Patch Notes // updated 2021.06
EPCOT · Walt Disney World
Village Traders and the Outpost marketplace were among the last EPCOT World Showcase areas to recover from the COVID-19 closure: the shop was still listed as closed as of May 2021, and the Outpost's playable instruments returned (without mallets) by June 2021.
The dedicated Village Traders shop, the Outpost's anchor store housed in an African-style thatched mud house selling wood carvings, instruments, and souvenirs, dates to around 1993.
The Outpost open-air marketplace that houses Village Traders was built between EPCOT's China and Germany pavilions about a year after World Showcase opened (October 1, 1982) as a placeholder for the planned Equatorial Africa pavilion, which was never built.