I feel like there’s some revisionist history going on. Before the event, people were claiming this to be one of the greatest IP lineups of all time, and the event itself possibly being a GOAT year. Now that HHN29 quite hasn’t panned out that way, everyone wants to place the blame on not enough original material. Yet the two favorite houses of the past two years are IPs (Poltergeist & Monsters), and it feels like many people felt last year was one of the strongest events in years, even with an almost identical IP/original. And as for “cohesion”, HHN17 & HHN19 were both majority IPs, yet still managed to maintain a single theme despite the different properties. Honestly, I think the IPs are a scapegoat for what’s clearly deeper issues running through the event:
1. The team seems to have a “build ‘em all, let god sort ‘em out” approach to houses. I understand this is an event with many moving parts, so not everything can be accounted for, but it feels like the HHN team is putting together houses based on what rad effects and costumes look like when they can stroll though alone in a preview setting than what functionally works in a live setting regarding operations and staff. Think about all the random ops people standing in the middle of rooms because there was no space designed for them to stand. And it didn’t take an IP to turn Depths of Fear into a complete disaster where many of the effects don’t work and massive staff turnover from unsafe costuming, to the point where they’ve needed to revamp the entire house midway through the event. Same goes for the chainsaw crew in Springfield. Even Ghostbusters, the supposed darling, has effects breaking down and missing actors (like according to the boards here apparently the proton packs are actual weight?).
I’ll grant you the IPs do make casting harder, which in turn means that as the event goes on and staff leaves, you’ll wind up with more empty spaces. That being said, with Stranger Things, wasn’t the house supposedly going to have even more mannequins before Netflix intervened? And they didn’t invite back most of the look-alikes from last year? Why are rights-holders needing to step in to make houses better? Stranger Things 2&3 aren’t hurting for scary material and based on last year’s house its clear that the property can actually be decently scary in a house-setting. It’s a lot of work to put together 10 stellar houses every year, it’s pretty clear the design team is going to prioritize pet favorites and that Stranger Things was a “been there, done that” for them.
2. The event is too popular. I didn’t care for Universal Classic Monsters, mainly because the three times I had a chance to go through, I either missed or saw the reset on all the major scares (Wolfman bungee, Hunchback, etc.) because of the conga lines. It is getting rarer and rarer to have the intimate, alone moments that make for great and terrifying house and zone experiences. There are simply too many people. So instead design is going for more spectacle, more big effects in houses and mini-shows in zones. I’ll give them credit for trying to adapt, but that winds up creating timing issues where if a guest goes through at the wrong time, or passes through a zone in-between shows, the entire experience is barren of anything worthwhile.
Of course, the easy answer is get rid of IPs and the crowds will go away. And the easy rebuttal is Comcast. A multi-billion-dollar conglomerate has zero incentive to reduce crowds, unless done in conjunction with massive price-hikes for the event as a whole. Bringing in IPs grew the event exponentially. And honestly? Even if the event next year was 8 originals, Stranger Things & IT, I bet it would be nearly as crowded. This is the new normal for the event, and addressing the problem would require a radical rethinking of what HHN even is.
Sorry for the essay on this, it’s just been something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately in the wake of this year’s event (which I enjoyed for the most part). Unsurprisingly, there's other stuff I've been thinking about but I'll just cut it here.
TL;DR: IPs may just be a scapegoat for the fact that a packed event is the new normal, and houses and streets are not being designed with this, operational, and staff/costuming decisions in mind. The team need to radically rethink HHN at this point, and that’s going to require coordinating with other teams rather than just build what they think looks neat in a vacuum.