How Disneyland’s Cast Members Work Behind the Scenes to Create Magic for the Holidays: ‘Storytelling Is a Centerpiece to Everything We Do at the Company’

In a 400,000 square-foot warehouse in Cerritos, Disney cast members create magic.

It’s the facility where cast members create decor for the park — right now they are putting the finishing touches on Halloween and have already started winter holiday-scapes — fix everything from restaurant appliances to the iconic spinning teacups; it’s where signs get fresh coats of paint and carousel horses receive tender loving care. The facility houses machine shops, fabrication shops, a sewing team, a paint shop, and all kinds of skilled professionals who keep Disneyland beautiful and running efficiently.

And all the creativity and skill behind the decor and park enhancement is there to serve the storytelling. “Storytelling is a centerpiece to everything we do at the company, and particularly in how we approach our business. We always approach it story-first,” says 21-year veteran Phil Rahn, director, resort enhancement & horticulture. “Whatever we put in, whatever we design, whatever we create, there has got to be a reason for it.”

Tristen Tierney, associate project manager, resort enhancement (9 years at Disneyland), told his parents that he wanted to work at Disneyland when he was “11 or 12” and had already spent a couple years documenting the park’s decor, and deconstructing it to figure out what made it “elevated,” he tells Variety.