It’s 4 a.m. on an unseasonably frigid morning in Orlando, Florida. Thousands of people are milling about, getting ready to run the Walt Disney World 5K. In most cases, you’d expect to see at least a few grumpy faces, maybe hear a grumble or two from those feeling too cold, or sleepy, or uninspired to run over three miles before the sun even rises. And yet, that’s not the case at all. The only people who aren’t smiling ear to ear are the ones chatting excitedly with friends — or, even more commonly, singing along to the catchy tunes blasting over the loudspeaker.
That’s the magic of a runDisney event. And one of the people whose job it is to make that magic is Mark Ferrera. “It’s really fun and I’m very lucky,” Ferrera tells Her Campus about his job in an exclusive interview.
As the show director for runDisney — the division of the Walt Disney Company that puts on races at the Disney theme parks — Ferrera oversees all things entertainment at these events, from the pre-race music and presentations to the performances that are placed throughout the course, and all the behind-the-scenes work that goes into it all.
And while it’s fun, it’s also a lot of hard work. “We have four big weekends a year and we give ourselves as much leeway and as much ramp as we can,” Ferrera says. In fact, Ferrera says he knew what the theme would be for January’s Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend (which included the 5K, as well as a 10K, a half marathon, and a full marathon) — this year, it was “nostalgia” — about two years in advance. Then, the actual planning for each event starts about six to eight months in advance. “I choose a story within the theme [for each race] and put entertainment all along the course — that could be characters, DJs, video screens, bands,” Ferrera says. “Then all of our planners have to make sure we have all of the gear for everything, and the stages, and the lighting, and the audio and video — it’s a major operation.”
As one would imagine with any production of this scale, runDisney races involve a ton of logistical prowess to pull off. “There’s budgets to consider, there’s unions, there’s permits,” Ferrera says. But as the big-picture person, Ferrera says, “I sort of just have to come up with the ideas for it … and then everyone else on the team says, ‘Not so fast. Mark.’”
For the record, Ferrera didn’t set out to have this job when he was in school (mainly because most people don’t realize a job like this even exists, TBH). “College wasn’t easy for me at first,” Ferrera says of his time as a theater student at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It was like, ‘Who am I? What am I? What’s it all about?’ So things were bumpy, but it was never bumpy when I was in a play.” So, it became his dream to make it as an actor in New York — and he did. “I went to New York, I got in shows, I got in summer stock, I did dinner theater and regional theater,” Ferrera says. “And one thing sort of led to the other, and then I ended up at Disney.”
Like many longtime Disney employees, Ferrera has worn many hats within the company, from performing in parks to hosting shows at the ESPN Club, until he eventually worked his way up to his current role. “It’s one of those things where it’s not really a planned course of events,” he says. “I just happened to be in the right place at the right time and took advantage of the opportunities that came my way. But I certainly couldn’t have crafted that ahead of time too much … There was a path, but I couldn’t have foreseen that path.”
Ask any Disney adult what makes the parks — and the movies, the cruise ships, the merch, and the brand as a whole — so special, and they’ll tell you it’s the signature “Disney magic.” But what actually goes into making that magic? “You think about the guest first,” Ferrera says, explaining how he puts himself in the shoes of someone participating in a runDisney race: “So, they’re on the course — what’s going to lift them up? What’s going to make them have an expectation that is blown away? What creates this feeling of, ‘Wow, they’re doing magic for me’? It’s fun to think of things that are going to delight and surprise people,” Ferrera says. “Every day is like that.”