Disney Director Prepares Amway Center for President Nelson’s Visit to Orlando
Contributed By Spencer Williams, Church News contributor
President Nelson will be in Orlando for a ministering visit on June 9. A devotional will take place at the Amway Center, where Latter-day Saints will gather to hear the prophet speak.
Article Highlights
- The coloring, music, and other details will turn the Amway Center into a place for spiritual experiences.
- Malquist recognizes the importance of creating a great space to respect the prophet.
- President Nelson will be visiting the center on June 9 for a devotional.
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In preparation for President Russell M. Nelson’s June 9 ministering visit to Orlando, Florida, Ken Malquist of the Lake Reams Ward is using his gifts and talents for storytelling and stage production to make it the best experience possible for those who come to hear the prophet’s message.
As a show director for Disney Event Group at Walt Disney World, Ken Malquist creates and hosts private events for companies and families who seek an experience only Disney can provide.
“We use all of our creativity, storytelling and technology innovation to help tell their stories—to help them achieve what they’ve come to do, whether it’s a sales meeting or whether it’s an incentive meeting,” Malquist said in an Orange Observer article. “We can provide anything and everything for them, from audiovisual to entertainment to the room decor to special experiences in all the parks.”
With this background, he now has the rare opportunity of transforming the Amway Center from a sports arena into a place for 17,000 people to feel the Spirit and listen to President Nelson.
“Trying to create this arena that normally houses all of these sports experiences—and I was just there for my daughter’s graduation, and they did a wonderful job with that—we need to transform this through the colors, through the music and through the setting and through the visuals that are all on the screens to turn it into an extension of one of our churches or one of our temples,” he said.
Malquist anticipates this experience will have a great impact on those who attend. He hopes that the people who come are uplifted and feel they are changed in some way.
“Imagine getting a call saying that Moses or Noah or Abraham was going to come and speak to people, and you’re being asked to help set that experience up—that’s the level, that’s the joy and the humbleness that we have and the reverence that we have for our modern-day prophet, just like we read in the Bible,” Malquist said. “That’s the magnitude of this.”
Read the full story on the Orange Observer.
