Universal Great Britain - Speculation & Rumors

[BBPH]

Same - odd they would have any interest in building in the middle of nowhere.

DLP was kind of out on its own, but the distance from there to CDG or central Paris is the distance from this to… Luton. And suburban sprawl has basically consumed Marne La Vallee now.

A well balanced mixture of;

- Easier approval (Bedford is desperate to evolve)
- Not London but easy to reach (pending some development)
- Most (many) northerners won’t travel to London, they will travel to Bedford.
- Plenty of space for future development

I'm curious what kind of attendance figures they would expect this park to get. No Park in the UK gets more than 3m visitors a year so I'm assuming we would be looking at something similar to Singapore in terms of visitor numbers.

Given it’s likely going to be open year round will certainly help plus it will draw in tourists. If WB can get people to Watford, Uni can get people to Bedford.

 

[HandsomePete]

A well balanced mixture of;

- Easier approval (Bedford is desperate to evolve)
- Not London but easy to reach (pending some development)
- Most (many) northerners won’t travel to London, they will travel to Bedford.
- Plenty of space for future development

Easier approval is not a plus - a town being desperate to have you is a red flag. Also I would not describe this as easy to reach.

Given it’s likely going to be open year round will certainly help plus it will draw in tourists. If WB can get people to Watford, Uni can get people to Bedford

You can get to Watford on the Tube.

It will be 7-8 years before anyone can say if it was smart but this just feels like a colossal waste.

 

[BBPH]

Easier approval is not a plus - a town being desperate to have you is a red flag. Also I would not describe this as easy to reach.


You can get to Watford on the Tube.

It will be 7-8 years before anyone can say if it was smart but this just feels like a colossal waste.

Watford is quite the journey from central London 40-50 minutes on the unreliable metropolitan line with of course then the transfer bus.

Bedford is currently 33 minutes without likely development to improve this new station etc, (from St.Pancras what a lovely HP tie in).

Why would you say a red flag? Genuinely curious.

 

[LukiLu]

I'm curious what kind of attendance figures they would expect this park to get. No Park in the UK gets more than 3m visitors a year so I'm assuming we would be looking at something similar to Singapore in terms of visitor numbers.

I might get a little too excited here, but surely this will be closer to DLP in terms of attendance than it will be to AT? Singapore operates under serious space restraints and does not offer the single standout big draw IP in the way Potter and Nintendo work for the other resorts. If Lord of the Rings will feature, I expect nothing less than what they accomplish with the Potter lands.

Merlin have a licensing deal

DreamWorks Animation, Partner to Create ‘Shrek’ Attraction in London

UPDATED: The deal marks the first collaboration with a Hollywood studio for Merlin, Europe's largest visitor attraction operator and the company behind the London Eye Ferris wheel.

www.hollywoodreporter.com

Is anything known about the nature of this licensing agreement? Isn't it the norm to have such deals expire after a certain amount of time? Especially, given Merlin did leave this a one-off and did not continue to open any of the other locations that seemed to be part of the agreement back then.

Bedford is currently 33 minutes without likely development to improve this new station etc, (from St.Pancras what a lovely HP tie in).

For context, Gare de Lyon to DLP is 37 minutes on the RER if I'm not mistaken.

 

[HandsomePete]

Watford is quite the journey from central London 40-50 minutes on the unreliable metropolitan line with of course then the transfer bus.

Bedford is currently 33 minutes without likely development to improve this new station etc, (from St.Pancras what a lovely HP tie in).

Why would you say a red flag? Genuinely curious.

I lived by Baker Street station - so first of all, you can get to Watford by train in about 20 minutes. Also, the fact that it takes 35 minutes from Kings Cross means basically nothing. I would be “close” to Kings Cross but that’s another at least 30 minutes added onto travel time to get there to catch a train.

And I say it’s a red flag because if it was a desirable location they wouldn’t need to be desperate.

For context, Gare de Lyon to DLP is 37 minutes on the RER if I'm not mistaken.

CDG is 10-12 min from DLP. And RER is a legitimate commuter rail.

I get it, it’s a Universal forum so people get excited - I just honestly think they need to be targeting 4-5M max attendance and hope people want to head out into the middle of nowhere.

