I don't understand why people who want to hate on the barges, big deal you don't like the, guess what Disney doesn't care if you want to be able to get a perfect picture without barges in it, that's one of the reasons why they do things like they did for the 40th and have the screens on as well as having fountains on them during the day. Changing the show doesn't mean that they are going to get rid of them, it just means that they are going to change the show and use them in a different way which is the point of them they can change up the show easier without having to build new barges. Most of the old ones used for Illuminations reflections of Earth were recycled from all of the previous versions they only built two new ones for it the Erath globe one and the inferno barge, all of them would sit out in the lagoon for most of the day and were only taken out to be restocked with pyro for the next day's show before they were brought back Instead of moving them around constantly they bult new ones that are permeant so they don't have to take them back for restocking the pyro and can do it put there instead of backstage and it also meant that they don't have to raise the draw bridge as often and stop people from walking around that area of the lagoon.