Can IP Save Howl-O-Scream?

0:02 Hello from our studios in Los Angeles and Tampa. This is Green Tag to Theme Park and thirty. I'm Philip from Gantu Mighty and Controls. I'm joined as always by my delightful co host, Scott'swinson of Scott's Winson Great Development on Green Tag. Look at the top news each week and we try and pick the stories we think are the most impactful for professionals in the theme parking thing the entertainment space. This week, though, I think we're going to choose one because it's a little near and dear to Scott's heart. I think, and it is that the United Parks Resorts, which is which comprises or which comprises SeaWorld and Bush Gardens, or SeaWorld and Bush Gardens are comprised of parks, aren't goes. But anyway, that chain we're talking about the company, the parent company for the parent company there you go, right, they have finally moved into I.

0:49 Went through so many of those when I worked for Busch Gardens. We had so many parent companies while I was there, so I. Learned that anyway, I'm sorry, go ahead, Busch Gardens and SeaWorld have finally moved into the IP Halloween Game because they are bringing IPS from Sony to all of five all the all the five Halla Scream instances happening this Halloween season. Basically, it's two big ips that Sony has this partnership with United Parks on. It is I Know what You Did Last Summer and Anaconda and Bush Gardens Tampa and Bush Gardens Williamsords will get Anaconda and I Know What You Did last Summer will go to all the SeaWorld Orlando, San Diego and San Antonio Parks. And that's the gist of it.

1:31 We can go into some of the details, but basically, the only other thing that is interesting about this is that on Anaconda they are actually different storylines that tell different parts of the story, so the houses are different from a story standpoint. Tampa gets Anaconda, fear has no escape and when Williamsburg gets Anaconda dead on arrival and both instances in both instances for both ips. Sony says it's the first time that they've been licensed in this way for a large Halloween event to do a physical walkthrough type of thing at a like a haunted house. The first soneted house. They've done and of course CEO Mark Swanson gave different press releases about this, but basically I don't know.

2:13 He saw. Our fans are looking for new and immersive scares, and bringing Ana Conda to our Hollow Scream event elevates the experience at both Bush Gardens Parks. The addition to Vanda Conda, combined with all new Haunts entertainment, will solidify Hallas Stream's spot as one of the nation's top Halloween events. Will it, Mark and on I. Know what you did last summer? He said, This thrilling franchise is captivated horror fans for years with its suspense and terror. Now our guests will step into the world facing some of the same heart pounding moments that make the film come alive. As one thrilling part of the lineup upon It House scaresens and live entertainment emergency experiences. We are excited to deliver what we believe is our most ambitious Hallis Scream yet. Scott, you you have a history with United Parks and specifically with Bush Gardens in Tampa.

3:04 How Hollow Scream in general? Yeah? Yeah, Hell Scream in general? Right, a large history. Maybe catch us up on your history and tell us what you think about anacon. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. Back in the day, I was part of the team that created Hellow Scream Bush Gardens in Tampa. I have and then for the first fifteen years, I was part of the creative team, sometimes the creative director, sometimes the creative producers, sometimes just creative consultant, just depended on the year, and so I've been I was involved with with the creative for Hellow Scream at Bush Gardens for the first fifteen years. I then have gone on to write haunts for SeaWorld Hellow Scream in Orlando and SeaWorld Hello Scream in San Antonio. And I've consulted on a couple of haunts at Bush Gardens in Williamsburg. So I know the early days of this product very very well, and I have continued to go and visit. I still have friends who work here in Tampa and in San Antonio.

4:03 I know Roland is still very Roland Garcia is still very much involved there. But so here's the things that I find interesting about this particular announcement. First, going back back in the way back machine to the first fifteen years of the event, we were always jealous that Universal had all the IPS, and Universal was always jealous that we weren't. We didn't have our hands tied by the IPS, so we could come up with new and unique stuff. And Universal had to follow the IP brand guides and then had to get sign off every step of the way, you know, and you know, to have to have the directors of famous films come through and do a final walk through. Yeah, that's pretty cool, that's pretty exciting. But if they didn't like what they saw, then there was a lot of struggle to get back to where they could actually open, because it's written in a lot of those agreements that they don't open if they don't get final approval. So one of the things that Busch Garden's Hellow Scream had was the fact that because we didn't have to spend so many so much money just to say whatever the IP was, we could invest that into the product itself. There was one year where we actually kind of broke down and we couldn't get hard numbers, but based on general soft numbers, we were able to say that our operational budget, not including capital, but our

