Halloween Horror Nights 33 (UOR) - News & Information

[Brian G.]

HHN is too big to fail, but that doesn’t mean the feedback can’t.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

HHN is too big to fail, but that doesn’t meant the feedback can’t.

I was going to bring this up for future event discussion, but the event was packed every night... which unfortunately has me worried about what the higher ups are potentially thinking. Do they continue to develop HHN with the similar formula/development style they've been using these past few years or do they modify their approach based on feedback.

The event was packed crowd-wise, but a few of the important profit centers like the bars & stores were quiet during the event. I can't imagine they're happy with that.

 

[saint.piss]

 

[Casper Gutman]

Looking back over past years to remind myself, it seems very clear that the problem this year WASN’T the houses. It was all the seemingly unimportant little stuff - unappealing merch design, lack of Cabana Bay photo op, poor choice of Tribute Store theme, one lonely overly-familiar show, less immersive Coconut Club, and - most of all - incredibly cheap scarezones (with the exception of NY). Even something as minor as the lack of HHN plastic press machines contributes to the overall malaise. The houses themselves were strong.

This year’s HHN seems like a very stark lesson that a resort can’t keep chipping away at all those little, silly, insignificant things without having a profound cumulative effect on the total experience. Put another way, no detail at a major theme park is ever really unimportant.

 

[TheCodeMan95]

Looking back over past years to remind myself, it seems very clear that the problem this year WASN’T the houses. It was all the seemingly unimportant little stuff - unappealing merch design, lack of Cabana Bay photo op, poor choice of Tribute Store theme, one lonely overly-familiar show, less immersive Coconut Club, and - most of all - incredibly cheap scarezones (with the exception of NY). Even something as minor as the lack of HHN plastic press machines contributes to the overall malaise. The houses themselves were strong.

This year’s HHN seems like a very stark lesson that a resort can’t keep chipping away at all those little, silly, insignificant things without having a profound cumulative effect on the total experience. Put another way, no detail at a major theme park is ever really unimportant.

Quite honestly, I think it was the zones most of all. If the zones were at the very least the same level of quality as 2023, I think this year would be looked at much more favorably.

 

[SeventyOne]

I was going to bring this up for future event discussion, but the event was packed every night... which unfortunately has me worried about what the higher ups are potentially thinking. Do they continue to develop HHN with the similar formula/development style they've been using these past few years or do they modify their approach based on feedback.

The event was packed crowd-wise, but a few of the important profit centers like the bars & stores were quiet during the event. I can't imagine they're happy with that.

While I agree with your second point, I think the event was somewhat less crowded than 2023 until after the hurricane (and I think Thrill-Geek wait times back that up). Which implies the event is becoming more of a Halloween thing again, less a lifestyle thing, which could very well feed into your second point. Guests just looking for some Halloween scares probably aren't in the market for a Lil' Boo throw pillow.

 

[Brian G.]

Guests just looking for some Halloween scares probably aren't in the market for a Lil' Boo throw pillow.

and considering the amount of Lil Boo merch leftover this year, even at a discount...

 

[UniversalRBLX]

While I agree with your second point, I think the event was somewhat less crowded than 2023 until after the hurricane (and I think Thrill-Geek wait times back that up). Which implies the event is becoming more of a Halloween thing again, less a lifestyle thing, which could very well feed into your second point. Guests just looking for some Halloween scares probably aren't in the market for a Lil' Boo throw pillow.

That might be the case. Haven't had too much time to look at Thrill-Data's wait time stuff this year, but it certainly felt "average" throughout the season versus some of the crazier September nights last year.

And your lost comment echoes what I think we've been saying on here, Lil' Boo is great... but they overdid it completely.

and considering the amount of Lil Boo merch leftover this year, even at a discount...

Time to give him a rest. Bring him back every few years, no need to highlight him every year, the same as any icon. I love Jack, but I don't want him at the event each year.

