Universal Fan Fest Nights - Coming 2025

[Jerroddragon]

I went last night got the 49 Dollar ticket

I started with D&D last night and yeah....thats a mistake. I was done with over 30 mins until SNW opened early, so I walked on Jurassic...which I will talk about more in the Jurassic thread but looks like new lighting at the end of the ride unless today for some reason it jumped out on me more.

You start with Star Trek and go down to D&D to me is the best bet

I went to SNW it opens about 10 min early from 7 PM

I saw Pink Yoshi within 5 mins and was allowed to get back in line to finally meet the Blue Yoshi and he was fantastic for sure the best one of the three in my opinion

BTFF has a 20 min wait after that, so I walked on Star Trek but after that BTTF had no line so went down there

BTTF is so much fun got lucky and Marty was coming out as the Tram stopped. I got to finally talk with young Doc and he's great. I got to see Marty and Doc talking about the plan to get him back and its pretty funny with all the guests yelling things and I saw Biff get taken out...from there he just walking around not saying a word. The Einstein line was maybe 20 mins when I went...but more like 15.....and now its insane easily over 30 mins the last two times I went

I got back to Hogsmeade in time to see the castle show.

I then saw some of the Flux Capacitors and talked to them a little after the show

I met Zoro and Nami in about 30 mins....took longer because some vloggers took over 5 mins to do videos. I make content, this to me is BS. I can be in and out within 60 seconds but whatever no one is stopping people so this is why the line is so long, would be nice to put people more on timers with such long lines. Wicked and Yoshi don't see to have this issue as much

Took 20ish mins to meet Luffy, the actor has so much energy good for him

The Sanji/Ussop line was the longest all night that I could see and at 12:30 AM the characters all meet people int he normal shrek/trolls area.

Left after that and will be back Sunday to close the event out.

 

[saint.piss]

This makes sense. I remember when someone reported on it as far as 2023.

 

[Wesker69]

The vague promotion was a poor decision.

That also translates as "we don't want to spend money on marketing, let the influencers do it for us for free"

 

[Jerroddragon]

The vague promotion was a poor decision.

That also translates as "we don't want to spend money on marketing, let the influencers do it for us for free"

Yeah, like WTF does that even mean


Whats funny is less then an hour after The Summer event was announced I got and have been getting a ton of ads for the USH summer event and that event for the most part is straight forward with a few surprises we might see but mostly its easy to market

I'm not against Vloggers helping but the previews for most of the Vloggers were kinda wrong they all talked about how interactive the two attractions D&D and Star Trek are so I would say thats not great marketing when even your biggest fans don't know whats going on until night one.

I love the event but the marketing for the event was not great and think just some simple videos showing off parts of the attractions, showing BTTF area all dressed up and characters walkign around and showing the Wicked and One piece meet and greet people....but nope lets show someone grabbing onto a tram with a skateboard which in no way happens at the event

Just be straight forward with people, its a good event just had to show it off to make a good ad.

 

[viking_wizard_eyes]

The vague promotion was a poor decision.

That also translates as "we don't want to spend money on marketing, let the influencers do it for us for free"

Hard to blame them when there are hundreds and hundreds of people willing to promote an event in exchange for a free ticket to said event. The amount of people who crave access and are willing to be uncritical in order to gain access is huge and getting huger, and people keep paying attention to them, too. Some more traditional marketing definitely would have helped, but as we're pointing out, there's a lot that Universal has to promote right now.

Throwing this stuff to fan culture influencer accounts feels like a safe strategy.

 

[Jerroddragon]

Hard to blame them when there are hundreds and hundreds of people willing to promote an event in exchange for a free ticket to said event. The amount of people who crave access and are willing to be uncritical in order to gain access is huge and getting huger, and people keep paying attention to them, too. Some more traditional marketing definitely would have helped, but as we're pointing out, there's a lot that Universal has to promote right now.

Throwing this stuff to fan culture influencer accounts feels like a safe strategy.