5:38 operational budget would have been taken up completely by the number of IPS that Halloween Hornet's had in Orlando. So and that's just the rights to be able to call things by these existing names. So it also meant that in Orlando they had to have significant higher numbers because the audience wasn't necessarily seeing the investment that they pay for. The ip flip side of that is, you don't have to tell any backstory. Everybody knows the intellectual properties, They know the backstory of all this stuff. And for Universal, I think it was kind of essential because you know, that was back in the day where they were still writing on the coattails of Ride the movies, and so they cut it was kind of in their brand warehouse or their brand wheelhouse to to actually bring those great Haunt properties to life. And everybody thought that they were actually all Universal films, but they were not. So they had to lease everything pretty much except Classic Monsters. That was the only Universal actually never had to lease. But you know, anytime they did Freddie or Jason or oh god, so many American Werewolf in London, all of you know, all of those, they spent more money upfront before they ever painted a single set piece or even build a single set piece than Hella Scream did. And that was

7:09 just on the on the eyepiece, So we we intentionally took the route because we didn't have the numbers. We know, we didn't have the budgets early on. We intentionally took the route to avoid IP and create our own compelling storylines in this world now, and Philip and I were just talking about this before the show, where people only like what they know. That's why IPS are becoming more and more important, more and more essential, especially for Halloween events. So it makes sense that they're that they're moving in that direction slowly the one curiosity, and I've seen other parks do this. When they start to invest in IPS, they make up for it by doing less product because they have to. They have to divert some of that budget to pay for the IP, so the product itself is smaller, and then they get frustrated because they think, well, gosh, we clearly didn't pick the right ep No, you just people don't come for a single IP, they come for the entire event, and when the entire event gets smaller. Now, I don't know whether Bush Gardens and See World are going to do this or not. This is this is I'm just sharing theory and actual practice at the time with some of the some of my clients and some of the projects that I've worked on. So I'm hoping that they have added the price of the IP onto the budget and aren't going to be required to pull it from the budget because I have no idea. I mean,

8:42 I knew back you know, twenty six years ago. I knew what it was back then, but I don't know now what these IPS will go for or sell for, what the agreement is, any of that. So the fact they're going down that road, I trust the team at Bush Gardens because I know a lot of them. Actually a lot of the people who are now doing most of the design work were people that I worked with, people that I trust, people that I respect, people that are really, in all fairness, doing better work than we did when I was there. So I'm very excited about that side of it. I'm hoping that they will still have the finances and the resources now that the IP is in place. So there's the whole IP non IP storyline.

9:30 Where does the money come from? All of that? So hopefully they've got all that figured out, and if not, they're going to soon discover that they need to get it figured out. The next question I have is the IP itself now one of the things that we were never allowed to do back in the day. Now I realize it's a completely different world and the parks have changed significantly. But one of the things we were never allowed to do, even when we weren't doing IP, was any sort of animal attack. We were never allowed to do anything that portrayed any any species as a danger to humans or as a predator of humans. And so when I saw anaconda, I was like, well, these days have changed.

10:19 That is unique. And again, working with so many zoos, it's it's a little bit like fingernails on a chalkboard to me because it because it was so ingrained in me. Now is it wrong? No, I can't say that it's wrong because I think everybody knows that it's fantasy, got it. But it's just so it is such a one eighty from the early days of Hellow Scream, and I think that is what is is a little bit hard for me to swallow. So I guess what I'm saying is intellectually I understand it. It ties to the day product, which is why we wanted to do it. Back in the day. It was something that everybody said in all of our in all of our focus groups, why doesn't Bush Gardens do something about animals escaping and eating people? And we were like, that would be great. That's you know, it ties into our it's making fun of our day product.

11:12 And we're you know, everybody knows that it's not real. And the powers that be at that time were like, no, no, we just I don't care what they want. They don't know what they want. We can't do it. Are like, okay, so we didn't. So the fact that it's anaconda, the fact that it is a giant snake, it's a giant reptile that does actually exist. It's not a space alien anaconda, it is. It is a species that exists, is you know, part of the ecosystem and plays a very important part of that ecosystem. And the fact that anacondas can they don't very often, but can actually kill people or large animals.