 

[TheCodeMan95]

I'm fine with a handful of Lil Boo items per year. My wife loves them, she always buys something Lil Boo. This is only for her lol

 

[Killer Klown]

Which implies the event is becoming more of a Halloween thing again, less a lifestyle thing

Idk, I think it might just very well be that this year didn’t have a very crowd pleasing IP lineup and wasn’t getting the greatest word of mouth. Couple that with the fact that Orlando’s theme park attendance has been down across the board this year and you’ve got a perfect recipe for lower crowds.

Now if this trend continues even with stronger IP and recovering attendance in the next year or two, then I think we can start to seriously ask ourselves what people actually want from HHN and how people really view it.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Idk, I think it might just very well be that this year didn’t have a very crowd pleasing IP lineup and wasn’t getting the greatest word of mouth. Couple that with the fact that Orlando’s theme park attendance has been down across the board this year and you’ve got a perfect recipe for lower crowds.

Now if this trend continues even with stronger IP and recovering attendance in the next year or two, then I think we can start to seriously ask ourselves what people actually want from HHN and how people really view it.

Would a “bigger” IP, say Five Nights or Elm Street, have solved the lack of cohesion folks are noting about this year’s event? The vague sense something is wrong? I’d argue it wouldn’t.

As to Little Boo, Uni’s problem is that they need to offer the illusion of novelty even as they leverage familiarity. You can keep pushing Boo (or Earl or Mickey) merch as long as the product is individualized in key ways. It can’t just be Boo - it has to be 80s Boo or Quiet Place Boo or Circus Boo or whatever the years overall theme might be. That’s a key reason an overarching theme is vital - it creates an impetus to buy. An icon is HHN’s easiest path to this, but not the only one - the 80s, traditional Halloween aesthetic, even the concept of “movies” has worked in the past. I think the “punk” approach this year lacked appeal, but it’s usefulness was completely negated by its half-hearted application.

I do think Uni needs a big, fundamental hook next year, something announcing a new era AND a return to form. A couple new shows, some relocated scarezones, a festival center - something substantial.

 

[Brian G.]

On paper, I think the lineup was more than enough.

Would going more in-depth with the punk aesthetic have helped? Maybe. The disjointedness added to many of fans' subpar reviews, but that wouldn't change what people thought of the zones and houses.

 

[GA-MBIT]

Looking back over past years to remind myself, it seems very clear that the problem this year WASN’T the houses. It was all the seemingly unimportant little stuff - unappealing merch design, lack of Cabana Bay photo op, poor choice of Tribute Store theme, one lonely overly-familiar show, less immersive Coconut Club, and - most of all - incredibly cheap scarezones (with the exception of NY). Even something as minor as the lack of HHN plastic press machines contributes to the overall malaise. The houses themselves were strong.

This year’s HHN seems like a very stark lesson that a resort can’t keep chipping away at all those little, silly, insignificant things without having a profound cumulative effect on the total experience. Put another way, no detail at a major theme park is ever really unimportant.

I 100% agree. I was there for the last event night yesterday, and my group had issues finding things to do. I've never really experienced that before at the event.

Getting in and out of HNF was a literal nightmare for me with how stuffy, crowded, warm, time-consuming, and difficult it is to experience. The tribute store was really lacking this year, and didn't feel like it had the love that the wonderful Summer '24 one does. The HHN bar meet n greet characters never amounted to much of anything for myself either, I had no desire to awkwardly and silently interact with a random Goblin from Goblin's Feast. The Death Eaters battling guests with wands was fun, but also pretty difficult to actually see with how situational those moments were, especially in an area I had little reason to walk around in anyways. They tried something with the Blumhouse Wolfman, but that thing got laughed out of the event very quickly.

