TRON Lightcycle / Run
Attraction at Magic Kingdom Park | Walt Disney World Resort
© Disney
How do you bring the Grid to life at Walt Disney World Resort?
PROJECT OVERVIEW
TRON Lightcycle / Run is a high-speed attraction that brings the world of TRON into Walt Disney World, inviting guests to enter the Grid and race alongside Team Blue.
The project sits at the intersection of storytelling, technology, design, and physical experience—transforming a digital world into something guests can see, move through, and ultimately ride.
The result was an opportunity to think about TRON not simply as a ride, but as a complete guest experience—one where story, environment, graphics, technology, brand, partnership, and physical space all work together to bring an established world to life in a new way.
DESIGN CHALLENGE
TRON Lightcycle / Run wasn’t a blank canvas.
The experience was part of a much larger storytelling ecosystem. The world of TRON had already been established through the films and brought to life as an attraction at Shanghai Disney Resort. Bringing TRON to Walt Disney World meant building on that existing mythology, visual language, and guest expectations while creating an experience designed specifically for a new park, audience, and physical environment.
The attraction also had to work beyond the ride itself. The queue became an important part of the storytelling journey, introducing guests to the world of the Grid and building anticipation before they ever boarded a Lightcycle.
Adding another layer was the attraction’s corporate alliance with Enterprise. The partnership needed to support business objectives while feeling authentic to the TRON universe and integrated into the guest experience.
The challenge was finding the intersection between an established story, a new physical environment, guest experience, and business objectives—and making all of those pieces feel like they belonged in the same world.
MY ROLE
I developed storytelling and guest experience strategy for the attraction, including the strategy for the queue experience and the integration of Enterprise into the guest journey.
I also reviewed the attraction’s graphics package, considering how visual communication, messaging, and environmental storytelling worked together to support the overall experience.
My work required collaboration across creative, design, technical, and business disciplines to connect the story and strategy to the physical environment.
QUEUE EXPERIENCE STRATEGY
The queue isn’t just the place guests wait for a ride. It’s the first chapter of the experience.
I worked with the Art Director to develop the strategy for how the queue could introduce guests to the world of TRON, build anticipation, establish the narrative, and prepare them for what they were about to experience.
That meant thinking about the queue as part of the larger physical environment—not simply a path to the attraction, but a storytelling space with its own narrative purpose.
The goal was to make the journey to the attraction feel intentional—not like time spent waiting, but time spent entering the story.
PARTNERSHIP INTEGRATION
A corporate alliance has to accomplish two things at once: support the business partnership and belong in the guest experience.
I worked with the Art Director to develop the strategy for incorporating Enterprise into the TRON experience, looking for ways the partnership could feel connected to the attraction’s story and environment rather than appearing as an interruption to it.
The work required balancing brand objectives, partner needs, storytelling, guest experience, and the creative language of the attraction.
ENVIRONMENTAL GRAPHICS
Story doesn’t live only in words.
I reviewed the attraction’s graphics package to help ensure that visual communication supported the narrative, brand, and guest experience.
That meant looking at the work not simply as individual graphics, but as part of a larger physical environment—considering how guests would encounter, interpret, and move through the experience.
The goal was to make every visual element feel like part of the world rather than decoration applied to it.
RESULTS
Helped turn TRON from a ride into a more complete guest experience, extending the story into the queue, graphics, and surrounding environment.
Created a queue strategy that gave guests a reason to lean into the story before they ever boarded a Lightcycle.
Started the conversations that helped find a natural place for Enterprise within the TRON experience—supporting the partnership without making it feel like it was simply dropped into the story.
Helped translate an established world from film and Shanghai Disney Resort into a new Walt Disney World experience while keeping the storytelling cohesive, immersive, and true to TRON.