 

[JoeMcSqueezy]

I'm curious what kind of attendance figures they would expect this park to get. No Park in the UK gets more than 3m visitors a year so I'm assuming we would be looking at something similar to Singapore in terms of visitor numbers.

I wouldn't be as sure. In Europe, DLP is the most visited Park, and after that, average attendance numbers do noticeably drop (In 2019, DLP had 9.7 Mil, and 2nd place with Europa Park with 5.7 Mil. Disney and Universal Parks just kinda naturally bring in more visitors than other Parks

 

[BBPH]

I lived by Baker Street station - so first of all, you can get to Watford by train in about 20 minutes. Also, the fact that it takes 35 minutes from Kings Cross means basically nothing. I would be “close” to Kings Cross but that’s another at least 30 minutes added onto travel time to get there to catch a train.

And I say it’s a red flag because if it was a desirable location they wouldn’t need to be desperate.

CDG is 10-12 min from DLP. And RER is a legitimate commuter rail.

I get it, it’s a Universal forum so people get excited - I just honestly think they need to be targeting 4-5M max attendance and hope people want to head out into the middle of nowhere.

We’ll have to agree to disagree on our middle of nowhere debate.

I also live in London and have also lived in north Hertfordshire I wouldn’t say that commute time is in the middle of nowhere, there are much much worse places this could have been looked at.

Alton is doing over two million (not saying this is good) with an awful location, and doesn’t have the pull a universal park will have.

Let’s change the word desperate to ‘keen for development’, that’s a positive.

 

[Jamesh22]

No where in the south east of the UK can really be counted as the middle of nowhere.

 

[Chessy]

I wouldn’t say the location they have is the ‘middle of nowhere’ I’d say it’s a short journey in comparison to what you would do for other parks in general. It’s not all about London in terms of visitors.

In LA for example many of the major parks are spread out and take a good 40+ minutes to reach from many locations.

They obviously don’t want to deal with London planning authorities to over complicate the process further. I would also say Bedford isn’t desperate but welcomes the nearby development if it happens. It’s a good opportunity economically for them.

 

[xtpower]

My first post, but this idea that Bedford is the middle of nowhere severely understates how ideal a location it is. It's not only a short train ride from London, but also Luton Airport and is also within 2hrs travel for the majority of the population. Then we have the abundance of land surrounding that they can expand into and that said land does not have the cost increase that building in or around London would have.

As for the local area being 'desperate' I think that's entirely the wrong term to use as it has negative connotations. Let's just call them enthusiastic about developing the local area.

 

[havaska]

The location isn’t in the middle of nowhere, it’s a perfect location for a theme park such as this.

I live in Bolton (near Manchester) and getting there is about a 3 hour drive using mainly high quality motorways (freeways). It takes around 2 hours to get to Alton Towers and people regularly make that trip who aren’t enthusiasts.

Putting it north of London in Bedford makes it much more accessible for more people.

 

[BBPH]

My first post, but this idea that Bedford is the middle of nowhere severely understates how ideal a location it is. It's not only a short train ride from London, but also Luton Airport and is also within 2hrs travel for the majority of the population. Then we have the abundance of land surrounding that they can expand into and that said land does not have the cost increase that building in or around London would have.

As for the local area being 'desperate' I think that's entirely the wrong term to use as it has negative connotations. Let's just call them enthusiastic about developing the local area.

Desperate, wasn’t the right term definitely should be using the word enthusiastic.

 

[tommyhawkins]

I lived by Baker Street station - so first of all, you can get to Watford by train in about 20 minutes. Also, the fact that it takes 35 minutes from Kings Cross means basically nothing. I would be “close” to Kings Cross but that’s another at least 30 minutes added onto travel time to get there to catch a train.

And I say it’s a red flag because if it was a desirable location they wouldn’t need to be desperate.


CDG is 10-12 min from DLP. And RER is a legitimate commuter rail.

I get it, it’s a Universal forum so people get excited - I just honestly think they need to be targeting 4-5M max attendance and hope people want to head out into the middle of nowhere.

This is very silly comment, they're not proposing building this park in Inverness


Also how are you taking 30 mins to get a mile and half from Baker Street , are you walking via Camden, that's wild.

