FWIW, the lanyard pass did say attractions may close before 11:30.
Yes it did. Which I read later. My eye sight is not good right now as I am between eye surgeries. So small print is the death of me. I have increased fonts on my PC and phone. So I couldn't read the lanyard well especially in poor light. Inspecting it further later I did see that.
There was about 20 people in front of us at check in and we were probably there about 10 minutes. So I could see how it could get backed up at peak times. I also would have never checked in closer to 9, but I guess many waited to check in. Which is silly, we wanted to be in to ride things like ET and MIB before those closed down.
Don't get me wrong, I think the event was nice and for many people was probably an awesome experience. I just think they could have done things slightly different in a couple areas and made it even better. I see nothing wrong with pointing out flaws and hoping they improve them for next time. Especially since we know they are looking to do more hard ticket events which would require this same type of procedures.
Three areas that I see they could have improved to make things better for all.
1. Don't shut rides down. At 9pm turn away any guest at entrance that doesn't have a lanyard and direct them to exit which security does their sweep. No one checked our lanyards in the waiting area so I feel letting us on in a single file line while checking would have been more secure anyways.
2. Have a sign at check in that clearly states rides with over a 30 minutes wait may close early and then at a ride that starts to get a long line do the same thing.
3. Hold the event a little more off season so the park can close at 8 and the event can be further from the midnight deadline so most rides can stay open until closing.
I think the above 3 things would have stopped all the complaints I heard. Universal is not the best at crowd control and I feel like there is no reason they can't improve. They have improved with the Mardi Gras parade by putting ropes in most areas keeping the crowds back. That was my biggest complaint of the parades before. They still need to work on the alternate routes as getting stuck in an endless circle around transformers sucked. But I have seen some improvement over the past 5 years with crowd control.
As for check in, honestly I am not sure what Universal can do outside of telling people they should arrive at least an hour before the starting time to ensure they get in on time. I didn't see this disaster, I only heard about it since we checked in at 6pm.