Last Friday, Ana and I headed over to Disneyland for the first night of the new nighttime "elecTRONica" party - a replacement for the more recent GlowFest which had previously taken over California Adventure's Hollywood Backlot. I was looking forward to several of the exclusive events taking place, but did "elecTRONica" live up to the hype?

We arrived at the park at 6pm - 45 minutes before the planned opening ceremony. Immediately we noticed a lot more people than normal entering California Adventure. ElecTRONica is a great way for them to draw people into the neighboring park while Disneyland closes at 7pm for the Mickey's Halloween Trick or Treat Party. There was a large crowd already in attendance for this event, and everyone was gathered around the Tron stage set up around the hub.



While everyone waited, the speakers played Daft Punk's "Discovery" album - which ties in perfectly since Daft Punk scored the soundtrack to the upcoming Tron Legacy film. Performers dressed as combatants within the world of Tron enticed kids to try out the light-up hoola-hoop. Things finally got started around 6:50. The preshow started with highlights from the original movie on the large screen set to Journey's "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)". Feux arcade machines popped up on stage, and a bunch of performers dressed in 80's clothes did a choreographed dance. It was a bit cheesy, and while it was a great nod to the "way things were before", it was too long and a little embarrassing to watch...

Jump to 2010 - the arcade machines spun around to reveal the NEW world of Tron - the Tron that we knew has evolved. New performers took to the stage, displaying choreographed fight moves while a glimpse at the new movie was shown above.



A robotic female narrated how the world has changed, and said that with the evolution of the games within the world of Tron, there has also been a need for "Users" to relax. Enter: the End of the Line Club. Our host for "elecTRONica" took to the stage, along with several female dancers. He did his best to smooth talk the crowd in order to hype us up for what "awaited us beyond." It was still a little cheesy, and based on what I heard people around me saying, the crowd had a unanimous "let's get going already" feeling. Eventually the host led us all in a countdown before the gamegrid world came to life. Once we reached zero, a giant laser hanging under the Hollywood Backlot archway came to life and "digitized" us. It was the first sign that the event itself was going to be a massive marketing endeavor, and in all serious: it was pretty awesome.





We made our way through the main street of the backlot, and ominous music played throughout. Projections of the gamegrid world took over all of the buildings, and Light Cycles whizzed around us. Around the corner heading to Monsters Inc was where the REAL party was. After passing underneath one of the Recognizers from Tron (which scanned us and permitted us to enter), suddenly dance music filled the streets, and the ominous feeling faded away giving way to over the top indulgence. Ana decided we should head into the Muppet Vision theater first, since they were going to be showing a 3D "sneak peak" of Tron Legacy.



The queue actually led us into the exit of Muppet Vision, and we were in the first group to head in and experience it. On screen was the film logo, which drenched the theater in blue - it was an easy transition and immediately made me cast my feelings of "but this is supposed to be the Muppet theater" aside.



The sneak peak was about 8 minutes in length, and showed longer clips from the first few moments within the movie. I was already excited for the movie, and while this furthered my excitement to see it in December, it did a better job of setting the mood for the night than the opening ceremony did earlier.

We exited the theater and headed into another world. It was California Adventure...but it just didn't feel like it. Glowfest did a great job of bringing along a party vibe - but I still felt like I was at an amusement park. This event was something else entirely. They clearly put as much as they could into this, and the entire area was transformed completely. I had never seen this area of the park with more than a handful of people at once, so to see it this full and alive was great.

Our next stop was what I anticipated the most: Flynn's Arcade.



As we headed over there however, our attention was diverted...by...

LASERMAN!



After exiting the first showing of the sneak peak, we passed a high-rise DJ stage complete with a hanging futuristic chandelier, and heard the host from earlier announcing that LaserMan was about to perform.



People earlier had joked about their reason for coming was to see LaserMan, but I think that everyone was secretly looking forward to this. While it seemed ridiculous at first, we were both won over by his show. It was unlike anything I had ever seen, and was worth the few minutes it lasted. His show really made the opening dance act seem like a trainwreck in comparison, as his performance was well thought-out and choreographed to awe the crowd (which it did).

Now, where was I...oh yes! We need to go to Flynn's Arcade!



Right outside (near the exit of the Monster's Inc ride) was the End of the Line Club. It's a smaller version than the one built earlier this year for the San Diego Comic Con, but it still did well functioning as a lounge area as well as a bar (the crowd of people on the rightside of the picture is actually the line to get drinks).



Around the entrance of Flynn's Arcade were Wii kiosks set up (complete with Tron theming), in which people take the upcoming Tron game for a test drive. While it didn't interest me, the Wii game was pretty popular.







(The area above the "FLYNN" sign was a changing projection that would alternate between a facade of Flynn's Arcade and a gamegrid world skyline)





The highlight definitely was the arcade. Modeled to resemble the arcade from the first Tron film, this arcade is filled with 37 classic coin-op games (and while Disney boasts that each of these games was period specific, there were several from the late 80's). At the back of the wall was the actual "TRON" game, which gathered a huge group of onlookers.







The great thing that Disney has done with this arcade is provide an abundance of machines while also making them playable for only $0.25! I wasn't able to get tokens at the time - a long line, and one machine had already run out of tokens - but Disney has exclusive TRON tokens for this event.

(for an in-depth look at each arcade machine, head on over to: Classic Games at Flynn's Arcade)

After exiting Flynn's, we headed over to the other side of the park for some bread, and then headed back over to elecTRONica to eat it and hang out.



Throughout California Adventure it was packed beyond any capacity that I had ever witnessed. None of the annual passes were blacked out, and again due to Disneyland closing early, it was pretty apparent that California Adventure had many factors playing into it's success for the night. Overall I would have to say that Disney did an excellent job with elecTRONica. Not only does it capture the feel of the movies well (which does a great job to immerse the guests), it delivers the spectacles that we expect from Disney rather than the cheapness that came along with GlowFest. We're looking forward to going again and trying out some of those arcade games as soon as we have the chance.

The one thing this has left me thinking about is the poor excuse for an arcade over at Tomorrowland. With games that are heavily dated but missing that nostalgic factor, there really is no reason to visit what's left of that arcade. Once this promotion is over, what's next for Flynn's? Only time can tell...