There are multiple options to get to this park from all directions in the UK and Europe, its about time this narrative that somehow this is a bad choice because transport reasons comes to an end. If any of us were writing a wish list of desirable factors for building a new park, this site would tick every box.

 

[UER]

This is very silly comment, they're not proposing building this park in Inverness


Also how are you taking 30 mins to get a mile and half from Baker Street , are you walking via Camden, that's wild.

There are multiple options to get to this park from all directions in the UK and Europe, its about time this narrative that somehow this is a bad choice because transport reasons comes to an end. If any of us were writing a wish list of desirable factors for building a new park, this site would tick every box.

Almost every box, to check the percentage of europeans with a passport you'll have to go country by country, some are around 40% while others are around 60%, a rough average of 50% for the european union, that means that while every single one of them can go to Disneyland Paris with just their id in their pocket, to go to Bedford half of them would need to first request a passport, something that if 50% of the europeans citizens doesn't have by now, its not going to change because of a theme park, so an ideal location that checks every box would be in France, Spain, Italy or even Germany, where you have 2 times the potential visitors that the UK has

 

[Alicia]

Almost every box, to check the percentage of europeans with a passport you'll have to go country by country, some are around 40% while others are around 60%, a rough average of 50% for the european union, that means that while every single one of them can go to Disneyland Paris with just their id in their pocket, to go to Bedford half of them would need to first request a passport, something that if 50% of the europeans citizens doesn't have by now, its not going to change because of a theme park, so an ideal location that checks every box would be in France, Spain, Italy or even Germany, where you have 2 times the potential visitors that the UK has

They would require a passport to go to Universal Orlando too, but the flights to this new one will likely be much quicker.

 

[havaska]

Almost every box, to check the percentage of europeans with a passport you'll have to go country by country, some are around 40% while others are around 60%, a rough average of 50% for the european union, that means that while every single one of them can go to Disneyland Paris with just their id in their pocket, to go to Bedford half of them would need to first request a passport, something that if 50% of the europeans citizens doesn't have by now, its not going to change because of a theme park, so an ideal location that checks every box would be in France, Spain, Italy or even Germany, where you have 2 times the potential visitors that the UK has

But who is to say Universal aren’t planning on an EU park too? The Port Aventura rumours do have some traction and facts behind them.

Europe is definitely big enough to support two Universal Parks.

The population of the European Union and UK combined is over 500,000,000.

 

[havaska]

Th

They would require a passport to go to Universal Orlando too, but the flights to this new one will likely be much quicker.

They would require a passport to visit *any* current Universal Park so I don’t see this as a deal breaker at all.

 

[BBPH]

Almost every box, to check the percentage of europeans with a passport you'll have to go country by country, some are around 40% while others are around 60%, a rough average of 50% for the european union, that means that while every single one of them can go to Disneyland Paris with just their id in their pocket, to go to Bedford half of them would need to first request a passport, something that if 50% of the europeans citizens doesn't have by now, its not going to change because of a theme park, so an ideal location that checks every box would be in France, Spain, Italy or even Germany, where you have 2 times the potential visitors that the UK has

I mean, we’re still looking at over 200 million people still a fairly decent market.

I feel like the type of person holidaying to Disney ,Universal etc. is a serial tourist that is likely going to have a passport.

Plus us brits really do like a theme park, we just need one, that’s world-class and trust me we’ll show up for that.

 

[xtpower]

I mean, we’re still looking at over 200 million people still a fairly decent market.

I feel like the type of person holidaying to Disney ,Universal etc. is a serial tourist that is likely going to have a passport.

Plus us brits really do like a theme park, we just need one, that’s world-class and trust me we’ll show up for that.

I've always wanted to go to Universal Florida, but alas I just cannot afford the flights, hotels and everything else. Having it basically on my doorstep is a goddamn dream. You have to think there's a very large contingent of Brits just like me, where they want to do Universal but cannot afford so but can afford a daytrip if it's in the UK.

 

[mainejeff]

Who owns the rights to Roald Dahl books/Wonka for theme park attractions? I'd love to see a land based on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Boat ride and glass elevator ride please.