The show moments in the zones this year were really short and repetitive. The tongue cutting in Torture Faire was kinda cute the first few times, but it's a pretty small-scale gag without a ton of flash or energy. All of Surreal's show moments in Demon Queens were about 15 seconds long each, have no time to breathe, and all end with an awkward whimper. It felt like no one really knew what to do with them, cast and guest alike. The silence was always palpable after each one. Surreal and Sinister monologuing got a lot more dull than Oddfellow last year, in my mind because the characters are just a lot simpler and vaguer than he was. The performers just had a lot less to work with. Blumhouse, Zombies, and Duality had literally nothing to offer for entertainment outside of very basic scareacting behaviors.

A Lagoon show. A smaller stage show. The M3gan hordes. Roaming hordes in general. Street stilts. David S Pumpkins. Jack meeting randomly in house queues or zones. The show moments in zones like Jungle of Doom, Vamp 85, Chucky, Conjure the Dark, Seek and Destroy. I wanted to go on Transformers multiple times across the event, as it's one of the few dark rides in the park, and it wasn't open. There were so many little things that the event had done in previous years that weren't around this time. Any one of these would've vastly improved the experience, but they were nowhere to be found this time.

With how long the house lines were, and actually the ride lines too which I've never seen before, they really needed to offer something to do in between those long and boring waits.

Mix it with a lack of identity and cohesion, half-baked and repetitive concepts, a less exciting IP lineup, and it was just an event that didn't deliver in the way that they have in years past.

On paper, I think the lineup was more than enough.

Would going more in-depth with the punk aesthetic have helped? Maybe. The disjointedness added to many of fans' subpar reviews, but that wouldn't change what people thought of the zones and houses.

I disagree. On paper, Shipyard 32 and Blumzone are incredibly similar zones. Cheaper San Fran reusing props and costumes from previous events, with pretty similar cast dynamics and energy. What elevated Shipyard for me personally was the connection to the Icon, and the rest of the event. Once you leave Torture Faire or Demon Queens, Sinister and Surreal lose all power over the event, and the park and offerings feel incredibly strange and lop-sided because of it, at least personally. I believe the connections and theming lift the entire event up, even the weakest offerings are better for it.

 

[Casper Gutman]

Many of the houses felt very “Hollywood event” this year. Lots of big puppets and AAs (which I loved) and lots of narrow halls and a lack of big open vistas (which I did not love). Insidious, which everyone but me seemed to adore, was the most “Hollywood,” all twisting claustrophobic halls.

If we can keep the puppets and bring back the big sets, we’ve got something good going on.

Oh… and Insidious and Museum really should have switched spots. Museum could have used the space and Insidious’s strengths - Scareactors, intensity, jump scares - were best suited to a tent.

 

[Killer Klown]

Would a “bigger” IP, say Five Nights or Elm Street, have solved the lack of cohesion folks are noting about this year’s event? The vague sense something is wrong? I’d argue it wouldn’t.

No it wouldn’t, which is why I also mentioned the generally poor word of mouth the year was getting (which of course was largely because the year felt off) as a factor.

But a splash IP might’ve helped anyone who was on the fence and decided not to go.

“Sure people think the year feels off, but at least *insert major headliner IP here* is there so it might still be worth it!” as opposed to “Man people are saying this year is off and none of these IP’s really speak to me, think I’m gonna save some coin and skip a year.”

 

[Jake S]

But if the poor word of mouth had no material impact on crowds, how impactful was it? This year had wait times extremely similar to last year despite having a much weaker IP lineup and, allegedly, poor word of mouth. I don't doubt people in the know are telling the truth when they say GSATs were disappointing this year, but I'm also inherently suspicious we're in a bit of an echo chamber.

 

[Killer Klown]

But if the poor word of mouth had no material impact on crowds, how impactful was it? This year had wait times extremely similar to last year despite having a much weaker IP lineup and, allegedly, poor word of mouth. I don't doubt people in the know are telling the truth when they say GSATs were disappointing this year, but I'm also inherently suspicious we're in a bit of an echo chamber.

I was interpreting what was being discussed as crowds were down this year. So if I read/interpreted that wrong and it’s solely a GSAT thing then my bad and l amend my thoughts to:

I think a splashier IP might’ve helped with house perception a bit and the glee of seeing a major franchise might’ve given people a little bigger of a “buzz” for the night, making them a little softer in their answers, but it wouldn’t fix the other issues people had with the year and the scores themselves would still be low.

