Old Vs New HHN

[UniversalRBLX]

Asking sincerely: What is "all the data," in your view?

The graph I show displays 1-day ticket/express pricing, # of event offerings included in your admission, change in multi-night prices and wait-time data changes since 2019.

First rule of working with data—it’s rarely definitive. You can make it say whateverrrrr you want.

Well aware, I have no interest in manipulating data to reflect a specific message. I'm simply presenting that HHN has increased pricing over the last few years now with no significant changes to capacity in order to accommodate modern day crowds.

Who said they want Premiere night to be multi-night experience?

Executives looking for incremental revenue growth? It's inevitable we see them (if successful) expand to offer additional nights if they find demand for it. Disney After Hours (pretty much a premium night) started off with 5-6 nights at MK only and is now offered at 3 parks with 50 nights total.

 

[OrlandoGuy]

Well aware, I have no interest in manipulating data to reflect a specific message. I'm simply presenting that HHN has increased pricing over the last few years now with no significant changes to capacity in order to accommodate modern day crowds.

I didn’t think you were (I actually like your chart a lot). Just saying that using your exact same graph/data you could make the opposite case, that ticket prices have only outpaced inflation by about 7 percentage points while attendance continues increasing, so that HHN is actually doing a great job improving the guest experience without while remaining highly accessible. It’s all in your perspective.

ETA: I’ll throw in that to me “Old” HHN was less commercial, more gritty, and for a lot of people (around my age in my neighborhood growing up) the only reason to go to Universal. It was largely left alone post-Potter but once the Walking Dead well was tapped, the whole thing felt like a more natural, commercially-viable extension of the day parks.

On one hand, there has been unparalleled investment in the event now that Comcast sees the revenue potential it can have as a more accessible, IP-focused event. It’s a major party and hang-out spot which I’ve grown to enjoy. On the other hand, I miss the homegrown quality of some of the houses/zones, which used to have brutal gore, questionable themes, and a sort of “don’t tell mom and dad” quality to it.

Also can confirm liquor sales as we knew them stopped in 2017.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

I didn’t think you were (I actually like your chart a lot). Just saying that using your exact same graph/data you could make the opposite case, that ticket prices have only outpaced inflation by about 7 percentage points while attendance continues increasing, so that HHN is actually doing too well at improving the guest experience. It’s all in your perspective.

Sure if you consider inflation the event hasn't increased prices dramatically, but I don't think that's any sort of metric that proves the guest experience has improved (hence why I included the 14% increase in wait-times & the fact that the # of offerings has stagnated). The quality of the event has always been great, but the experience has certainly been impacted by increased attendance and no movement capacity-wise.

Mind you, I visited 3-4 nights each week and spoke to many friends and guests who were enjoying themselves but found themselves disgruntled at how busy everything at the event was and how difficult it was to navigate crowds at times.

 

[OrlandoGuy]

Sure if you consider inflation the event hasn't increased prices dramatically, but I don't think that's any sort of metric that proves the guest experience has improved (hence why I included the 14% increase in wait-times & the fact that the # of offerings has stagnated). The quality of the event has always been great, but the experience has certainly been impacted by increased attendance and no movement capacity-wise.

Mind you, I visited 3-4 nights each week and spoke to many friends and guests who were enjoying themselves but found themselves disgruntled at how busy everything at the event was and how difficult it was to navigate crowds at times.

Don’t you think ever-increasing attendance points to a positive guest experience? The success of new rides is attributed to YOY attendance gains. Movie quality (or at least commercial viability) is judged by box office. I don’t think HHN would be any different.

 

[Brian G.]

Sure if you consider inflation the event hasn't increased prices dramatically, but I don't think that's any sort of metric that proves the guest experience has improved (hence why I included the 14% increase in wait-times & the fact that the # of offerings has stagnated). The quality of the event has always been great, but the experience has certainly been impacted by increased attendance and no movement capacity-wise.

Mind you, I visited 3-4 nights each week and spoke to many friends and guests who were enjoying themselves but found themselves disgruntled at how busy everything at the event was and how difficult it was to navigate crowds at times.

We seem to be not taking into account Universal not only starting earlier, and adding dates, but also - increasing operating hours in the last few years, too. Like people keep saying, there’s just too many layers. This isn’t a 1+1=2 deal.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

Don’t you think ever-increasing attendance points to a positive guest experience? The success of new rides is attributed to YOY attendance gains. Movie quality (or at least commercial viability) is judged by box office. I don’t think HHN would be any different.

Increased attendance does not relate to the guest experience (reference the discourse of attending Disney Parks nowadays compared to 10 years ago). Airlines are squeezing in as much seats as they can into planes, but that's not improving the experience at all. Eventually there's a breaking point where consumers choose to go elsewhere, or stop going.

