When D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event opens in Anaheim on August 14, much of the attention will naturally fall on new movies, television series, attractions and major franchise announcements. Yet across those different areas of Disney entertainment, another creative discipline will repeatedly be present even when it is not explicitly mentioned in the name of a panel: voiceover.
The 2026 event will feature more than 50 panels and presentations alongside Disney’s largest D23 show floor to date. The three headline presentations alone cover Disney Entertainment, Disney Experiences and the Disney Legends, while programming throughout the Anaheim Convention Center stretches across animation, games, theme parks, streaming and decades of Disney history.
Voice actors and animated casts will have a visible presence throughout the weekend, but voice performance reaches considerably further. From characters speaking inside theme-park attractions to interactive performances in games and content distributed around the world, D23 provides an interesting snapshot of just how broad the modern voiceover business has become.
Disney Experiences Extends Storytelling Into Physical Spaces
One of the weekend’s biggest presentations will be Horizons: Disney Experiences Showcase, scheduled for August 15 at the Honda Center and hosted by Neil Patrick Harris. Disney has described the presentation as a look at the stories shaping the future of Disney Experiences around the world, putting parks and other location-based entertainment alongside film and television as one of D23’s major pillars.
For voiceover, themed entertainment creates a very different performance environment from a traditional animated production. Recorded dialogue can become part of an attraction, preshow, queue, character encounter or environmental story. Instead of accompanying a fixed sequence of images, those performances may need to work repeatedly within physical spaces visited by thousands of guests every day.
Disney characters also increasingly move between media. A character established in a movie may subsequently appear in attractions and interactive experiences, where a familiar vocal identity helps connect the physical environment with the story audiences already know. Other projects require narrators, original characters or voices created specifically for an attraction.
The D23 schedule reinforces the importance of this side of Disney’s business. Programming includes presentations devoted to Disney Parks and Imagineering, while the Horizons showcase will provide a much larger look at upcoming Disney Experiences projects. The presentation will also stream live globally on Disney+, extending what was once primarily an in-person parks announcement to audiences well beyond Anaheim.
Games Create Another Home for Character Voices
Interactive entertainment will also have a notable place at D23. Disney’s Entertainment Showcase is expected to cover movies, television, games and live stage productions, while the convention schedule includes dedicated gaming programming such as a Deep Dive into KINGDOM HEARTS.
Games create their own demands for performers. An animated film follows one predetermined sequence, but an interactive story may require dialogue for alternate actions, environmental reactions, combat, exploration and numerous situations that individual players encounter differently. A character who has already appeared in film or television may therefore require an entirely new collection of recorded material when entering an interactive world.
That has made gaming an increasingly important part of the wider voiceover landscape. Disney’s portfolio is particularly useful for illustrating the overlap because its characters and franchises routinely move between media. Players may encounter familiar personalities in console games, mobile titles and large crossover projects long after their original movie or television appearance.
D23’s inclusion of gaming alongside Disney’s major entertainment businesses reflects that broader relationship. Interactive entertainment is no longer isolated from the rest of a franchise, and neither are the performances required to populate those worlds.
Streaming Gives Existing Voices More Places to Return
Disney+ has changed another part of that equation by creating a direct home for new series, revivals, specials, shorts and franchise extensions. It is also becoming part of D23 itself.
Disney has announced that selected presentations from this year’s event will stream globally on Disney+, including the Beauty and the Beast 35th anniversary celebration, Percy Jackson and the Olympians Season 3 panel, Disney Rewind Encore Concert, Horizons: Disney Experiences Showcase, Disney Worldbuilders and the Disney Legends Awards Ceremony.
For voice performers, the significance of streaming extends beyond the convention broadcasts. The expansion of established entertainment properties into streaming creates additional opportunities for characters to return outside traditional theatrical releases. Animated revivals can reunite established casts, while specials and franchise extensions create new recording requirements for characters audiences may have known for years.
D23’s Talent Central lineup demonstrates some of that continuity, with talent associated with The Simpsons, Bob’s Burgers, The Proud Family and Phineas and Ferb scheduled to participate during the weekend.
Those productions span very different periods of television animation, but their continued presence illustrates how a character’s vocal life can extend well beyond the project where audiences first encountered them.
Disney’s Global Audience Creates Another Layer of Performance
There is also an enormous part of Disney voiceover that will receive less attention on the convention floor: localization.
A character recognized by audiences in the United States may have completely different established voices in France, Japan, India, Germany, Brazil or dozens of other markets. Dubbing performers do more than translate dialogue. They have to preserve characterization, comedy and emotional intent while making a performance work naturally within another language and culture.
The increasing international reach of Disney’s streaming platforms makes that work particularly important. Content can now reach multiple markets rapidly, creating demand for localized performances across movies, series and other programming.
D23 itself reflects that expanding reach this year through the decision to stream several major presentations globally. While the convention remains centered in Anaheim, the audiences following Disney’s franchises are anything but local.
For voiceover professionals, that global distribution means a single character can effectively develop multiple parallel vocal identities, each associated with the same stories by audiences in different parts of the world.
A Character’s Voice No Longer Belongs to Just One Production
Taken together, these different parts of Disney’s business demonstrate how dramatically the lifecycle of a character performance can expand.
A voice might originate in an animated film and later continue through a television series, streaming special, video game, theme-park attraction or promotional production. The same character can simultaneously require entirely different performers for localized versions around the world.
Not every character follows that path, and not every Disney production retains the same performer when moving between formats. But the sheer number of places where characters now appear has broadened what franchise voiceover can encompass.
That makes D23 particularly interesting from an industry perspective. Disney organizes its headline presentations around Entertainment, Experiences and its wider creative legacy, yet voice performance regularly crosses those boundaries rather than remaining confined to one division.
When D23 begins on August 14, the biggest headlines will likely concern new projects and the future of familiar franchises. For the voiceover industry, however, the event also provides a useful view of where performances are being used today.
Animation remains an important part of that world, but it is only one part. Games need characters to react to players. Attractions need voices to inhabit physical environments. Streaming gives established properties new ways to continue. Localization brings those performances to audiences around the globe.
D23 2026 therefore offers more than a collection of voice actor appearances. It demonstrates how deeply voiceover has become embedded across the modern entertainment ecosystem, often appearing in places where audiences may never stop to think about the performer behind the voice.
