I don't think the lack of multi-day Epic tickets is THAT dire now...
As someone with their "finger on the pulse," as far as sales go, we're looking pretty pale. And if i'm speaking from JUST my agency,
that does just as much UOR as it does WDW, that ratio is pretty darn drastically different right now; And for a year where UOR is opening a NEW PARK, that simply doesn't look or feel good to anyone, really. The optics are all over the place. Sure, Fall sales are still coming in, but wasn't the point of opening this park in MAY to get things good for the Summer? Yeah, no. They've royally messed that up for the General Admissions crowd.
WE, as nerds who are committed to going(EDIT: and have packages/hotels holding), who go to forums to talk about how excited we are to go, are going to go no matter what, BUT the GA is NOT. And UOR is LOSING the GA by not releasing this stuff! It's not dire, not for you(EDIT: Brian), not even really for me as a TA, but it SHOULD BE dire for UOR because they REALLLLLLY missed the boat on this one. For PEAK summer sales, you book between Thanksgiving and Superbowl. Those two dates are when people plan these things. Families sit down over the holidays and talk about Summer vacay. Couples go into the new year and want to put deposits down on vacations and honeymoons. 6 MONTHS OUT is a genuine rule of thumb and man... if WE'VE lost sales because of this, other agencies have lost sales because of this, and UOR has
mos def lost sales because of this. Those June and July out-of-staters are going to be mostly gone by now, they've booked elsewhere because no one else is making them WAIT to do so;
Convenience meets the path of least resistance.
It's not dire, but it is dumb and i'm worried Universal decision makers are the only people who don't know that; I.e.
the same people who chose to r
elease a commercial for their new park AFTER the superbowl was already over.
Their ticketing strategy is putting out of state visitors on ice for 2025. Rather than a "what are they doing??" situation...I'm starting to wonder if Universal wants to intentionally shift attendance from 2025 to 2026. The theory would be that opening mid-year, they can't score Wall Street satisfying attendance given it would be partial year. 2025 is a scrub number, mostly meaningless. What Comcast may want is a blockbuster 2026 full-year attendance number to validate their investment and strategy.
I was thinking this way for a while, but you know what puts a sour taste in my mouth?
The idea that
"When are 2025 tickets going to drop?" is going to become
"When are 2026 tickets going to drop?"
It's obvious we're not seeing the full picture, and i hope i'm wrong, but you need 2025 metrics to inform 2026 metrics for something on this scale and well, i think we're going to see some WONKY numbers moving forward because of this. If EVERYONE is delaying going in 2025 because of something as simple as "i wasn't able to book Summer 2025 when i wanted" all the way to "i was always planning on going in Summer 2026 because it will be too busy in 2025," it makes 2026 feel like a timed bomb in comparison
Let's hope the future roll-out is handled better, right?
I don't think anyone is 'canceling'. I think anyone trying to go within the first two months is 100% committed. If you are planning a trip for the first few months, you either think it will be very crowded and don't care about that or you think it won't be crowded at all and aren't worried about securing tickets ahead of time
Beyond that, I'll reiterate that I think Universal doesn't want insanely crowded parks at first. More possibility for issues and bad reviews.
Canceling? No, but there is a third option: The people who WOULD'VE booked at UOR are now, instead, booking for WDW and saying "We'll just add an epic ticket later." They're GIVING Disney business with this
strategy. It's actually funny, in hindsight.