Halloween Horror Nights 32 (UOR) - News & Info

[TheGentTrent]

Every single year, every single year we all have these complaints, every single year people wish for hhn to be part in islands.
But every year universal ignores all these complaints. Every year universal sells out. Every single year people give good reviews online.


If you were universal and you saw the really positive reviews and you saw the tickets sold out and express sold out. You wouldn't think there's any problem that needs fixing.
And my attitude is not towards your post. I agree with you. I'm on your side
But if you open Twitter or look at reviews on Google, people keep loving the event. Merch and food keeps selling well. Shirts keep selling.
So uni might be like " but why do we need to change anything. Fans are really happy" technically on paper, things are great for hhn.

And where are they going to get the labor for expanding to IoA? Universal can barely staff the event in one park, how are they going to get enough people for two?

 

[UniversalRBLX]

And where are they going to get the labor for expanding to IoA? Universal can barely staff the event in one park, how are they going to get enough people for two?

Yeah - Universal needs to fix HHN capacity, but not a fan of closing 2 parks at 5PM for an event. Also not a fan of walking across both parks.

HHN has capacity issues, but not yet at the level of having to host it across 2 parks.

 

[ultimateforce]

It's time for that 11th house.

 

[Lucky Planet]

And where are they going to get the labor for expanding to IoA? Universal can barely staff the event in one park, how are they going to get enough people for two?

Yeah - Universal needs to fix HHN capacity, but not a fan of closing 2 parks at 5PM for an event. Also not a fan of walking across both parks.

HHN has capacity issues, but not yet at the level of having to host it across 2 parks.

Yeah The influx of people at midnight keeps growing. Every single day of the week I arrive with at least 60 to 80 other cars. ( at least if not more that can arrive after me) I expected some nights to have less midnight guests, but every single night hhn gets this big crowd going in ( and when I say big I mean compared to last year, last year was nothing)
I expect October to get even bigger. It's kinda cool but lines after midnight aren't low anymore. People are staying longer than the past 2 hhn and before that.

 

[sparky]

Yeah The influx of people at midnight keeps growing. Every single day of the week I arrive with at least 60 to 80 other cars. ( at least if not more that can arrive after me) I expected some nights to have less midnight guests, but every single night hhn gets this big crowd going in ( and when I say big I mean compared to last year, last year was nothing)
I expect October to get even bigger. It's kinda cool but lines after midnight aren't low anymore. People are staying longer than the past 2 hhn and before that.

Why are people arriving so late? It closes at 2am? Lotta grief finding parking, security etc for 2 hours.
Ohh I just let the cat outta the bag about being an old lady, didnt I?

 

[Brian G.]

HHN has capacity issues, but not yet at the level of having to host it across 2 parks.

We're getting there... It's hard to really tell though since KidZone is under construction and takes away 2-3 normal house entrance/exit ops.

I think an HHN courtyard where the current tents are located is a plausible solution but yeah - I wouldn't be surprised if talk of 2 parks happens soon.

 

[Jake S]

I wouldn't be surprised if talk of 2 parks happens soon.

my feet hurt just thinking about this

 

[Lucky Planet]

Why are people arriving so late? It closes at 2am? Lotta grief finding parking, security etc for 2 hours.
Ohh I just let the cat outta the bag about being an old lady, didnt I?

It's just because parking becomes free at 12 am. So frequent fear guests are coming in. But what's really weird for me is that parking was free at 12 am last year, and last year I would only see very tiny small amount of people going in last year. Almost no one. So why didn't they use free parking last year? Stranger things? Is stranger things the reason,
Last of us fans?
This year gets a huge crowd at 12 am now. Really big

my feet hurt just thinking about this

I know is a lot of walking, but I just wanna see how hhn is between 2 parks. I know I'll probably get tired of walking if they do it.
But I just want to see it. I wanna experience it. Even if it's just once
I just need to see a 2 park event just once. One year

 

[ultimateforce]

I can't believe how busy it was past midnight tonight. The crowds are unreal.

 

[Speed]

I can't believe how busy it was past midnight tonight. The crowds are unreal.

Crazy tonight, tent houses didn't clear their queues until like 1:50 and TLoU had at least a 20 minute wait eyeballing it at closing

 

[Legacy]

It's just because parking becomes free at 12 am. So frequent fear guests are coming in. But what's really weird for me is that parking was free at 12 am last year, and last year I would only see very tiny small amount of people going in last year. Almost no one. So why didn't they use free parking last year? Stranger things? Is stranger things the reason,
Last of us fans?
This year gets a huge crowd at 12 am now. Really big



I know is a lot of walking, but I just wanna see how hhn is between 2 parks. I know I'll probably get tired of walking if they do it.
But I just want to see it. I wanna experience it. Even if it's just once
I just need to see a 2 park event just once. One year

You’ll only want experience it once. The experience was painful with only half of both parks open. I cannot emphasize enough how counter effective a two park event would be to the overall guests experience now.

 

[Frank Drackman]

Last night (Wednesday 9/13) was insanely busy for this early in the season. Duff bartender brought it up as well. Not sure if TM guest passes opened up or what, but packed.

