This is tad bit cynical, no? HHN clearly has a lot of passion for what they do and they pride themselves on delivering a unique and memorable experience. They don’t only want money from us, they genuinely want to blow minds and entertain and make a lot of money doing so lol. If it was a pure cash grab, there’s a lot of things Universal could do rather than spend millions of dollars on HHN. A partnership with someone like Billie is just good business sense.
I mean yes and no. The HHN team wants that, but Comcast/Universal look at it as money.
Cynicism is necessary to counter-balance idealism.
Agree with this 100%, I just push back against the idea that HHN and anyone else involved (entertainment, marketing, management, corporate, whomever) is only interested in our money and nothing else. Obviously the bottom line of every decision they make is “we will do this because it will make us money,” but the original post framed the entire event as some sort of vicious cash grab and I just don’t buy that. Like I said, there are way easier things Universal could do if that was literally the only thing they were trying to accomplish.
They've done this almost every year. The Walking Dead. American Horror Story. Stranger Things. All properties that are aimed for a much larger audience than your typical horror fan. I know tons of people who state they hate horror movies, but will watch all three of those. We've always used this formula. It's how business works. You need something that is marketable and capable of drawing in new audiences.
It’s not quite the same as popular horror properties, though. Big name IPs aren’t new to HHN. The two things I mentioned are closer in concept. It’s a really old school approach. A very pre-icon 90s HHN concept. The closest Orlando example I can think of recently is Penn & Teller, Alice Cooper, and Fangoria being attached to houses. Stranger Things isn’t the same type of marketing concept. Neither is TWD or AHS. They are big name properties to bring in newer crowds which is no different than PUTS or Psycho or The Cryptkeeper being used in the early 90s. Hollywood has used a this concept more often in recent years, but it was a mainstay of the event in the 90s in Orlando. The Thunder Dome show is another example of this type of marketing.
She fits visually, but does she fit lyrically? Does the sound fit? Even if the sound/lyrics don’t fit the genre at first glance, can the lyrics/sound be juxtaposed in a way that creates the unsettling imagery/feel necessary for a horror event.
I think you’re overestimating the market if your asking about the lyrical versus visual appropriateness of any IP. We have the conversation every year about some idea that “doesn’t fit” because people get wrapped around the axel of an idea they can’t expand their mind beyond. Last year, it was Vikings. People doubted Scarecrows, and Dolls, and Gargoyles. People doubting if a “horror-adjacent” pop artist is appropriate for a music-centric show at a horror event are ignoring the forest for the trees.
I agree, but it’s still going to waste a lot of talented people’s time to create something that they’re dispassionate about.
Is this concept even that big of a draw? The album will be 18 months old by the time HHN starts. Eillish is on tour playing most major US cities including Orlando and the LA area. Perhaps I’m naive, but who’s going to HHN because Billie Eillish has a lagoon show? Or even her own HHN house in Hollywood (which I now realize I’ve already committed to experiencing :ack.
