A Day in the Life: Theater District Merchandise

Theater District Merchandise is honestly one of the best merchandise locations you can get as a College Program participant in my opinion! It encompasses Frozen Fractals, Indiana Jones Outpost, Indiana Jones Truck (which we call Indy Truck), Tatooine Traders (my personal favorite), It's A Wonderful Shop, and Stage One. Frozen Fractals, Indy Truck, and Outpost are all close-ish, while Tatooine is kind of its own thing since it's also the exit for Star Tours. Wonderful Shop and Stage One are right next to each other! Theater District is kind of like little groupings of small shops and then the solitary large ones.

There are a couple different locations you might see on your daily schedule. If you have Tatooine Traders, Wonderful Shop, Indy Outpost, or Stage One, you'll most likely be there your entire shift. If you have "Loop" listed, you'll rotate between the smaller areas. If you have a loop shift, you'll be in one location for a couple hours and then someone will come to bump you to the next place. If you're on the Loop, there's a higher chance of being alone. If you're in Indy Outpost or Wonderful Shop, it's pretty much guaranteed you'll be working alone. At Tatooine and Stage One, you'll always be with a lot of other people. Being alone sounds scary, but you'll spend most of your early shifts in one of the big shops learning the ropes before they send you out.

Another thing to keep in mind is that most of our locations are based around different shows and attractions, which is why we're called the Theater District. The Indy stores are based around the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular, Tatooine Traders is Star Tours and Jedi Training, Stage One is Muppets 3D Vision, and Frozen Fractals has the Frozen Sing-Along. All of the locations have a pretty reliable ebb and flow of guests as the shows happen: for example, Tatooine Traders often gets pretty busy every time the ride lets out, and calms down just in time to prep for the next set of people. None of our locations get too dull!

Because we're busy, the shifts tend to move a lot faster in my opinion. All of my shifts were between six and eight and a half hours, and I'd work five days a week with two off regularly. On a six hour shift, I would get one fifteen minute break. On an eight hour shift, I would get a half-hour lunch break and then a fifteen minute break. One of the break room locations is right behind Tatooine, and if you're in Theater District that's where you'll eat. It doesn't have food options besides the vending machine and a little store that's open limited hours, so I always packed a lunch!

The part that everyone is most interested in: costumes! In all your locations, you'll wear black shoes without contrasting logos and white or black socks. For my shoes, I got a pair of black Nikes with a black sole and logo, and it was perfectly fine. If you're wearing long pants, you'll wear black socks, and if you're wearing socks, you'll wear white. Other standard costume additions you'll have are your pin bag and Disney-Issued water bottle.

For any stores on the Loop, plus Stage One, you'll wear what's been nicknamed the blueberry costume: for gals, it's a blue button up shirt, blue hat, and a yellow necktie. The shirt is tucked into black knee-length shorts or into black pants with a belt. For guys, it's the same except you don't have the necktie, and rock bright yellow suspenders instead. The guy shirt has kind of a deep v-neck on it, so some guys wear undershirts.

Tatooine and Wonderful Shop are the only two with specific themed costumes. Tatooine Traders is obviously a Star Wars shop, so we wear light gray pants with orange stripes down the side. The top is mostly navy blue, with black shoulders and silver/orange patches. It's a very Star Wars vibe, but it's hot! The shirt is made of a really thick material, and the pants are long. We're inside, but keep in mind the front entrance is always completely open.

Wonderful Shop has a white cap, a long sleeved blouse with lace on it, and a long red skirt. It's very festive! I didn't work a shift there ever so I unfortunately don't have pictures to share. I actually haven't seen a male equivalent costume, sorry boys! That will have to be a surprise.

The costume for Tatooine Traders! My friend took this after shop close one night, and what better way to commemorate working in a Star Wars shop than while holding Obi-Wan's lightsaber?

The blueberry costume, featuring part of my bathroom at Vista Way! The older version of the costume has the black and white edging on the sleeve, while the newer shirts don't.

There are several different shift types, but I won't get too deep into any of them now since they'll cover that in training. In all of your locations, know you won't necessarily do the same thing all day. I spent most of my shifts in Tatooine Traders, so I'll use that as my example. During a normal shift, I have been everything from Jedi Guest Assistant (greeting at the spot where Star Tours empties into the shop and interacting with guests on the floor), to BYO Lightsaber (helping kids and adults build their custom lightsabers), to cashiering. My favorite spot was cashiering because it was fun to get to chat with guests about their purchases, but there's fun things about each role! BYO Lightsaber and Guest Assistant get to merchantain which I loved. Merchantaining is where you sell AND entertain, so we could pick products to play with to get guests interested. My personal favorite was always building my own lightsaber and showing it off.

If you've gotten this far, I've almost certainly overwhelmed you with information. If you only take away one thing, know that you're in an action-packed location that's sure to be a good time! Good luck!