The third theme park to be built at Walt Disney World, Disney Hollywood Studios, will be celebrating a big event this week - its 20th birthday! It’s hard to believe, but the park dedicated to show business fun and magic will have been open for 20 years this Friday, May 1. And though it certainly won’t be celebrated with Disney’s usual level of enthusiasm (they’ll save that for the 25th anniversary), fans can mark the occasion by visiting Hollywood Studios this Friday for a few commemorative events and some rare information sessions.

On Friday, Hollywood Studios will open at 8 am with a special rope drop ceremony welcoming guests into the park and kicking off the celebration. Then, at 9 am and 10:45 am, there’ll also be two sessions where fans will be able to listen to Walt Disney Imagineers share their insights about the development of the park and the creation of Hollywood Studios.

Taking place in the Premiere Theater, the sessions will feature Bob Weis, Executive Vice President of Walt Disney Imagineering, Executive Vice President and Senior Creative Executive Tom Fitzgerald, and Senior Vice President of Creative Development Eric Jacobson. Each session will last one approximately one hour and give fans a rare chance to get insider information behind the magic at Hollywood Studios.

In addition, the park will be full of anniversary merchandise on Friday. Starring Rolls will be selling special anniversary cupcakes, and many of the restaurants will feature menu items that were sold when the park first opened. On Friday, Disney will also release five 20th Anniversary pins, which feature Mickey Mouse clad in a director’s outfit. Each of the five designs will only have 1,500 pins available, so expect them to sell out quickly.

Here are a few fun facts about Disney's Hollywood Studios. Most older Disney fans will likely remember that the park was originally named MGM Studios and grew from the idea for a pavilion that was originally planned for Epcot. Newly appointed CEO Michael Eisner, however, proposed that the pavilion be expanded into a new park devoted to the secrets behind movie and television production, and he cut the ribbon on MGM Studios on May 1, 1989.

“The World you have entered was created by The Walt Disney Company and is dedicated to Hollywood—not a place on a map, but a state of mind that exists wherever people dream and wonder and imagine, a place where illusion and reality are fused by technological magic. We welcome you to a Hollywood that never was—and always will be,” Eisner said at the dedication.

And from then on, the park that eventually became known as Hollywood Studios really was a miniature Hollywood, with Disney shows and films being produced at the park. Until Mickey’s Sorcerer’s Hat was added in 2001, the park’s architectural icon was even a water tower (the Earful Tower) based on those typically found in the backlots of early Hollywood studios. Hollywood Studios eventually stopped being an active production studio, but many of the park’s early sound stages and sets are still there, blended in with attractions like Toy Story Midway Mania!

Today, Hollywood Studios consists of six themed areas modeled after Hollywood sets, studios, and buildings. Guests will feel like they’ve really stepped into tinseltown with attractions like the Studio Backlit Tour, Lights, Motors, Action! Extreme Stunt Show, and The American Idol Experience.

To visit Disney’s Hollywood Studios and see why this park has been a Walt Disney World favorite for 20 years, check out Walt Disney World tickets on OrlandoFunTickets.com. And from everyone here at OrlandoFunTickets.com, Happy Birthday, Hollywood Studios! Here’s to twenty more years of making Hollywood magical.