HHN 2024: Tips, Tricks & Planning Thread

[Freak]

I’m here tonight! Wait times seem to be a little longer than Sunday. Still not terrible compared to last year. Did EA and knocked out Insidious and GB by 6:30, left TCM by 7:15, got out of Weeknd by 7:46 and now in line for Bloodlines. Definitely a healthier wait for that than Sunday night.

I personally think tomorrow is gonna be SLAMMED. It’s Friday the 13th. It’ll be crazy packed. Other than that I think it will be just crowded on Saturday.

 

[Spookies n' Stuff]

Yeah people are skeptical but I'm chalking this up as a win for the heat wave scaring people off week 1. It may not be as bad as the heights of 2022 or 2023, but I fully expect Tomorrow and Saturday to be pretty unbearable, I know I personally am staying gone till Sunday at the earliest.

 

[malice]

Going tonight, hoping for light crowds but probably won’t be the case given it’s Friday the 13th. Toying with the idea of getting Early Access but don’t want to go through understaffed houses.

 

[Wesker69]

but don’t want to go through understaffed houses.

You're going to get understaffed houses no matter what due to quite a few roles not having a tagout.

I don't support paid early entry, but in some cases it is worth it, however my best run-throughs of Insidious were the last 30min before close.

On a side note, I remembered to grab a pic of the FFP upgrade sign as I was heading to Terror Tram

 

[Jake S]

You're going to get understaffed houses no matter what due to quite a few roles not having a tagout.

Agreed, but I think you’re almost guaranteed to have empty spots during Early Entry in addition to light bleed. I get why people do it, but it’s a never again situation for me.

 

[Wesker69]

I've never seen HHN this "empty" as far as staffing goes for houses. SZs on the other hand have suffered for years.

 

[Jake S]

I've never seen HHN this "empty" as far as staffing goes for houses. SZs on the other hand have suffered for years.

Agreed. Still early days, but not a great sign.

 

[Jerroddragon]

Yeah it was busier last night and unless you get in line early for chucky, Skip its opening at 8 PM the line is 30 mins and during that time the lines for all houses go up

 

[Freak]

I've never seen HHN this "empty" as far as staffing goes for houses. SZs on the other hand have suffered for years.

It’s telling when every single run through I’ve had of TCM so far (Which was 4) without fail, I have ALWAYS had a moment or two when I was like “Wait there was actually supposed to be a scareactor there!?”

Yeah it’s bad ESPECIALLY during early access.

 

[Jerroddragon]

It’s telling when every single run through I’ve had of TCM so far (Which was 4) without fail, I have ALWAYS had a moment or two when I was like “Wait there was actually supposed to be a scareactor there!?”

Yeah it’s bad ESPECIALLY during early access.

Last Sunday, I went on it twice.There was no joke over double the actors when I went the second time

Kinda insane

 

[Lurker]

Last Sunday, I went on it twice.There was no joke over double the actors when I went the second time

Kinda insane

TCM last night was on FIRRRREEEE! So many scareactors compared to last week, yet fewer in all the other mazes. But TCM was viscerally scary last night on a level I haven't felt at HHN in years. If any of y'all in the maze look at these threads, keep up the good work!

Also felt like less Express people last night. Lines were moving a bit smoother.

 

[Jerroddragon]

TCM last night was on FIRRRREEEE! So many scareactors compared to last week, yet fewer in all the other mazes. But TCM was viscerally scary last night on a level I haven't felt at HHN in years. If any of y'all in the maze look at these threads, keep up the good work!

Also felt like less Express people last night. Lines were moving a bit smoother.

I wish I saw the second part

Like I said before having to wait 8 mins for the general line to move for The weekend when it opened and around 5 mins at Dead Exposure during EA .
For sure they were letting in an insane amount of express for Bloodlines as well. Maybe later it gets better but the start of the event is pretty painful for general guests, like all three of these houses I was in line before they opened so was close enough near the start to only wait 2-3 times of them opening the express line to get in but for people getting in line as the attractions open are looking at 30+ mins wait not because of too many people but because they want to clear the express line.

 

[Wesker69]

I'm playing with fire... its almost 7pm & I'm almost to Universal. Pray for my sanity lol

My game plan is at least Monstrous, Terror Tram & Purge... anything else is luck. HAPPY F13!!!

 

[DTH]

How's it looking so far? On the app, I see Insidious and TCM are at 70 minute waits. Usually this is peak time, so I'm assuming that's as bad as it will get for tonight. Everything else is fairly moderate with A Quiet Place, Bloodlines, and Monstrous being fairly low at 30 minutes. That's kinda usual for the upper lot, but I expected Bloodlines to get more of a line being a lower lot attraction, but maybe people are confused on how to get there?

 

[Wesker69]

The lines are long, including Terror Tram so I'm hitting the 10pm PURGE even though I saw it at 8pm

 

[DTH]

From the app, it kinda looks like how Sundays used to be. 70-90 minute waits for the big mazes, 30-45 for everything else. Much better than how Saturdays used to be with 90-120 minute waits for the big mazes and 60-80 for everything else.

Again, not sure how Universal execs are going to take this though. My guesstimation is they may be in panic mode with some early meetings tomorrow.

 

[Spookies n' Stuff]

From the app, it kinda looks like how Sundays used to be. 70-90 minute waits for the big mazes, 30-45 for everything else. Much better than how Saturdays used to be with 90-120 minute waits for the big mazes and 60-80 for everything else.

Again, not sure how Universal execs are going to take this though. My guesstimation is they may be in panic mode with some early meetings tomorrow.

Honestly I don't expect them to really start considering the implications until at least October so they have roughly half a runs worth of ticket/express/rip/booze and foods money to consider compared to other years. I do think it's gonna be a quieter year in general compared to the last couple, but idk how that really comes together in the wider puzzle of cost vs profit for this sort of thing, I do think they'll consider the significant jump from 20 minute waits to 90 minute waits between last friday and this friday to be promising though.
I think there'll only be true panic if things stay this quiet in Week 4 - October.

 

[DTH]

Trust me. Any entertainment industry office will go into a panic mode over the slightest and most minute details. I've seen it happen for just about anything.

Also, last week's highest waits were 70-80 at its peak and tonight's peak is 80-90. Insidious and TCM are doing well. Even Terror Tram seems to be doing okay. It's everything else they honestly should be worrying about. I'll say the survey pinpointed one particular IP attraction that is not doing well and for that to happen after week one is...interesting, but also fairly obvious to not be a headliner despite being a popular IP decades ago. My guess is it's not doing well on exit polls.

 

[Wesker69]

Here are the waittimes last night at 11:30pm

 

[DTH]

I'm amazed that Bloodlines is getting no traffic. Universal Monsters tend to do okay. My only theory is confusion to where the line is. There's no way word of mouth spread to GP that it's terrible yet. Something like Dead Exposure getting higher traffic is a little strange to me, but maybe people just think "cool, zombies." Maybe the title Bloodlines is unclear what monsters are present.