Express remains great at the soundstages, but horrible at Chucky and (particularly) Oddfellow. Not just my experience, confirmed by a couple friends on Twitter as well. Two weeks in, I'm not sure it's going to get better. At least exit lines from tents seem to have improved--still slow, but no stopping.

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but Diagon is back to fully operational during the event, and is packed.

This event is popular!! In years past, we would use RoF to go 4 to 5 times a year. We found the RoF Saturdays (skipping opening weekend) to be rather nice nights.

This year, well last Saturday was busier than I expected, but not terrible and it certainly let up by around 11 PM.

But WOW, I guess another holiday weekend (like opening weekend) -- I just do not know, but Friday 9/15 -- I have never seen the place that crowded in September. Maybe I have been lucky. Things did slow a bit around 1 AM, but it is so hard to get around. I saw HUGE groups of people just standing in the streets leaving no room for anyone to move around them -- reminded me of EPCOT on a SAT during F&W some 10 years ago. We do not use Express and we take it slow (3 to 4 houses a night).

Happy for UoR and this year has great houses but Friday was so busy and it is September!

 

[UniversalRBLX]

We're getting there... It's hard to really tell though since KidZone is under construction and takes away 2-3 normal house entrance/exit ops.

I think an HHN courtyard where the current tents are located is a plausible solution but yeah - I wouldn't be surprised if talk of 2 parks happens soon.

These courtyard ideas need to be considered. That TLOU queue/tent exit experience is awful and dangerous.

In a perfect world, BMG courtyard could be utilized with a show at BMG and a house entrance back by the Hard Rock gate to add some foot space. Put Grinchmas in Toon Lagoon theater.

Edit: Also think the event artificially creates bottlenecks with misplacing a few food booths and scare zone sets that block pathways.

 

[SeventyOne]

Early HHN 32 Net Promoter Scores

Found 19 reviews here and on Reddit; would've liked at least 20 but this is a start. For those not cursed to work in Corporate America, see previous years’ posts for an explanation of my methodology. Limited, biased sample base and all that, but this is a snapshot of what your fellow fans think of the event if you’re trying to plan your evening:

Chucky (-17): definitively the worst—not a single promoter, ranked dead last by almost everyone. The “Actually it’s good…” essays will probably start in October, but Universal has to realize this one was a fiasco.

Stranger Things (-15): surprised me by being this negative. Much more nuance than Chucky, one promoter had in top 3 and its position in the bottom 4 varied, but overall not a well-liked house by the fanbase.

TLoU (-7): has its fans, but over twice as many detractors.

Exorcist (-3): Mildly interesting that the modern IPs own the bottom of the chart this year, are the only net negatives. Wasn’t the case past 2 years.

Dueling Dragons (+1)
Yeti (+2): the most divisive houses, quite a few votes on either side.

Oddfellow (+3)
Monsters Unmasked (+3)
Bloodmoon (+5): I mentioned parity in my own review, I think you see it here. Mostly positive and some negative votes spread fairly evenly between these. BTW, my admission I was wrong about BloodMoon flopping (lowest number of total votes, but only a single detractor, which helps its score).

Darkest Deal (+9): fairly definitive as the favorite house, but nowhere near a runaway like Wicked Growth or DMP. Again, parity.

 

[ultimateforce]

This year is RIDDLED with bottlenecks all over. The tent house exits are terrible. The lines for food booths are stretching across walkways completely blocking the path. I've seen more than a handful of people lined up for the Chucky food both going the wrong way, as in in the waiting for line line, not the order line. It's really poorly thought out. I get the impression the day time food both people have decided how the HHN booths are run and greatly under estimated the HHN crowds.

 

[HandsomePete]

The booth concept sounds good on paper (need F&B capacity, can come up with cool food items), but the lines and throughput don’t match what the event needs.

The whole game is finding space to put people. I think this year was always going to be rough because KidZone was a big space where you could put people (waiting for the parade building houses). As much as the ride sucks, F&F was an extra place to put people when the Shrek house was in use. The path between Transformers and Shrek is now empty after holding people in the past. The Simpsons Ride is a place to put people, but it’s closed. The lagoon show pulled people off the main walkways. The food booths create a bunch of unmanaged lines that clog up the walkways. Moving the tater stand probably helps that area a bit, but that’s just fixing a problem that shouldn’t have existed.

11th house or two parks are huge leaps when they really just need to actually focus on maximizing what they have to work with in the one park. Stick a DJ in Animal Actors. Put a tent next to MIB with something other than a house in it. Get creative - it doesn’t need to be a full blown show, just get people off the walkways.

 

[Tbad556]

Yeah, this is simply insane.

 

[ultimateforce]

I have a Howl-o-Scream ticket I think I'm ready to skip a HHN night with these crowds.

 

[Clive]

Yeah, this is simply insane.

Credit given where credit due, at least.

 

[Tbad556]

Credit given where credit due, at least.

Love that OPs are killing it. Simulatenously, woof.