Festival of the Lion King

Festival of the Lion King: show at Disney's Animal Kingdom Theme Park, Walt Disney World — showtimes, live status, and planning data on MouseHub.

Visitor sentiment

4.8· 1,906 Google ratings

Visitors say this show features impressive acrobatics, beautiful dancing, and talented singers performing songs from the movie, including "Can You Feel the Love Tonight". They also highlight the show's engaging audience participation and captivating performers, particularly the red ballet bird.

Summarized with Gemini · Report summary

The MouseHub take

Festival of the Lion King is a 40-minute stage show in the Harambe Theatre, in the Africa section of Disney's Animal Kingdom. Disney sells it on songs, pageantry, and puppetry, and the staging is theater in the round: singers work a central platform while tumblers, aerialists, and a fire knife dancer come at the audience from the floor. The show opened in 1998 across the park in Camp Minnie-Mickey, using float units left over from Disneyland's Lion King Celebration parade, and moved here in 2014.

Plan it as an afternoon block. The theater is enclosed and cold, the seating is deep enough that a long standby line empties into one performance, and 40 minutes off your feet counts for a lot by hour six in the park. Adults come out talking about the vocals. Kids come out doing the animal noises the cast drilled into them before the lights went down. The people who leave unhappy wanted a quiet sit-down or the movie's plot, and the show delivers neither: the volume stays up, the cast keeps working the crowd, and the story stays in the background.

At a glance

Best for
Families who want 40 air-conditioned minutes off their feet, and anyone who will trade a ride for live singing this good.
Skip if
Loud, high-energy productions wear you out, or being asked to make animal noises in front of a full theater sounds like a bad time.
Ride type
Indoor stage show in a theater in the round
Intensity
Low. Loud music throughout, a fire knife routine, and short dips in the house lights.

The good

  • The air conditioning does half the work
    The theater is enclosed and cold, which makes this one of the few places in Animal Kingdom to sit out the worst of the afternoon. Forty minutes out of the Florida heat buys you the rest of the day.
  • The singers hold the whole thing up
    Visitors come out talking about the vocals ahead of anything else in the show. The leads sing the songs live, and it lands with adults who walked in expecting something pitched at kids.
  • The tumble monkeys steal it
    Acrobats in monkey costumes take over the stage and pull the loudest reaction in the building. Kids who drifted off during the ballads come back for this.
  • The fire knife routine wakes the room up
    Disney lists fire knife performances among the acts, and it plays as the sharpest few minutes of the run. Nobody checks their phone through it.
  • A long line clears in one go
    The theater seats a large crowd at once, so a queue that looks hopeless usually empties into the next performance. The wait is about catching the right show rather than standing for an hour.

The bad

  • The line bakes in the sun
    Most of the standby queue runs outside with nothing overhead. On a July afternoon you do that wait in full sun before you reach the cold air.
  • The cast will call on you
    Before the show starts, cast members split the theater into animal sections and drill each one on its noise. Adults who would rather watch than join in find it a long few minutes.
  • Lightning Lane gets you in, not up front
    A pass secures a seat at that performance and nothing more. The view from a Lightning Lane seat is the same one standby gets.
  • It doesn't tell the story
    The show is a celebration built around the songs rather than a retelling of the film. Guests who came for the plot get a run of production numbers instead.
  • Bench seating gets tight
    Cast members slide parties along the bleachers to fill each row, so you spend 40 minutes shoulder to shoulder with strangers.

Veteran tips

  • Check the showtimes on this page
    The show runs a set number of times a day and the schedule moves with the season, so the showtimes on this page are the ones to plan around. Disney also warns that seating is limited and not guaranteed with park admission.
  • Get in line before the posted start
    The theater fills from the front of the queue. Turn up at the posted time and you are waiting for the next performance instead.
  • Don't spend a Lightning Lane pick here
    Animal Kingdom has no tier split on Multi Pass, so your three picks come from one list, and Expedition Everest and Kilimanjaro Safaris are on it. Standby seats a theater this size without much of a wait.
  • Take the first show or the last one
    The earliest performance and the final one draw the smallest crowds. Midday is when the theater fills and the overflow waits outside for the next one.
  • Sit low if you want the interaction
    The front rows put you closest to the performers working the floor, which is where small kids want to be. Higher rows trade that for a cleaner view of the whole stage.
  • Wheelchairs and ECVs stay put
    Disney lists this as May Remain in Wheelchair/ECV, so nobody in your party transfers to a bench to watch.
  • Sort out accessibility services first
    Disney lists sign language, handheld captioning, and assistive listening for this show. Confirm what is running on the day if someone in your party needs one.

MouseHub editorial, written from visitor reports and official Disney sources. Last reviewed .

Sources