Event Recap: 3 Great Things from Disney Consumer Products' “First-to-School: In Full Color” at Color Factory NYC

Plus, Disney is making back-to-school time fun with several new items.

This past Wednesday, Disney Consumer Products turned Color Factory NYC (typically an immersive and interactive art playground for curious kids) into a Disney-themed hour of delightful discovery. The event was meant to spotlight DCP's upcoming preschool products, which will be available pretty much everywhere, from Walmart to Amazon, etc. As you can imagine, these items had a focus on recent movie and show titles, like Toy Story 5 and Spider-Man, with a healthy dose of Star Wars, the Fab Five, and more.

I was also able to bring my 6 and 3-year-old girls to this event, allowing me to share their joy and experience it through their tiny little lenses (in my youngest’s case, actual lenses, as she wears very Daisy-inspired glasses).

With that, here were “Three Great Things” from the event, along with photos of the merchandise items themselves.

A Wonderful Time for Kids

Each room had a great mix of play and discovery, centered around a merchandise offering, and plenty of photo ops. The DCP team, who I have worked extensively with before, have a keen eye on detail — like having plenty of Disney character plushies in the ball pit as kids gleefully slide down and make a big splash, Disney themed snacks to keep their bellies full and faces smiling, as well as hidden Mickey’s on the “Back to School” chalkboards (which my kids willingly added to… which the team nicely allowed).

At the end of the tour, everyone got to make their own “first-to-school” kit, complete with choice of backpack, lunch bag, water bottles, trinkets and more. Both of my kids had this overwhelming sense of “oh wow, look at this!” in every new room they walked into — it was fun to experience this joy with them. They were so grateful for their unbelievable haul (which also included Play-Doh sets, a “pack your own lunch” pack and a few books) that they asked the Disney rep at the end of the activation for a hug. She happily obliged. It was adorable.


Story Time with an Author

My favorite room, as the parent who really wants both of his kids to read more, was the story time room. Aside from “5-minute Stitch Stories”, which my kids have already devoured (happy dad!), they were treated to a book called “Lilibet makes a friend”, written by Kersten Hamilton, who was sitting in a chair in the room waiting to read the book to them!

I felt bad because they were constantly interrupting pages with their cute little curious questions, which Kersten happily answered. My oldest asked about the illustrations, and I could see her eyes twinkle — she loves to draw and her first “This is what I want to be when I grow up” seed might have been planted in that moment. They probably would have spent a lot of more time in that room (“Yay!” says dad) if not for hearing that the ball pit was right next door (“Boo!” says dad)

The Fun Merch Themes

I noticed a lot of “varsity” vibe with some of the clothes, especially the cute “letter” jackets that had Mickey and Minnie patches and numbers. Spidey had a great recognizable blue/red colorway going with his shirts. My youngest was all over the “Greetings from the Frontier” Jessie shirt, her new favorite character.

Speaking of Toy Story 5, IMO the most clever toy was the Lilypad powered by Leapfrog, who make excellent educational toys. A collab that hits and the games were enjoyable for my 3-year-old.

Overall, an epic way to spend 90 minutes for the kids, and it definitely got them excited about the product launches (and, again, the unreal amount of goodies they got!)