But also those people will do it no matter what

So make a real ad showing the event next year, that is why they have a marketing team

 

[viking_wizard_eyes]

But also those people will do it no matter what

So make a real ad showing the event next year, that is why they have a marketing team

They'll do what no matter what? Go to the event? Sure, but influencers survive off access and "getting there first." There's a tacit agreement in influencer marketing that the influencers will be positive in their coverage if they're invited on behalf of the company. It's a pro bono situation; we give you free and/or exclusive access, you give us positive coverage. If they don't get the free invite, they're likely to be more critical, and then neither party gets what they want.

I don't disagree that a traditional ad or two would have helped, but I also see the reason behind leaning mostly on influencers. The event's format is a bit hard to explain succinctly and you're more likely to reach the niche audiences most interested in attending via these influencer channels.

 

[Clive]

What are we even talking about? People are taking this random comment from someone conducting a survey as gospel. "The vague marketing was intentional?" Sure, whatever. The actual difficulty was communicating what this event was when it had never been done before - and without having any attractions or offerings to show in the pre-event opening materials. To act like they just decided to not promote it and leave it all to the influencers is nonsensical.

 

[Jerroddragon]

They'll do what no matter what? Go to the event? Sure, but influencers survive off access and "getting there first." There's a tacit agreement in influencer marketing that the influencers will be positive in their coverage if they're invited on behalf of the company. It's a pro bono situation; we give you free and/or exclusive access, you give us positive coverage. If they don't get the free invite, they're likely to be more critical, and then neither party gets what they want.

I don't disagree that a traditional ad or two would have helped, but I also see the reason behind leaning mostly on influencers. The event's format is a bit hard to explain succinctly and you're more likely to reach the niche audiences most interested in attending via these influencer channels.

Errrr....Five Fires and many other's have gone like 5 times to the event I feel like no matter when you let people go they will go and I'm not against the Vloggers helping but they should not be the only ad for the park


I mean a 60 second add showing the BTTF area, walking through D&D and Star Trek and showing the meet and greet characters thats all I'm asking for a basic ad showing off the event

 

[viking_wizard_eyes]

What are we even talking about? People are taking this random comment from someone conducting a survey as gospel. "The vague marketing was intentional?" Sure, whatever. The actual difficulty was communicating what this event was when it had never been done before - and without having any attractions or offerings to show in the pre-event opening materials. To act like they just decided to not promote it and leave it all to the influencers is nonsensical.

For the record, I'm not acting like they "decided to not promote it and leave it all to the influencers." I'm saying a marketing strategy that leaned heavily on social media influencers makes sense for literally every reason you laid out: a first-of-its-kind-event that not only lacked pre-existing context and brand familiarity, but is also tough to succinctly describe, which isn't a problem for something like HHN for extremely obvious reasons.

I think they did a good job getting the word of this event out. Having even more of a push behind it obviously helps but that's true for anything, and it's true by default. And maybe they did have a huge push, I dunno. I can't honestly say I saw every bit of advertising they did for this thing. But that's not the point I'm making. I think they see this as a long-term project and everything will build with time.

 

[highdefrex]

Errrr....Five Fires and many other's have gone like 5 times to the event I feel like no matter when you let people go they will go and I'm not against the Vloggers helping but they should not be the only ad for the park


I mean a 60 second add showing the BTTF area, walking through D&D and Star Trek and showing the meet and greet characters thats all I'm asking for a basic ad showing off the event

You’ve been to the event several times already. What do you need a 60-second ad for? To convince you to go again?

I feel like Universal did what they could do — they put out spots (I’ve seen on YouTube, etc.), billboards, and so on; that feeds people going, “What is that?” and following up by Googling it, whether they find articles about it or find videos by influencers or whatever, and then be convinced to go or not.

Advertisement doesn’t work the same way it did five, ten years ago; a 60-second ad isn’t going to do anything when the only people willing to even watch an ad that long nowadays are people like you who are already know about/are going to the event anyway.

