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Photo by Allen Huffman, 2006 Leave A Legacy kiosk at the base of Spaceship Earth |
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It’s between October 1999 and June 2007 at Yester-Epcot. Would you like to be here every day, for at least the next 20 years? You—or at least your face—can be! Just have your photo etched onto a stainless steel Leave A Legacy panel at the entrance to Epcot. |
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At the Epcot Legacy Sculpture, there’s room for around 700,000 one-inch-square photo etchings on 35 sculpted monoliths, ranging from 3 to 19 feet tall. Don’t worry; they won’t put your photo on the really high part of a tall monolith, so you won’t need a ladder to see it. Learn how the program works at a kiosk at the base of Spaceship Earth. There are two other kiosks in the park. |
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Photo by Allen Huffman, 2006 Epcot Entrance Plaza fountain |
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Here’s how the Epcot 2000 Commemorative Program describes this opportunity: LEAVE A LEGACY Throughout history, people have marked important events with special, unique creations or by dedicating something meaningful to them. At Leave A Legacy, located just inside Epcot® on the west side of the Main Entrance turnstiles, you, your family, friends, and loved ones can leave a personal record of how you celebrated the new millennium at Walt Disney World®. Leave A Legacy was created by Walt Disney lmagineering as a tribute to this milestone occasion. It is both a work of art and a family album where guests can mark their moment in time in the form of a one-inch square digital photograph etched on a commemorative metallic tile mounted on the beautifully sculpted Leave A Legacy granite monoliths. Single and dual image tiles are available. Visit the Leave A Legacy information kiosks near the base of Spaceship Earth, on the bridge between Future World and World Showcase, and at American Adventure in World Showcase for more information. Don’t miss this unique opportunity to create a special reminder of how you celebrated this historic moment at Walt Disney World®. Are you ready to create a timeless memory? |
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Photo by Werner Weiss, 2002 To the Photo Capture Stations |
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Photo by Chris Bales, 2006 “GET READY TO BECOME A PART OF THE FUTURE AT EPCOT!” |
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Go to one of the five Photo Capture Stations on the Epcot Entrance Plaza to snap your photo. The price is $35 for one person or $38 for two faces on the same photo. The maximum is two faces per etching. Let’s say you want your family of five enshrined as part of the Epcot Legacy Sculpture. You’ll need at least three squares. If Junior gets an individual photo, the other two kids will probably want one too. So now you’re looking at four. |
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Photo by Werner Weiss, 2007 Examples of etchings |
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If you’re in a relationship that might not last for at least 20 years, you should think twice about Leave A Legacy. Once your photo etching is in place, there’s no option to remove it. |
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Leave A Legacy began as part of Walt Disney World’s Millennium Celebration, the 15-month-long party at Epcot which ran from October 1, 1999, to January 1, 2001. |
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Photo by Werner Weiss, 2007 Cradling Spaceship Earth |
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The photo above makes the Epcot Legacy Sculpture look nice. A bed of flowers leads the eye to Spaceship Earth, cradled in the monument. But that’s not what guests saw when they entered Epcot. |
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Photo by Werner Weiss, 2007 Typical view after entering through a turnstile |
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The Epcot entrance turnstiles (and later the entrance touchpoints) were on the sides, while the exits are in the middle. Entering guests faced a collection of hard granite monoliths with hard steel plaques rising from the hard concrete plaza, all arranged as if to block guests behind row after row of barriers. The result was that Epcot had an entrance that came across as cold and uninviting, in stark contrast to the entrances at the other Walt Disney World parks—the grand nostalgia of Magic Kingdom Park, the intimate charm of bygone Hollywood at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and the lush greenery of Disney’s Animal Kingdom. |
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Photos by Allen Huffman, 1996 (top) and 2001 (bottom) Before (top) and after (bottom) Leave A Legacy |
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The Epcot Legacy Sculpture was often likened to a graveyard of monumental tombstones, a mausoleum, or a war memorial. There was some landscaping in the center of the plaza and around its edge, but not between the rows of monoliths. The idea behind Leave A Legacy, as reported in the Fall 1999 issue of Disney Magazine, was that guests could document the moment they “crossed into the new millennium” by “becoming one of the more than 700,000 steel-etched visages that forever, or for the foreseeable future anyway, will grace the Epcot Entrance Plaza.” These digital etchings would be mounted on a sculptural monument that was “designed to resemble foothills or rock outcroppings and appearing to cradle the looming form of Spaceship Earth.” |
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Photo by Chris Bales, 2005 Explaining the Monument—with a quote from Walt Disney |