 

[Casper Gutman]

No it wouldn’t, which is why I also mentioned the generally poor word of mouth the year was getting (which of course was largely because the year felt off) as a factor.

But a splash IP might’ve helped anyone who was on the fence and decided not to go.

“Sure people think the year feels off, but at least *insert major headliner IP here* is there so it might still be worth it!” as opposed to “Man people are saying this year is off and none of these IP’s really speak to me, think I’m gonna save some coin and skip a year.”

What’s odd about the IP talk is that Quiet Place is, in terms of film at least, a bigger, more proven franchise then Five Nights. More importantly, it’s aimed right at the audience HHN seems to want - older folks with lots of disposable cash to drop on merch. There are very few IPs more specifically aimed at young, broke folks then Five Nights, and we’ve discussed the fact that the event may be struggling with too many such guests.

I think Uni did miss big on an IP this year, but almost no one mentions it. Beetlejuice blew up beyond anyone’s expectations right when it would have benefited HHN the most. It became a genuine cultural phenomenon, rare these days, and proved to have four quadrant appeal, drawing young ‘uns and nostalgic older folks with dollars to spend. It’s an IP already associated with Uni and the resort already has a bunch of actors adept at playing the part. In retrospect, going all in on Beetle, maybe even making him the icon, might have paid off big - but then we’re not just talking about one IP anymore, we’re talking about a whole different event.

All that said, one IP - or even several - wouldn’t have fixed the event, whether Five Nights or Beetle. The issues are more profound, more fundamental. Deep changes are needed, not cursory alterations.

 

[Midnight Detective]

More importantly, it’s aimed right at the audience HHN seems to want - older folks with lots of disposable cash to drop on merch.

I disagree that this is the audience they're gunning for - in fact I'd wager they're banking on the fact that they have this group locked.

People have been begging for pre-event content on fan forums and them choosing the Disney-Channel vibe podcast was certainly a choice. Over use of Lil' Boo is another example.

Mix it with a lack of identity and cohesion, half-baked and repetitive concepts, a less exciting IP lineup, and it was just an event that didn't deliver in the way that they have in years past.

I disagree. On paper, Shipyard 32 and Blumzone are incredibly similar zones. Cheaper San Fran reusing props and costumes from previous events, with pretty similar cast dynamics and energy. What elevated Shipyard for me personally was the connection to the Icon, and the rest of the event. Once you leave Torture Faire or Demon Queens, Sinister and Surreal lose all power over the event, and the park and offerings feel incredibly strange and lop-sided because of it, at least personally. I believe the connections and theming lift the entire event up, even the weakest offerings are better for it.

Not only was there zero cohesion, there was ZERO energy between houses. No music, no Sinister/Surreal talking like Chance did, nothing.

I say this in full support of HHN, but I think they really need to sit down and figure out their vision moving forward. For me, the defining factor was always the cohesion - the build up, the lore, the icons, the theming. Long before it was a "Party" vibe.

Even with Six Flags disastrous launch, the line in the sand is drawn. Other parties want a piece of the Halloween Pie. They've removed a lot of teeth from what they'll do content-wise (not arguing for or against but it happened) so other smaller local haunts can seize on being more "adult" or extreme.

My honest question is, if they don't have cohesive theming, and I mean really nail it down, then why choose it with the substantial amount of measurable downsides that continue to grow worse each passing year?

 

[HHN Maddux]

Not only was there zero cohesion, there was ZERO energy between houses. No music, no Sinister/Surreal talking like Chance did, nothing.

This right here. Something as simple as having Surreal's whispers you heard in Demon Queens play throughout the park between music would've done a lot to make the event feel more cohesive. Just look at last year with the green lighting everywhere and Oddfellow's whistle or laugh playing between music, enhancing his presence and really solidifying that you were in his event.