 

[viking_wizard_eyes]

Advertisement doesn’t work the same way it did five, ten years ago; a 60-second ad isn’t going to do anything when the only people willing to even watch an ad that long nowadays are people like you who are already know about/are going to the event anyway.

People are going to see things on social first. Next year, when someone sees the 60-second ad or whatever else is supposedly necessary to promote the event, they're gonna go, "Oh yeah, that's the cool thing I saw on that Instagram Reel last year, I'm gonna check that out."

 

[Clive]

As a reminder, they shot a professional commercial for this event! It features friends across fandoms making their way through Citywalk in cosplay and entering the decked out park. Do I think it was necessarily the best ad that fully communicated what Fan Fest is? Not necessarily, no, but I also get that they did not have the opportunity to actually film the event's meat and potatoes. That won't be the case next year, as they will have footage from this year. You'll get professional shots of Dungeons & Dragons, Star Trek, and Back to the Future (assuming a mix of those return).

Anyway, I'm just objecting to the claim that the marketing was intentionally vague. It wasn't.

 

[Jerroddragon]

You’ve been to the event several times already. What do you need a 60-second ad for? To convince you to go again?

I feel like Universal did what they could do — they put out spots (I’ve seen on YouTube, etc.), billboards, and so on; that feeds people going, “What is that?” and following up by Googling it, whether they find articles about it or find videos by influencers or whatever, and then be convinced to go or not.

Advertisement doesn’t work the same way it did five, ten years ago; a 60-second ad isn’t going to do anything when the only people willing to even watch an ad that long nowadays are people like you who are already know about/are going to the event anyway.

Ads are almost never for me...I'm literally making videos on my own and am on here...I know whats happening

But the General Public needs ads so they know.

Disney does the normal Ads and works for them and this is literally a movie studios you think they'd want to make a cool ad

 

[viking_wizard_eyes]

Ads are almost never for me...I'm literally making videos on my own and am on here...I know whats happening

But the General Public needs ads so they know.

Disney does the normal Ads and works for them and this is literally a movie studios you think they'd want to make a cool ad

 

[Jerroddragon]

I've seen it

I feel like a normal person with zeroooo knowledge of the event would know what is is after watching that. For me at least showing the scope of the D&D rooms, the details of the Star Trek bridge with people running around and the BTTF area would help show you, I know people are going to say I'm nit picking but I'm just pointing out the ads I see just don't do know to tell you why you need to come because they aren't highlighting the best parts of the event

Hopefully next year and if you guys like it cool, I just don't think the Ad really shows you much about the event and feels like "concert art" over what the finale product was

 

[Clive]

I've seen it

I feel like a normal person with zeroooo knowledge of the event would know what is is after watching that. For me at least showing the scope of the D&D rooms, the details of the Star Trek bridge with people running around and the BTTF area would help show you, I know people are going to say I'm nit picking but I'm just pointing out the ads I see just don't do know to tell you why you need to come because they aren't highlighting the best parts of the event

Hopefully next year and if you guys like it cool, I just don't think the Ad really shows you much about the event and feels like "concert art" over what the finale product was

You've been asked to knock off this rhetoric before, so I'm asking again.

It has been explained to you why the marketing was the way it was this year. They literally could not film what you are describing because those elements were not ready yet.

I even pointed out in the months and weeks ahead of the launch that I had concerns about how it was being marketed (while acknowledging the unavoidable challenges the park had in marketing it). You'll likely get what you're asking for next year.

 

[viking_wizard_eyes]

I feel like a normal person with zeroooo knowledge of the event would know what is is after watching that. For me at least showing the scope of the D&D rooms, the details of the Star Trek bridge with people running around and the BTTF area would help show you, I know people are going to say I'm nit picking but I'm just pointing out the ads I see just don't do know to tell you why you need to come because they aren't highlighting the best parts of the event

……which is why they use influencers. You can’t “highlight the best parts of the event” if the event has literally never happened before.

You’re in one of your “there’s no pleasing me” moods again.