Universal Great Britain

[yepthatguy]

Apologies all I missed this in my original post regarding a BBC news article from yesterday.

Here is a link to a short 1:40 interview with the local MP for the area.

It’s on the bbc sounds website, but when you tap the play icon it may ask you to sign in / register, but underneath there is a “maybe later” option to tap / click that will just play the audio. Hopefully it’s available in different regions outside the UK.

I can’t get a full transcript yet, but it’s worth a listen.
It’s only short, but the local MP (member of parliament) talks about, roads, infrastructure, investment, jobs and that he’s been meeting with Universal for a number of months, with just last week the meeting with local councillors, him and universal taking place behind closed doors.

Bedfordshire theme park is ‘an exciting vision’ - BBC Sounds

Alistair Strathern MP has been in discussions with Universal about their proposal.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[tommyhawkins]

I can understand both of the arguments as to why there will or won’t be a wizarding world at UGB. The thing is though, there’d be uproar if there wasn’t a wizarding world given the UK is its home market and probably where its most popular. It would seem perverse to not have any Harry Potter at UGB.

There really would not, the vast majority of people going to the studio tour aren't British, and those who are into potter enough to care about this stuff have been to Orlando.
This is a problem in the minds of the people on this forum

 

[Altonsky]

There really would not, the vast majority of people going to the studio tour aren't British, and those who are into potter enough to care about this stuff have been to Orlando.
This is a problem in the minds of the people on this forum

I love potter but I can’t afford to splash out thousands to go to Orlando to go and see it. Not in this economy when I’m trying to save for a house and there’s probably millions more like me.

Going to Orlando for a lot of people is just simply unaffordable.

 

[Chessy]

Some franchises and movies stand the test of time and I can think of some that are 40/50+ years that are still popular to this day.

Come 2030 we are almost at 30 years since the original release of the first Harry Potter movie. I know we talk about how times change but I don’t really see the popularity waning anytime soon. It’s a very similar timeline for the LOTR franchise and I could also see that being immensely popular as some type of land.

We are over 30 years of Jurassic Park now and again this IP is still incredibly popular as it crosses the generations. I guess what I’m getting at is, it’s not always about what is popular at the time. It’s about what has been popular for a long time and can still be built upon for future generations.

 

[tommyhawkins]

I love potter but I can’t afford to splash out thousands to go to Orlando to go and see it. Not in this economy when I’m trying to save for a house and there’s probably millions more like me.

Going to Orlando for a lot of people is just simply unaffordable.

Got bigger problems that what's in a theme park if ".....In this economy" is still a thing in 2030

 

[Altonsky]

Got bigger problems that what's in a theme park if ".....In this economy" is still a thing in 2030

Spending thousands to travel abroad is always going to be expensive for most people, the economy atm doesn’t help but the former isn’t going to change.

 

[Della]

There really would not, the vast majority of people going to the studio tour aren't British, and those who are into potter enough to care about this stuff have been to Orlando.
This is a problem in the minds of the people on this forum

I understand that you really don't want Potter in the park, am I understanding correct that it's because you want new IPs and are bored of Potter? That's fine, but just correcting a fact - It's simply not accurate to say those who care about Potter have been to Orlando, vast majority of the UK population could never afford to go. Especially last few years since Covid and Brexit have been hard with bills going up a lot. Population of UK is about 67 million. Google says UK visitors to Florida in 2022 was 1.1 million. I make this 1.6%. So if only 1.6% of the UK visits Florida in a given year, which ever way you look at it most people in the UK have not ever visited the Harry Potter attractions in Orlando. However Harry Potter is extremely popular here, probably here more than any other country as someone else said. I mentioned my kids love the books so the popularity carries on into the generation below us, I always see plenty of Harry Potter backpacks on the school run etc so not just my kids.

That's interesting about the stats on nationality of people going to Warner bros tour, I'm surprised majority aren't UK. Do you have a link to your info? Would be interesting to see what countries people are coming from.

As a UK resident, it would be our home park, and people are going to talk about what we'd like to see in it. As Potter is universal's most popular IP (present in every park) and of UK origin it's perfectly reasonable to discuss it.

I love potter but I can’t afford to splash out thousands to go to Orlando to go and see it. Not in this economy when I’m trying to save for a house and there’s probably millions more like me.

Going to Orlando for a lot of people is just simply unaffordable.

Yes. Like I said earlier in the thread I priced up Orlando for my family of 2 adults 3 children and it was £12,000 for 2 weeks. Average wage in England about £35k, and currently rate of bills and everything rocketing up, makes this very hard to justify. Can do Disneyland Paris £2k for 4 days so much more affordable. Universal GB would be even more so.

 

[xtpower]

There really would not, the vast majority of people going to the studio tour aren't British, and those who are into potter enough to care about this stuff have been to Orlando.
This is a problem in the minds of the people on this forum

This is flatly untrue. The cost of an Orlando trip is prohibitively expensive for the majority of Brits, and you seem to be severely understating how popular Potter is over here. Just from my personal experience if UGB had a Potter area every single member of my family would be dying to visit and because you could do UGB on a day trip for a fraction of what an Orlando trip costs they'd all be able to visit.

