I don't know why people are reading that post as Waterworld like show and nothing else on the whole plot. A Waterworld style show, a dark ride, some shops and a quickservice for an IP could fill out that plot just fine.
Universal's Epic Universe General News & Discussion
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It is going to be a long five years of endless speculation about what might be
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- Jan 30, 2013
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Right. So what IP can benefit from having a show like this?
I don’t think it’s Pokémon. Monsters could benefit. The OG concept art had that big stadium. Plus we know a lot of money has been added into the Monster’s e-ticket. Part of me wants to believe they want to finally make the parks centerpiece a Universal proper IP and pivoting away from Potter. Imagine the rumored land but with a stunt show and a creature boat ride added.:yikes:
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Hopefully Ian won't cause any problems with the construction already finished...
I couldn't find a thread about it, but the affordable housing area Universal is building as part of the EU stuff is going to be getting a pre-school as part of it founded by Jeff Bezos. The article is behind a paywall, but here's a summary:
"A 1,000-apartment affordable housing community that will rise on land in Orlando donated by Universal Parks & Resort has a prominent name attached: Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos.
Developer Wendover Housing Partners LLC has signed a 10-year lease with Bezos Academy to open a tuition-free preschool on site at the community, called Catchlight Crossings.
Founded in 2019 by Bezos — the world’s second-richest man — Bezos Academy is a network of Montessori-inspired preschools across three U.S. states."
"A 1,000-apartment affordable housing community that will rise on land in Orlando donated by Universal Parks & Resort has a prominent name attached: Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos.
Developer Wendover Housing Partners LLC has signed a 10-year lease with Bezos Academy to open a tuition-free preschool on site at the community, called Catchlight Crossings.
Founded in 2019 by Bezos — the world’s second-richest man — Bezos Academy is a network of Montessori-inspired preschools across three U.S. states."
- Apr 27, 2021
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I have posted full plans before if you search my twitter handle and "catchlight crossings" it should show up
Now that we have a general layout, EILI5, how do we get into the park? Is the entrance off Universal? Because all the sudden a stretch of that road is like 12 lanes wide--is that going to be the turn-in? Will the Destination Parkway road be a service road?
Kirkman Road is getting extended to connect the original section (which ends at Sand Lake) to Universal near the convention center, and a new road is being added to connect Kirkman, the entrance, and Destination Parkway. Basically think of the road network as a lowercase h, with Kirkman being the straight and the new road being the curved leg.
I made this a while ago.
This was based on older permits, I've been meaning to update it but just need to find the time.
The new layout is slightly different but seems to only be the ride share area layout that has changed.
CEO OF NBCUNIVERSAL REGARDING EPIC UNIVERSE EARLIER TODAY
I really want to highlight something he said because it sounds like they are going back to the old plans:
We're also - it's also very interesting that park is close to the convention center. So it's an interesting experiment for us. We believe we can get the attendance we need just on the basis of the demand in the market, but it's also going to be interesting to see as the convention business comes back to we - the park is built so that you can come into one land and not the whole park and are we going to get night time convention business, which is kind of an interesting experiment for us.
So will there be a nighttime pay by land aspect?
John Hodulik
Right. So Epic, obviously, a lot of excitement around Epic. Just can you give us an update in terms of sort of overall - sort of, first of all, progress, timing and the opening and just the sort of spending we can expect to get there?
Jeff Shell
Yeah, we're right on track, literally right on track. So we expect to open it in '25. I don't think we've said the exact date that we're opening in, but we will have an impact on '25 that will open in time for the summer of '25. I think it's perfect timing given the demand constraints in Orlando right now, new airline terminal. You know, what Disney is seeing and what we're seeing as far as hotel bookings and - and there's clearly a demand supply imbalance, and I think we're opening a theme park right in the right time in that.
We're also - it's also very interesting that park is close to the convention center. So it's an interesting experiment for us. We believe we can get the attendance we need just on the basis of the demand in the market, but it's also going to be interesting to see as the convention business comes back to we - the park is built so that you can come into one land and not the whole park and are we going to get night time convention business, which is kind of an interesting experiment for us.
But we're right on track as far as spending. We're not - we're worried earlier on because of raw materials costs and steel and things like that. We're not largely past that now. We're now what they call going vertical. I was down there a couple of weeks ago, and everything is coming out of the ground. So all the infrastructure is in, a lot of the steel is in, and now it's just a question of - of building out our peak spend will be in '23 as far as cash, but that was always what we planned. So everything is right on track with Epic. So I'm feeling good about it.