11:53 So just the fact that it became anaconda was my first interesting interesting then when it went on to then when I read deeper into this story and discovered that that they're doing anaconda both here and Williamsburg. What that means is that they've got two stories so that next year they can flip flop them. I'm guessing they probably have pretty much the same footprint, if that's at all possible, if they were planning ahead so that they can literally just flip flop some props. They can send send things from Virginia to Florida, some things from send things from Florida Virginia, and everything's a brand new, a brand new show.

12:35 I I'm And then my final thought was, I went back to my very first moment when I saw Anaconda and I didn't even realize it was an IP because the twenty twenty twenty five film I did not see. I immediately went to, this is oh the movie from ninety seven. Oh, okay, but it's this is exactly how these kinds of ips work. It's when like Sony, the owner of the IP wants to bring it it, wants to bring it back so that they can continue to reinforce it. You know, there were there have been many films based in the iconic or in the Anaconda iconography, and I only saw the first one, and that was more than enough for me, quite honestly. But I think that, you know, I think it's a cool idea I have.

13:30 I still have a venue flow in my computer for a a serpentarium that goes a visit to a serpentarium that goes horribly, horribly wrong. And you actually entered through a broken habitat, So you walked in and you saw broken glass, and and you walked into the habitat, and we were followed by snakes throughout the entire throughout the entire thing. But again that was back in the day where we couldn't do anything negative with animals. So it's been something they've been trying to do. I'm glad they're doing it. I think it's going to be interesting to see how it pans out. But once again, I hope they have taken into consideration that what they have to pay for the IP has to be on top of what it's going to take them to execute it. And as I alluded to, when you execute an IP, it has to be done to a certain level, a certain standard that is based on the IP holder, and so sometimes it is actually even more expensive. Not always, but sometimes it's actually even more expensive to install an IP because you can't just say, well, I changed the story because instead of finding a tow truck, I found a tractor, So we put a tractor in there, and we're going to make that a scary tractor as opposed to a scary tow truck. You can't do that with the IP.

14:57 You know, we couldn't find And I will tell another reason that the snake thing never flew is it was very, very difficult. Now this is many years ago, so the technology has changed, but it was very difficult to create a convincing snake, and even more difficult to create convincing small snakes. Convincing bigger snakes are easier now because there's some animatronics out there that are quite good, but then they're going to have to probably repaint them to match the anaconda from the IP, So there's a lot of things involved. I think it is I think it's a good thing to try. I think you know, I know what you did last summer. The final catch makes total sense for SeaWorld, and and I'm hoping that they have a way to do it as well. But I just hope that they have thought through all of the challenges, and I'm sure that they have. Whether they've executed on them or not, I don't know, but I'm hoping that it gives a little bit of extra extra attention to these events because you know, I'm gonna be just I'm gonna be completely straightforward with Bush Gardens Tampa. After after I left and a lot of my team left, the quality, in my opinion went down and has slowly been building back up over the last few years. And I think

16:27 that the team is in place. And I can only speak for Williamsburg because that's the only one I really still know the team. The team is in place who could execute this. Whether they will have the funds to do it or not and the freedom to do it or not, that's a completely separate story that I'll never know the answer to. But fingers crossed for them because I think it'll be a really cool I think it can be a really cool addition to the event. There was a lot. There was a lot. I'm sorry, I knew. I knew there was gonna be a lot. I I think that, uh yeah, I mean I can say it, but you know, because I go to the events, but the quality of these parts is not good. We've I mean, I don't think that's a surprise.

17:12 I think that they're probably competing for six flags in the Game of least quality park, and I think six Flags is probably winning because at least their CEO understands what they're doing in terms of, you know, seasonal events, and we just talked about how they had a whole seasonal lay. So I think that's a uh, you know, I I don't think. Anyone would really argue that the Hallas screen events are like, uh competitive, Really, I don't. I don't think so. Maybe San Diego because there's. The only thing there, But you know, I don't know, I don't know anyway, I just think that. I mean, honestly, I hate I hate to say this Tampa team, but the best one I've been to is San Antonio.