We seem to be not taking into account Universal not only starting earlier, and adding dates, but also - increasing operating hours in the last few years, too. Like people keep saying, there’s just too many layers. This isn’t a 1+1=2 deal.

In the name of simplicity, I avoided including that. Yes, the event has increased the number of dates and hours, but that's still not enough to handle modern-day crowds. I'm thankful Universal has decided to now run the event 5 days a week until 2AM, but that still isn't enough to accommodate everyone.

 

[Legacy]

In the name of simplicity, I avoided including that. Yes, the event has increased the number of dates and hours, but that's still not enough to handle modern-day crowds. I'm thankful Universal has decided to now run the event 5 days a week until 2AM, but that still isn't enough to accommodate everyone.

Except it is, because they’re not selling out every night. Or even the majority of nights.

The flaw in your hypothesis is that wait times are not a direct correlation to anything. Different houses can inflate wait times, as popularity, queue layout, even the direction of a scare can increase wait times. Weather can increase wait times. And wait times don’t take into account overall capacity of the event (which varies throughout your graph due to shows) or other guess experiences. It is one small factor of a total experience which is purely subjective. Whether polling, you can’t ascribe a qualitative assessment to it. And you’re not polling.

You can’t take a financial metric and ignore inflation, as that matters. You can’t take admission costs and not baseline it against the total number of opportunities to use that admission. Your graph looks good, but it’s taking the only two metrics you have access to (which aren’t directly related) and saying “this proves my point.” As they say - Lies. Damn lies. And Statistics.

And back to Premiere night, it’s pretty obvious management isn’t viewing the event as a guest-centric opportunity because they’re doing it before opening weekend. If they wanted it be a push for more guests, they would have already scheduled it after opening weekend.

 

[Mad Dog]

The plus of HHN now being so crowded and financially successful is that it drastically increases the profit for the resort. That, bottom line,
allows for overall improvements in the resort. The popularity also helps to capture youthful demographics as long term Universal theme park customers. The negative is that it's too crowded for the likes of older people like me, that enjoyed a less busy HHN, but that doesn't really matter since we're not the target demographic. But I'm not hardcore HHN anyway, so I just vacation at a different time of year. I'm glad to see it doing so well. It could probably use another show, or two though, like they used to have, to help capacity.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

Except it is, because they’re not selling out every night. Or even the majority of nights.

The flaw in your hypothesis is that wait times are not a direct correlation to anything. Different houses can inflate wait times, as popularity, queue layout, even the direction of a scare can increase wait times. Weather can increase wait times. And wait times don’t take into account overall capacity of the event (which varies throughout your graph due to shows) or other guess experiences. It is one small factor of a total experience which is purely subjective. Whether polling, you can’t ascribe a qualitative assessment to it. And you’re not polling.

You can’t take a financial metric and ignore inflation, as that matters. You can’t take admission costs and not baseline it against the total number of opportunities to use that admission. Your graph looks good, but it’s taking the only two metrics you have access to (which aren’t directly related) and saying “this proves my point.” As they say - Lies. Damn lies. And Statistics.

Well aware Universal inflates waits (as I've mentioned countless times last year during the event). I only included avg. wait-time in my chart because it's the only metric I can show that has data to prove, without using personal anecdotal evidence, that the event has increased in popularity & attendance since HHN 28. I mentioned last year that the event has to figure out how to increase capacity outside the haunted houses since multiple original houses will see low waits early/later in the event day (hence my comment of an additional stage show to the event being needed).

I'm lucky to attend the event each year multiple nights, and each year I hear growing frustration from crowds. I've been called out on this forum for just using anecdotal evidence when I criticize Universal, so I've worked on getting data to defend my comments.

I enjoy this back and forth discussion, but please don't think I have some sort of quota against Universal. I'm simply trying to discuss an issue that, in my opinion, isn't being sorted out the way it should be. I'll eat my words when things change.

And back to Premiere night, it’s pretty obvious management isn’t viewing the event as a guest-centric opportunity because they’re doing it before opening weekend. If they wanted it be a push for more guests, they would have already scheduled it after opening weekend.

It's Universal's first attempt at a premium offering, I don't expect them to run more nights this year. I'd imagine, just like any corporate decision making, they'll look at its success and weigh their options next year for a similar offering post-opening week if they deem it successful.

The plus of HHN now being so crowded and financially successful is that it drastically increases the profit for the resort. That, bottom line,
allows for improvements in the resort. The popularity also helps to capture youthful demographics as long term Universal theme park customers. The negative is that it's too crowded for the likes of older people like me, that enjoyed a less busy HHN, but that doesn't really matter since we're not the target demographic. But I'm not hardcore HHN anyway, so I just vacation at a different time of year. I'm glad to see it doing so well. It could probably use another show, or two though, like they used to have, to help capacity.

I'm happy as well that HHN has "broken" into mainstream popularity, but there's a a middle ground that can provide additional profit for $CMCSA and still work on improving the guest experience.