would loosely get done.

Then it was time for the GMA hosts to take to the stage.

Teasing up Disney Infinity

For the actual spot, hosts Robin Roberts and Sara Haines talked about Star Wars joining the Disney Infinity roster before bringing up the man of the hour, JV, who talked about both the Play Set mode as well as the Toy Box mode, which, in my opinion, is a Force to be reckoned with in 3.0 (see what I did there). For those of you that missed it, you can view the video at the GMA website here (due to licencor issues, we cannot embed the video directly here… sorry).

 

 

I was actually surprised that all of this setup went in to a 4 or so minute spot. However, it was great national exposure for the game, and now that reviews are finally rolling in this morning from gaming sites around the world showing that this newest edition of Disney Infinity is going to be a hit… there really is no stopping them, in my humble opinion. One of the cool things that I realized after watching the segment back once I got home was that, for launch, a special Endor themed Good Morning America Toy Box was created, which will be available at launch on Sunday.

After the event, a few of us hung out and waited to see JV, who made it out for a bit before getting to rest of his meetings ahead of flying out that evening on yet another adventure. It was, as always, great seeing him. We reminisced a bit about how much things have changed since 2013, when we randomly met up in a sweaty tent set-up at Taste of Chicago, followed by the launch events in the heart of Times Square, where people didn’t know who he was. Now, here he was signing autographs and taking pictures with fans of the game. Best yet, he has taken it with grace, and I am very proud of him. He has been rocking it, and it shows. Disney Infinity is, by far, the most community interactive and involved company I have had the pleasure of working with as media. Of course, we needed our traditional selfie before he was wisked away to another galaxy far, far away.

All in all, this was a fun event, and I am happy I could have made it down. Yes, it was a very early morning drive into the city, but also meant I was back out and heading home well before noon. Granted, traversing Northern New Jersey towards home during the midday was somewhat of a nightmare, but it could have been worse… I could have spent hours just trying to leave Manhattan via the Lincoln Tunnel.

I would like to thank all of the fans who made it out to the event, especially on the short notice that was given. I would estimate about 20-25 there were true fans of the game actually there and you can tell who they are in the segment… they have the loudest cheers. 🙂

As Disney Infinity 3.0 launches this weekend, you will see that we here at DisKingdom have already, and will continue to, put up unboxing and gameplay videos of the awesome new content 3.0 has in store, and you might even see some reviews. I know first hand that there is a lot to do inside Disney Infinity 3.0, and I personally cannot wait for my Starter Set to arrive.

May your weekend be filled with Infinite Possibilities… and a little bit of Pixie Dust.