17:54 Yeah. Yeah, as an overall event, I think there are elements at Tampa that are done really really well. But yeah, but I think too So I think to your point, that's going to be the hardest thing for me is under is understanding like this is already an event where the creative production was a little you know, like, uh, inconsistent is what I will say, you know, inconsistent across the product, Like the product was not fully consistent. Even before this, there were a. Lot of you know, all the events had had patches that were sort of not themed. Well, it's just it didn't It wasn't a solid core product to begin with, and now now you're throwing this wrinkle in. Now, the.

18:36 One side of this could be that this is exactly what they need, Like if to your point, if they add, if they add a whole budget on top to pay for IP, this could be what the event needs to kind of break out where bring attractions more attracts a new audience, brings in you know, fresh attention, fresh thing. But if it's the flip side, like you laid out, and they are not spending more, they're just doing less because they have less money, I think that's going to be. Not great. But at the same time, they they probably need to try something because we've been talking about how you know, United Parks is one of the only ones that has not They're not doing well at all, despite what their CEO keeps saying on the earnings where they think that their stock is being undervalua, well, they're being undervalued because you're not doing well, like like come on, like where every time they just complain that they're being undervalued and their their property is actually really good and they keep doing buybacks and all this. I mean, they're just trying to align everything up so that they can sell the property. Right, it's a private equity place. So I think rit large, United Parks has a lot of problems. They're not I'm not convinced even their leadership is thinking about what it's going to take to turn around. Not in the same way that we've had the new Six Flags team talk extensively about their plans and about bringing back seasonal, about why entertainment's important. You see none of that at United Parks.

19:57 And so I think that that gives me pause for in all of this where it seems like it could be like they need to do something, but the only way this is going to work is if they do it correctly, and based off of everything else that they've. Done, I'm not convinced that it's going to go that route. Well, and why and why is six Flags looking at that? Who is in charge a former SeaWorld. Guy yep, yep, yep. So yeah, and and speaking of and. From the golden era and from the golden era of the parks. Right right, and and they understand I mean, look at they're really investing in the Six Flags Parks, into the seasonal the you know the seasons.

20:41 The fun is coming back to that. We've talked about this Agnausium, but even we got more announcements about Christmas uh plans this last week and six Flags is bringing Jason Universe to three of their parks. That that was other news that came out around the same time that we heard of Anaconda and I know what you last summer, so they're bringing Jason. It came from Universal, so it just had to run at Universal. So there's probably some crossover interest with people who saw it at theme park and are interested in that again, and it's a much more relatable. I think you kind of hinted at it. I didn't do the data yet, but I'm sure I can. But and I'm sure you will because that's I'm sure I will look at the overall, so.

21:21 You share it or not, you will look at it just for your eye. I will try and figure out. But it just strikes me as these are not incredibly popular, I peas in the way that like Jason is popular, you know, in terms of it's it's just like a Halloween staple versus Anaconda is kind of like and then I know she last Summer and then I and then I didn't even think about the animal attack thing. But that's that's another concern, like you know, and that's kind of damage that a brand has already had some. Damage in their history. You don't want. I mean, now they're bringing something that could potentially damage that brand again. And with both stories. I know Last Summer is also kind of in that realm. You know, it's not as bad as anaconda that's really bad.

22:06 I don't know. I'm surprised that the board has led it through. I'm very surprised because I know, you know, just just. Anything else that Sony has produced that you could have chose it. But just in writing and just in writing educational material for for United Parks. But I I know how how sensitive they are to to animal issues, animal care issues, animal you know, the way animals are portrayed. I am I am surprised now. Like I said, I personally see nothing wrong with it, because we tried to do it too.

22:46 But I am I am surprised that things have changed so much that it is it is allowed. What right? I definitely don't agree though with the CEO. This is going to make it one of the mirror events in in the country. It's not it's not a big one. Hunted house does not a premier Halloween event make and uh anyway, so that that's that's probably more opinion, though I'm sure somebody out there thinks that it's the best Halloween event in the nation, but not me, and the only The only other thing I want to talk about about the story is the concept also of that We've talked about a little bit, but I wanted to get your thoughts on the concept of how essentially this is.