John Hodulik
And just overall in the segment, I mean, obviously, people are worried about the macroeconomic situation. I mean how much visibility do you think you have? I mean, if we see a meaningful slowdown in the economy in mid-year, would you expect to see some that sort of roll through the park segment?
Jeff Shell
Of course. I mean the two parts of our business that are most susceptible to the macro environment or advertising that we talked about and theme parks. And right now, there's a question of why is there weakness in the advertising market, but we're not seeing in the theme park business. I think it's - I think - by the way, there's also a traditional - if you look at travel to theme parks, you can kind of break it down in three segments. There's people who come for the day.
Let's talk about Florida a very just same part, people come for the day from the surrounding area, don't stay overnight. There's people who drive in for a couple of nights. You come from Atlanta, you come from Jacksonville and there's people who fly there, right? People who fly there are coming there as part of the vacation that they plan for a while, whatever.
Generally, the second bucket is tied to fuel prices. Gas prices go up and the amount of people that drive view [ph] park go down. That's been true for 20 years until the last couple of months where rising fuel prices really haven't had any impact on the attendance of that segment. And by the way, as they have come down over the last couple of weeks, it hasn't been any impact, it's just still strong.
So my personal belief is that people were sick of being home, looking to get out of their house, had disposable income that they've saved during COVID and nothing is going to stop them from taking their family vacation and don't necessarily want to travel internationally yet, don't necessarily feel comfortable with that. And we're just seeing the benefits of that. And it may be that, that offsets some of the macro uncertainty.
Comcast Corporation (CMCSA) Management Presents at UBS 50th Annual Global TMT Conference (Transcript)
Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:NASDAQ:CMCSA) UBS 50th Annual Global TMT Conference December 5, 2022 9:10 AM ETCompany ParticipantsJeff Shell - Chief Executive...seekingalpha.com
I really want to highlight something he said because it sounds like they are going back to the old plans:
We're also - it's also very interesting that park is close to the convention center. So it's an interesting experiment for us. We believe we can get the attendance we need just on the basis of the demand in the market, but it's also going to be interesting to see as the convention business comes back to we - the park is built so that you can come into one land and not the whole park and are we going to get night time convention business, which is kind of an interesting experiment for us.
So will there be a nighttime pay by land aspect?
- Feb 15, 2012
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I did not read that as "we're selling the park a la carte" or an open hub. Because that's not happening.
Yeah, I think it reads as they can rent out individual lands to convention groups or open the hub after hours to conventioners.
Or he's not been updated and thinks the park is still a la carte. lol
Or he's not been updated and thinks the park is still a la carte. lol
That would be a smart move, if a company wants to just rent one land, they can keep the rest of the park open for regular guests. You can just hard close that one land, keep the rest of the park opens and then hard open the land again for the company.
Was the a la carte rumor dismissed officially? Because that is the exact vibe I got from this comment. An a la carte method of theme parks. It would feel pretty annoying if every time you enter a land you have to scan your ticket. Or if they try to sell "cheaper" one land or two land packages.
For me it sounds like a only nighttime a la carte thing because he highlights nighttime covention travelers. Universal already offers an after 2pm and after 4pm ticket for conventions, this is somewhat the evolution of that.
What he was saying was "we can rent out SNW for the night, close the land off to guests, and still keep the park open". They actually do this a lot more than people realize with Diagon.
To what extent though? We've already had rumors of a "portal" design, where the middle is open and the lands each have their own entrance. The comment "you can come into a land but not the whole park" is fairly direct. Unless he is speaking directly about the hub and spoke design, which is very weird comment since you are technically "in the park". Either way, I'm still not a huge fan of trying to make this a big business (I know this is a stockholder comment). Certain lands will clearly be more popular than others and pushing for heavier business of renting out entire lands seems crappy from an overall consumer perspective.
Until you have a line of guests who hopped over from IoA and can't get into Mario Land at 4 pm.
This sounds more likely. It also sounds like pie-in-the-sky corporate hopes not based on actual study of guest trends. (Cf. "Volcano Bay is built to be as popular at night as during the day!") Nintendo Land may be the exception--but I think even that's a stretch--I don't see non-theme-park-fan conventioneers committing an evening to How To Train Your Dragon or the Potter equivalent of Baatu.
