Villain-Con Minion Blast (General Discussion)

[UniversalRBLX]

@SpatulaShack But yesterday, the thread went from opening in July, then August, then November (with a rational that Universal would pull a Disney and move the opening for financial reasons). When I read that, I thought, this conversation is going beyond speculation and rumors. To me that gets more into “sky is falling” territory which makes reading/getting updates from the thread a bit harder.

None of us were going into the “everything has gone wrong… PANIC!” territory, we were simply trying to have a conversation on what Universals strategy would be. None of us are claiming to be right. None of us claimed this was their next big attendance driver.

If we can’t have a discussion on here to discuss that, then let me know so I can avoid it further on.

 

[TheCodeMan95]

So by "regression to the mean", we're probably about at 2019 crowds at this pint?

 

[Parkscope Joe]

So by "regression to the mean", we're probably about at 2019 crowds at this pint?

More like the usual ebb and flow of attendance is back and mid-2021 to mid-2022 were outliers. Doesn't mean it's back to 2019 but the cycle has resumed.

 

[TheCodeMan95]

More like the usual ebb and flow of attendance is back and mid-2021 to mid-2022 were outliers. Doesn't mean it's back to 2019 but the cycle has resumed.

Yeah - I'm not a local so I never got a full visualization of the crowds. I also didn't attend at all in 2021 - but in September 2022 we saw a noticeable difference in crowd level compared to previous years. I had hoped it wasn't the new norm, and it seems now to be that is not, lol

 

[OrlandoGuy]

Yeah - I'm not a local so I never got a full visualization of the crowds. I also didn't attend at all in 2021 - but in September 2022 we saw a noticeable difference in crowd level compared to previous years. I had hoped it wasn't the new norm, and it seems now to be that is not, lol

This year I’ve been twice on weeknights after 5pm (both in the summer months)…outside of Velocicoaster and Hagrid’s, every queue was under 30 minutes in that chunk of time between late afternoon to park closing. It’s been absolutely fantastic, and a welcome change from earlier in the year (Jan-March or so) where the parks were slammed.

 

[Mad Dog]

Another factor to look at on Universal crowds for end of 2023 and 2024, are the Supreme Court decision today striking down the Student Loan relief and the previously announced resumption of student loan due payments this Fall. There's goes a lot of the discretionary income that a significant percentage of the twentysomethings and thirtysomethings have been using for leisure, entertainment, and essentials since covid, instead of paying on their loans. And that's a demographic that is a strong Universal demographic. It's not something that will cause attendance to crash, but it could easily be a 5 to 10% downward effect on attendance.

 

[Nico]

None of us were going into the “everything has gone wrong… PANIC!” territory, we were simply trying to have a conversation on what Universals strategy would be. None of us are claiming to be right. None of us claimed this was their next big attendance driver.

If we can’t have a discussion on here to discuss that, then let me know so I can avoid it further on.

Yup! You can keep discussing attendance with everyone here or continue talking marketing/announcements on the Lack of Announcement thread.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Yup! You can keep discussing attendance with everyone here or continue talking marketing/announcements on the Lack of Announcement thread.

Why is this an appropriate thread for discussing attendance, which is not related directly to Minion Blast, but it isn’t an appropriate thread to discuss the marketing and opening of Minion Blast? Why shove that discussion into a thread with a topic that is less relevant to the discussion and hasn’t had a post in four years? That seems entirely arbitrary.

There was panic in this thread, but it wasn’t the relevant speculation of the posters discussing opening strategies. It should also be noted that that discussion wasn’t even particularly critical of Universal.

 

[Nico]

Why is this an appropriate thread for discussing attendance, which is not related directly to Minion Blast, but it isn’t an appropriate thread to discuss the marketing and opening of Minion Blast? Why shove that discussion into a thread with a topic that is less relevant to the discussion and hasn’t had a post in four years? That seems entirely arbitrary.

There was panic in this thread, but it wasn’t the relevant speculation of the posters discussing opening strategies. It should also be noted that that discussion wasn’t even particularly critical of Universal.

