Stitch Encounter is an interactive show located in Walt Disney Studios Park (under the name Stitch Live!), and in Tomorrowland at Tokyo Disneyland and Shanghai Disneyland Park. The first edition of the show at Hong Kong Disneyland was closed on May 2, 2016, to make room for Star Wars: Command Post, although it temporarily returned to Hong Kong in 2019 for a limited time as a "Magic Access Members"-exclusive event.[1]
The attraction employs both real-time animation and digital puppetry. Stitch Encounter consists of an unscripted, real-time conversation between park guests and the animated character Stitch from Disney's Lilo & Stitch franchise. The attraction, which opened in July 2006, was part of a three-attraction expansion of Hong Kong’s Tomorrowland. It is located adjacent to the entrance of Space Mountain. The attraction offers shows in different languages depending on the locale: Cantonese, English, and Mandarin in the original Hong Kong version (Cantonese only for the 2019 event),[1] French and English at Disneyland Paris, Japanese at Tokyo Disneyland, and Mandarin in Shanghai. Show times are available at the entrance of the attraction and each show has a length of approximately 15 minutes.
On July 1, 2021, following Disneyland Paris' reopening, Walt Disney Studios Park announced that the attraction is set to become part of Studio D.
Attraction description
Guests are seated in a movie theater-like room, called the Space Traffic Control. Children are then encouraged to sit up front, on the floor, so that Stitch can see them during the show. At the start of the show, the host of the Space Traffic Control requests the computer to search for an available spacecraft captain to talk to; the computer connects to the spacecraft that Stitch is in. After that, guests (both children and adults) in the Space Traffic Control are randomly chosen by Stitch to interact with. Stitch can interact with guests in many ways such as chatting, singing them a song with his ukulele and even taking their pictures. Stitch looks, moves and sounds much like he does in the films and Lilo & Stitch: The Series, complete with corresponding facial expressions, gestures, and vocals (which the hidden actor performing him delivers in a mimicry of that used by the character's creator and original voice actor, Chris Sanders). At the conclusion of the show, the audience aids Stitch in his escape from Captain Gantu (Kevin Michael Richardson).