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The Millennium Celebration ended with plenty of blank space left on the monoliths. Leave A Legacy sales continued, just without the millennium angle. Leave A Legacy sales finally ended June 16, 2007, despite enough unsold space for at least another 150,000 photos. The information kiosks and the Photo Capture Stations were removed, but the monoliths stayed. Among Disney fans in the early 21st century, the Epcot Legacy Sculpture competed with the Sorcerer Mickey Hat at Disney’s Hollywood Studios as the most hated eyesore at Walt Disney World. (Both are now gone.) Both had their fans too, especially among Leave A Legacy customers or those who have never seen the Studios park without the hat. Disney sold around 550,000 Leave A Legacy etchings over the course of almost eight years, and many of those buyers liked to visit their photos every time they went to Epcot. |
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Photo by Werner Weiss, 2007 Polished granite monoliths |
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Photo by Werner Weiss, 2007 No images above eye level |
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Photo by Allen Huffman, 2006 Mighty monoliths |
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The Epcot Legacy Sculpture was designed by the Disney Legend John Hench (1908-2004), working with a team of Walt Disney Imagineering interns. It was the last major Imagineering project for Hench, who celebrated his 60th year with Disney in 1999. That raises the question of why such a distinguished and revered Imagineer would want to fill the Epcot Entrance Plaza with giant granite slabs decorated with itty-bitty digital etchings on sheets of stainless steel. The answer is that it was a decision by executives to make money from the plaza in front of Spaceship Earth. Hench and his team were then brought in to design the monument. With its bold angles and sweeping form, it was a far better monument than it might have been in the hands of a lesser designer. Imagine if it had been a series of identical, rectangular walls. |
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Photo by Allen Huffman, 2006 Some monoliths fully populated with small photos of loyal Disney customers |
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Photo by Allen Huffman, 2018 Still there in 2018 |
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The paperwork that Leave A Legacy customers received included language indicating that Disney could replace or relocate the “image and/or sculpture” anywhere within Walt Disney World at any time. After an image has been up for 20 years, it could be removed permanently. The last etchings were added in 2007, so it seemed unlikely that that anything would change before 2027. On February 21, 2019, Disney announced that we would not have to wait until 2027 after all. A multi-year transformation of Epcot would include a new Entrance Plaza. |
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artist concept only © Disney Concept art for an updated Entrance Plaza at Epcot |
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Disney provided a long caption for the concept art: “In this artist rendering, a new Entrance Plaza in development at Epcot will greet guests with new pathways, sweeping green spaces and a reimagined fountain. This design will pay homage to the original park entrance with fresh takes on classic elements.” A closer look at the rendering showed what Disney meant by “homage to the original park entrance.” Instead of being dominated by granite slabs rising from concrete, the entrance would once again be a welcoming garden space filled with planters, trees, paths, banners with a logo similar to the original EPCOT Center logo, and even a fountain topper in the tradition of the three-part acrylic glass sculpture that had been eliminated for Leave A Legacy. |
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Photo by Werner Weiss, 2019 Turning the concept into a reality, November 2019 |
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In May 2019, construction walls went up, and work on the removal of the Epcot Legacy Sculpture began. The theme park that had previously been branded as EPCOT Center, Epcot ’94, Epcot ’95, and Epcot was being transformed into EPCOT (all caps). Disney’s 2019 announcement included a description of what would happen to the guest photos: “As part of this new entry experience, Leave A Legacy photos will move into a beautiful setting just outside the park’s gateway.” It took until February 2021 for an entirely new Leave a Legacy area to open outside the main entrance, on the opposite side from the Monorail station. |
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Photo by Werner Weiss, 2024 Replacement Leave a Legacy area |
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Neither the granite monoliths nor the old steel photo panels made the move. According to Disney publicity, the heaviest monolith weighed more than 50,000 pounds—not something easy to relocate. An entirely new design features narrow, consistently-sized panels, with the photos etched onto a colorful background pattern. |
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Photo by Werner Weiss, 2024 Explanation of what Leave a Legacy was |
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Photo by Werner Weiss, 2024 Backgrounds that are no longer just gray steel |
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Disney kept its obligation to Leave A Legacy customers, whose photos are now organized and displayed in a way that makes them easier to find. Despite Disney’s investment in renewing Leave a Legacy, sales of “timeless memories” did not resume. |
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Photo by Werner Weiss, 2024 Spaceship Earth in 2024 |
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Photo by Werner Weiss, 2024 Fountain topper in 2024 |
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Guests now enjoy a more inviting main entrance to EPCOT. It’s still dominated by John Hench’s work—but it isn’t the Epcot Legacy Sculpture he was asked to design. It’s once again his brilliant, majestic Spaceship Earth. |
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© 2024 Werner Weiss — Disclaimers, Copyright, and Trademarks Updated February 23, 2024 |
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