You talk alot of sense Tommy and most of your points have merit. But you have a giant blindspot when it comes to us Brits and what we do and do not love. You seem to be operating on the assumption that if someone hasn't done the Studio Tour or Orlando then that means they're not interested in Potter which is grossly false.

Whilst I can accept that getting Potter at UGB is at best a 50/50 prospect, to completely write it off as if the British market is already oversaturated with Potter attractions and that if you haven't visited Studio Tour/Orlando that means you're not enthusiastic about Potter is wrong.

 

[Altonsky]

I can see the headlines now.

‘Universal comes to Great Britain but no Harry Potter in a disappointing blow to millions of British Harry Potter fans’

If anyone knows the British press this is the kind of stuff they’ll run with, hardly the best PR for something that otherwise would be the best thing to happen to the British theme park industry.

It’ll get people’s backs up and that’s a fact.

 

[Viator]

See—that’s why I kind of get why you’d go for other British IP; as you can then find ways to soften whatever of a pushback comes with no Potter. It’s not the end of the world, an annoyance to be sure; but one that makes sense given the current climate of the IP.

 

[Mad Dog]

It might also be a cost analysis based on Potter rights fees for a new park (Epic reportedly $500 million just for Potter IP rights) being so high at the moment, in relation to expected/projected attendance and what tickets will sell for in that UK economy. Might be able to get all the other new park IP's for a lesser combined total. Maybe Potter is no for now but maybe for later years if the rights fees become more reasonable.

 

[xtpower]

It might also be a cost analysis based on Potter rights fees for a new park (Epic rep[ortedly $500 million just for Potter IP rights) being so high at the moment, in relation to expected/projected attendance and what tickets will sell for in that UK economy. Might be able to get all the other new park IP's for a lesser combined total. Maybe Potter is no for now but maybe for later years if the rights fees become more reasonable.

You see this makes sense. Rights fees being high and Universal taking a cautious approach is completely believable. Not this whole idea that Brits just aren't that into Potter and everyone who likes it has already got their fix from the Orlando parks.

Personally I'm of the optimistic thought that Universal is deciding between Potter and say LOTR for the Park on opening and believe LOTR would have the much larger impact. Then 3-5 years down the road when they know attendances they can build a second gate and stick Potter in there.

 

[Altonsky]

By time that comes if that does happen they may not even be licensing the movie franchise and it’d be the tv show instead.

Obviously entirely dependent on its success.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

Doing rough math, $500M isn't that bad...

At current wand prices (~$63) and Butterbeer priced at $8.49... they would theoretically need to sell 761 wands a day and 10,488 Butterbeers a day during a 10-year "payback period" (essentially just split the $500M between them both into a 65/35 split)... and this excludes all other forms of revenue/merchandise Potter generates.

Well aware there are operating costs, etc. I'm just putting into perspective that $500M isn't as bad as it sounds lol

 

[PerceptiveCoot]

This is a problem in the minds of the people on this forum

 

[Alicia]

Doing rough math, $500M isn't that bad...

At current wand prices (~$63) and Butterbeer priced at $8.49... they would theoretically need to sell 761 wands a day and 10,488 Butterbeers a day during a 10-year "payback period" (essentially just split the $500M between them both into a 65/35 split)... and this excludes all other forms of revenue/merchandise Potter generates.

Well aware there are operating costs, etc. I'm just putting into perspective that $500M isn't as bad as it sounds lol

Just keep in mind they split the profits on Potter merch with the rights holders, and WB/JKR gets way more a cut than you'd think.

 

[Mad Dog]

Just keep in mind they split the profits on Potter merch with the rights holders, and WB/JKR gets way more a cut than you'd think.

plus the cost of the product

 

[UniversalRBLX]

Just keep in mind they split the profits on Potter merch with the rights holders, and WB/JKR gets way more a cut than you'd think.

Yeah, I just wanted to simplify my comment lol

Either way, those items are cheap to produce so it's not like it'll impact it much lol

 

[Nico]

Yeah, I just wanted to simplify my comment lol

Either way, those items are cheap to produce so it's not like it'll impact it much lol

Just a reminder that most of those exact items are already being sold at the tour:

Studio Tour Shops - Warner Bros. Studio Tour London

Our Studio Tour Shops offers a range of specially selected collectible items, replica wands, confectionery, apparel and much more.

www.wbstudiotour.co.uk

There is also a specific store page, but it’s giving me grief cause I’m in the US.

 

[Jamesh22]

At this point none of us, including well connected board members, can really be certain about what lands will end up in this park. We are too far out from design finalisation and planning approval.

The lands for EU changed relatively late in the planning process I believe? So even if there has been talk of IP's or even concepts, we can't be sure they end up coming to this park.

I would also assume that at some point there will be some research done onto what IP's the Brits would want at this park - that's what happened for Beijing.