Halloween Horror Nights 28 General Discussion | Page 414 | Inside Universal Forums

Halloween Horror Nights 28 General Discussion

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Ariana Grande normally comes through Orlando’s event every year and shuts down each house for her and her entourage. She’s actually a good sport and was fun to scare last year when she came through our house with Mac Miller. Haven’t heard anyone bitching about her being backstage, so I’m guessing she’s not attending this year.
She hasn’t been this year, correct.

Would love to hear some experiences tonight.
It’s absolutely dead, it’s glorious. They were able to staff all key roles and the streets are still all pretty filled.

Most attendees are TMs, TM free passes or FFPs. The projection for the night was incredibly low.
 
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Great night. The pulsing was amazing. Can confirm that every house was doing. It did lead to slower moving lines, but I never waited more than 25 minutes for a house. Being able to get every single scare in Poltergeist was awesome.

ScaryTales grouped us with no one else and there was about eight seconds between us and the people in front and back. It was really cool being able to see each scene as it was fully designed.

It was also cool stopping as much as I wanted in Carnival Graveyard to see all the details.
 
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Must've had a different experience with the pulsing... :lol:

I will say, off the bat, our group was selfishly looking forward to this night, expecting little to no waits. While the pulsing, in theory, may help better with the house experience, we didn't expect this night to have us be waiting 30-40 min for some of the houses.

We did get there later, around 8 - so we couldn't get that head start. IF we pushed ourselves, we could've maybe done all 10; but we weren't looking to do that. In 4 hours, we did 5 houses, with occasional breaks.

We waited 35-40 for Halloween with a posted 20, we waited 30-40 for Seeds with a posted 15. Stranger Things was closer to 45, but it was listed at 35. At one point, Dead Exposure was a 70 min wait, with Slaughter at 45 so we just skipped that....

Was it the hellscape it's been for the past 4 weeks? No. Was it dead? Kinda sorta..but not really, either.

As for the pulsing itself, it was hit or miss. Trick r Treat seemed to fare best, but that's not surprising with their Gestapo Ops team. Seeds was fine, too - ignoring we almost waited double. Scary Tales had a few hiccups, it seemed that they had 2 pulse lines? One to enter the SS, then one as you turn to the facade? IDK. One of their Ops members was hurrying us through, which was odd since, ya know, we were walking at a normal pace and they were pulsing.... We were already caught up to the people ahead of us by scene 4 or so.

Stranger Things though. Woof. Ops separated our group of about 7 because they only let "10 through". We explained they were separating our group and that's not how it's supposed to work. Ops responds "We're letting only a certain amount of people at a time", which we fired back "that's why you ask how many in the party and assess from there...". He just let our group go to catch up, and by the time we caught up to our people, it was already at a conga line again.

We ended up leaving at 12. We thought about doing Poltergeist, but it was listed at an hour, and while waiting for Scary Tales, we noticed that their line seemed to move at a snail's pace.. we just bailed as we didn't want to deal with it anymore.

IDK how to feel about the pulsing - considering their Ops team is already notorious for being a detriment to the event. I think the event is too big to integrate it in a way they want to. Even with the pulsing, my runs weren't that much different than those during the conga lines.
 
I can't see how they expect to implement this pulsing with the increased crowds HHN is getting. The waits are usually already very long and sometimes more then I am willing to wait (don't have Express), so I definitely don't want the lines to get even longer because of pulsing. The event is just too crowded for that. Maybe if they only do it on very quiet nights, but these are far and between. And then I rather have them not do it so the lines are shorter and I can do more houses. Didn't go the the event last night btw.
 
Does she get really scared and screams?
Or does she only jumps?

Probably depends on how your scare is designed. I had two scares last year, and she jumped back, gasped, then smiled and started clapping for me. It’s funny because I popped out of my first spot and thought, “That girl looks familiar, how do I know her?” Then at my second boo hole I was like “ Ohhh!”
 
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I really wish that Universal could make pulsing work and completely eliminate the conga line, but the only way I could ever see that working is if they expanded to a true 2-park event with several more houses to spread the crowds out. Based on what they’ve done over the last decade or so, Universal seems interested in growing the scope of the event only as much as is absolutely necessary, and some would argue they don’t even attain that, so I won’t hold my breath.
 
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I really wish that Universal could make pulsing work and completely eliminate the conga line, but the only way I could ever see that working is if they expanded to a true 2-park event with several more houses to spread the crowds out. Based on what they’ve done over the last decade or so, Universal seems interested in growing the scope of the event only as much as is absolutely necessary, and some would argue they don’t even attain that, so I won’t hold my breath.

HHN will never be at a point, unless a drastic change occurs, where they can pulse lines. Uni wants lines. Express = $$$. HHN is just too damn popular to be able to pulse. Adding more houses will either cause the creativity of each house to diminish, or a spread out budget resulting in everyone's favorite: black walls galore.

Either way, pulsing never works. You get caught up eventually.
 
HHN will never be at a point, unless a drastic change occurs, where they can pulse lines. Uni wants lines. Express = $$$.

I agree with your first point, but your second kind of contradicts it.

Pulsing would likely result in longer lines, so if they were just interested in incentivizing express, then pulsing would be the direction they should go.
 
I agree with your first point, but your second kind of contradicts it.

Pulsing would likely result in longer lines, so if they were just interested in incentivizing express, then pulsing would be the direction they should go.

That would then lead to riots from people without Express. They're probably at the sweet spot right now with balance between Express and Non express.
 
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Could be a marketing concept. Have 2 or 3 houses with pulse lines and market them as "Special HHN Experience", or something like that. People would probably naturally expect longer lines for those houses so designated, so the longer lines wouldn't be such a negative.