Hey y'all, been lurking quite a long time and decided today just to join in and chat a bit, because why not?
A lot of rumors, some I like, some I'm iffy on.
- IPs this year seem really strong. Even the things I'm not at all a fan of (Terrifier and WWE) sound pretty dang great. I never liked Terrifier as a film series, and have tried to watch them to get some sort of entertainment, and I just straight up don't get the appeal. It's not realistic enough to be pure gross out and wild, and it's not over the top enough to be funny like a really crazy dark humor. It's somewhere in-between, and I just couldn't dig it. THAT being said... as a house? I really think if it comes to the event, it could be very gory and heck potentially pretty scary if done right. WWE I don't know anything about but characters seem interesting enough that as long as the house doesn't have like.... actual wrestling things in it like a wrestling ring, I think it'll be pretty good. Disappointed to see no rumored Universal Monsters house, but if we're getting Fallout, I'll take it. First time we're doing both coasts, and it's almost 100% just simply due to Fallout. The amount of video game to movie/show adaptions that are now being made into houses REALLY gives me hope that we'll eventually see BioShock once it comes to Netflix in the years to come. Rumors of a remake of the original being announced in August, and of course that freshens the audience up and preps them for the movie so... fingers crossed.
- FF+ Express going away.... This is the one I'm iffy about. I'm not a local, used to do some work for the mouse but since moved on and live about 6 1/2 hours away. My wife and I travel to HHN UO for about 2-3 weeks for our anniversary in September every year, and then we'll go for about 8 additional nights in October. We make a big deal out of Halloween around here, and we usually get FF+ with Express, and go all out for HHN. We stay on property, eat/drink every time we go to the park, don't hold back on getting merch (heck on top of that, our house has a room filled with actual props, signage, costume pieces, etc. from the event). In every sense of the word, we are indeed die-hard fans of the event. With that being said, if Express doesn't return to multinight tickets, it's going to severely change our gameplan. I love the event, and still will tell you all hands down that it's the best event of the year period. However, I'm not going to spend more than I spent last year on tickets, and not get an equal experience to what I've been getting in the years past, so there's just absolutely no way I'm getting express for every night I'm there, it's absolutely a waste of money. Which brings me to my next point.... we're just simply not going to go as much as we did last year or in the previous years. Like yeah, of course we're going to go, but I'm not going to spend money on tickets that I have to buy individual express for every night and stay on property and do all that and be left comparing it to years before when it was not only much cheaper, but a better experience than using a separate express pass every night. And I can't imagine many locals or other die-hard fans will go and buy express every night. I have no idea what the financial results were from last year from having the express tickets very limited for multiday passes.... but if I were to guess, last year they probably made more than they did the year before. And that makes sense because people didn't expect it to happen and so they already had trips planned with hotels, airfare, etc. so they panic bought express for EVERY night they are there. This year, more than likely the same thing will happen, a panic buy due to people not expecting FF+ Express to be gone, resulting in Universal getting a financial benefit.... but next year, I doubt it. People will be prepared, and won't plan as long of trips so as to save money, do something else, etc. Thankfully, I've been reading the rumors and we planned out well enough in advance to instead have our anniversary for two weeks in UO (aiming for ROF, since we are going in September) only buy express for maybe 1-2 nights because... lines are honestly fine if we have some drinks and food and chill (and we RARELY want to do all 10 houses every night even with express), visiting Hollywood's HHN in October, Disneyland as well probably Oogie Boogie Bash, and then taking a little flight from there to Vegas to do their spooky stuff and of course Horror Unleashed. Maybe I'm wrong, but I just don't see this being financially beneficial to Universal in the longrun other than this year in particular, as it will more than likely decrease next year as people are prepared for no more express with multinight tickets.
Anyway, that's all I got. Sorry, I know that's a dang essay I just wrote, but I'm wordy.