Surprise!! We’ve been keeping a secret from you all (because we had to!), but now we can finally share the news with you — earlier this year, we got to be part of Disney World’s extra special overnight taping of their Christmas special!

For two nights in a row, we got to be in the parks overnight to watch Disney film their iconic holiday special that comes out each year. In fact, we got to see performances for both their Holiday Special that came out on November 30th, and their special that will come out on Christmas Day, December 25th. But what was filming overnight in the parks actually like? Don’t worry, we documented our whole experience to give you ALL the details!

Filming for this event took place overnight on both October 16th and 17th — yes, THAT early, so they have enough time to edit and put the shows together. This was the very first year media were invited to be part of the event, and we did have permission to take photos once we were stationed at the stage area, as well as what was going on onstage in between takes (but not during filming!).

On night one, we all met outside of the building we were placed in at Port Orleans Riverside at about 4 AM, and everyone from the event was staying in the same building. The best part? Disney parked the Joffrey’s truck RIGHT outside of our building, and when we went to leave for the taping, everyone was allowed to get whatever they’d like from the truck!

We then hopped on event shuttles to head over to Disney’s Hollywood Studios, and when we drove into the parking lot, we noticed tons of landscaping trucks. In front of security, the entire open area outside of security was being pressure-washed, and we also noticed a few spots being pressure-washed inside the park, too. Which makes sense — you want it to look its best on camera! We also saw some agricultural Cast Members trimming the bushes, a few spots were being painted, and we even spotted someone in Galaxy’s Edge who appeared to be cleaning all the light fixtures. That’s when we realized it looked like the whole park had been pressure-washed — talk about impressive! We were taken into Galaxy’s Edge for filming, which was FILLED with people in yellow safety vests working the event. We saw wardrobe coming out of Docking Bay 7, which looked like it was straight out of a movie, and after the team tested the lighting on the Batuu rock spires, it was time to see Good Charlotte!

It was incredible to see this happen in real time! In addition to the band, there were three string instruments and two backup vocalists, and the crowd was smaller than we expected — only around 150 people, but the crew was HUGE. One of our favorite parts was the CO2 special effect, as well as the pyrotechnics that were timed to the music on the second take! We saw two different cameras — a huge boom cam flying in from the back of the crowd, and a steady cam. There was also a worker who would come out and tell us (the audience) what to do at certain points of the song, to make everything look its best for the cameras.

Right after 6 AM, the audience was released for that set, and we waited about 1.5-2 hours for the next set, which was Coco Jones! At 8 AM, we were back in place in the audience, looking right at Coco Jones herself. She didn’t have any rehearsals that we were present for, and it was a very similar setup of shots from the crew. She was singing “Last Christmas,” and had fireworks in some of her takes — we can’t wait to see it on screen, all finished. We were super impressed that the team only did four takes, and that was it — it was very efficient!

That wasn’t all, though — night two took us to Animal Kingdom around 3:30 AM, where the stage was set up right in front of the Tree of Life. Coco Jones was up first singing “Silent Night,” but when we got there, the stage manager was standing in for her, which was a little funny to see.

She sang with a choir, and one of the choir conductors is from the Candlelight Processional! Everything ran very similarly to how it did on night one, but we did learn that the Steady Cam costs more than TWO Teslas, which blew our minds. At the end of the filming, the crew was taking down the set and doing a little filming inside the parks, but guests were routed directly past the shoot, which was pretty neat to see.

We had a great time being part of this event, and really enjoyed seeing the behind-the-scenes of it all. We’ll for sure be watching the special when it comes out on Christmas Day to see how it all came together (and maybe try to see ourselves!). Be sure to stay tuned to DFB for all the latest holiday news inside the Disney World parks this season, and beyond!

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Would you ever want to see behind the scenes of filming like this? Tell us in the comments!