It’s a good question. Attendance is a smaller tangent right now. Not trying to be a hard ass and immediately go, “Off topic.” The marketing question is much larger than just Villain-Con. It has been Universal’s MO for many years, as seen by that thread being created years ago. I mentioned a few times yesterday about how the topic is worthy of a thread, especially as we get closer to EU. To keep the forum streamlined, we decided to reactivate the old thread instead of starting a new one.

Hope that helps!

 

[OrlandoGuy]

RE Marketing…

You have three courses of action:

1.) The Disney approach—set a super conservative date well in advance; capture vacation bookings directly attributed to new attraction. You mitigate the risk of missing your opening date but run the risk of a soft period leading up to the new attraction

2.) The Hagrid’s/Volcano Bay approach — set an aggressive opening date, market it close to opening; capture last minute bookings for an incremental gain during attraction period and maintain attendance projections leading up to that date. You mitigate the risk of soft bookings pre-opening but run the risk of the ride not being ready and the associated bad press/financial implications of providing guest resolutions.

3.) The Villain Con/Fast & Furious/Kong/Velocicoaster approach — wait until the “last minute” to announce; cannot immediately assign a considerable attendance boost to the attraction opening. You mitigate the risk of having to deal with an unprepared ride but run the risk of having a longer payback period.

For a low-impact, new-tech ride, Option 3 is the obvious choice. When you consider what a mess Gringotts/VB/Hagrid’s were, Option 3 becomes the only choice.

You’re either mad about not being able to plan to ride the ride in advance, or you’re mad about getting to the park to ride an unfinished, unreliable ride. At least in that first scenario you’ll get to reliably ride the ride eventually.

 

[fryoj]

The amount of people planning a vacation around this ride is very small. Considering how outside the norm this ride is, I'd say we wouldn't get a major push on it regardless. I'd almost expect softs to start before an announced opening date.

 

[tielo]

The amount of people planning a vacation around this ride is very small. Considering how outside the norm this ride is, I'd say we wouldn't get a major push on it regardless. I'd almost expect softs to start before an announced opening date.

It depends, if you love Minions or has kids who adore Minions (there are a ton of them) and you can only come once every 5 years, the size of the ride doesn't matter, it's their thing and the main reason they are excited about going to the park. They would appreciate if the resort announced an opening date. (video is a real life example of a family who has Minions on #1).

 

[Disneyhead]

I think our first hint at when it will open will be them starting CM Previews.

 

[graspthesun]

It depends, if you love Minions or has kids who adore Minions (there are a ton of them) and you can only come once every 5 years, the size of the ride doesn't matter, it's their thing and the main reason they are excited about going to the park. They would appreciate if the resort announced an opening date. (video is a real life example of a family who has Minions on #1).

If I was only going once every 5 years, I'd delay my trip to new year.

 

[fryoj]

It depends, if you love Minions or has kids who adore Minions (there are a ton of them) and you can only come once every 5 years, the size of the ride doesn't matter, it's their thing and the main reason they are excited about going to the park. They would appreciate if the resort announced an opening date. (video is a real life example of a family who has Minions on #1).

Are there people who will plan an entire vacation around this ride? Yes. Are the amount of people that are doing that enough for Uni to do a major marketing push? Doubtful. Are the amount of people who'd lose their minds if Uni announced a date and either didn't hit it or put out an unfinished product on that date large enough to justify annoying some people by not announcing a date now? Absolutely.

 

[TheCodeMan95]

Are there people who will plan an entire vacation around this ride? Yes. Are the amount of people that are doing that enough for Uni to do a major marketing push? Doubtful. Are the amount of people who'd lose their minds if Uni announced a date and either didn't hit it or put out an unfinished product on that date large enough to justify annoying some people by not announcing a date now? Absolutely.

Yeah I think you just broke it down perfectly.

 

[Tbad556]

Not really shocking that it's testing, but cool to hear some ride audio. Queue audio is running as well apparently:

 

[Nick]

Villain-Con TM's have started being scheduled at venue fairly recently to run the attraction with shift changes throughout the day. I'm thinking it could just pop up one of these days that there's going to be a TM Preview and then we're looking at an opening not long after.

 

[Cup_Of_Coffee]

Pure guess, this opens last week of July. TM previews and maybe softs up until then.

 

[Grabnar]

Pure guess, this opens last week of July. TM previews and maybe softs up until then.

Wow just like the rumors were pointing to like a month or two ago