New head of operations for the parks.
EDIT- (Pulling in a tangential conversation from the Winter’s Wake thread)
So, heading into 2020, the HHN team was Charles, Patrick, and Blake. Charles was the “lead” but he split house direction responsibilities with Patrick while Blake focused on Streets. This has actually been the set up for several years; Mike was predominantly oversight of the event (the lead).
The pandemic hit in 2020 and Universal had to cut staff. So, Patrick got let go (A&D lost about a third of their staff). The houses were done, regardless.
This year, Blake got a new job in Tennessee and left Universal. That left Charles in charge of directing the entire event. It sounds overwhelming, except Orlando is now run by the same person who ran Hollywood. So there’s a belief that “one person” can direct the entire event.
Now, it’s important to understand that-contextually-Blake, Patrick, and Charles-do not “design” the houses. They conceptualize, write, and produce them. The actual design is predominantly freelance work. It’s also important to know that A&D, even now, has 10-ish incredibly talented and creative people who direct individual houses. So, it’s still not a “Murdy” situation.
There was some discussion that Universal may try to bring Patrick back, but I haven’t heard anything on that in months. For a while, Universal was struggling to fill some of their designer positions because freelance can often pay more than salary, so Patrick may be content for the time being.