23:32 It's a back the pendulum thing, right where now this is corporate kind of dictating what you're going to build at your parks, as opposed to previously where each park made their own full slay. And now it's not a whole it's not one hundred percent right, this is just one haunt at all of these houses, and each each United Parks park has different haunted houses that support this. So not all of them have put up their announcements. Actually some of them have put up nothing, and some have put up. Just their entire slate. We know a lot about what's going to Tampa and Orlando and San Diego, and less about the other parks and they're all doing unique original houses that are all different.

24:15 But this is potentially starting to go back in the opposite direction, which is where you are deciding this is these this is what you're going to do at your event, and so it again that good and bad thing because then yeah. I don't know, it's got to talk about that, Scott. Since the beginning of Hello Scream, there's always been a give and take and sometimes a push and pull between local and corporate. When here's the thing you're not going to get on the park level, You're not going to be able to negotiate and afford IP, so that has to be done on the corporate level. Had they not done, you know, the five parks with the two different ips, that could not have been negotiated on the park level, or probably wouldn't have been negotiated on the park level.

25:04 So that's where the corporate overlord stepping in is helpful. You can actually get a little more buying power. They have tried for many years to take concepts and haunts and shift them to other parks. The problem is none of the parks have the same or even close to the same facilities and infrastructure, so you end up you end up spending. It sounds like a great premise when you can say, oh, we're just going to take this Haunt and move it from SeaWorld Orlando to SeaWorld San Antonio. Except the building is different, the infrastructure is different, the power is different, the audience is different, and the Haunt that's next door to it is very similar to it, but in San Antonio but not in Orlando. So you know, there's a lot of elements that make it difficult to be modular. If corporate really wanted to help, my recommendation would be for corporate to invest in identical infrastructure or at least one identical building in each of the five parks, so that you could then do you could build three haunts that are amazing that you can bust and truck and rotate them. You know, it's what Ice does, It's what Gaylord does, It's what Ringling Circus did for years.

26:33 You know, you always have a new show if you've got a the same venue in all the parks. And that it sounds really simple. I'm being overly simplistic. That would be difficult based on the layouts of the parks. I understand that, but to me, that's the way to really get the most buying power for having corporate be more involved. Well, it's similar to they can do that shows, right, So I keep bringing back Six Flags because we don't United Parts doesn't do this, which is the point. But I mean looking at Six Flags the Monster Stomp right, that moves around and use various locations because it's a theater show, and theaters are built to a relatively similar specification.

27:18 You have a stage, have lighting, you know, you're able to move these different theatrical shows and mount them. And so you get that at the Six Flags. And I will say also with the conjuring, that was a similar thing where they A big reason of why they chose to do the conjuring beyond fear at the locations they did, is because they had permanent, covered facilities at those locations that were relatively close in square footage ish and they are all different, but they're not wildly different, and so they're able to produce things that are different. Lay I, it's technically differently out, but they're able to kind of keep it relatively similar, right. And that and again on the buying power thing, we've seen that with other parks as well, with the Jason universe. I just mentioned going to three parks, right, and who knows why they chose the three parks, but it could be. To your point, it could because they have footprints there that are similar and they can just right not have to because that's the other part of it, right, I mean, you're you're having to pay more when you're designing different footprints, and then you're you're building entirely different layouts.

28:25 And once you have to build an entirely different layout, your your economy of scale drops significantly, right, because everybody's like, well, we've already got the story. That's great, but now you've got to do a completely new design on that story. So and I know that because I was involved with one of the you know, the American the day they wanted to take one of the haunts that I had written for Bush Tampa and move it to SeaWorld Orlando, and they ended up scrapping the project because it got so cost prohibitive to move it and change it completely, change the footprint completely. Because again, so much of where SeaWorld and Bush Gardens put their haunts, at least back in the day and to a certain extent even now, are in buildings or locations that are not being used for other things. They're what I call formerli'es. It's it's kind of like it was formerly this attraction or this habitat and now it's a haunted house. It's it's sort of like where where spirit Halloween pops up, you know, surprise.

29:34 So it's yeah, it's a if, like I said, if corporate really wanted to be an asset to the individual parks, find the Grand Grand Scheme money to put as identical as possible buildings and facilities with the same entrance and exits so that they can literally just bus and truck. They can just literally lift the scenic from one location, move it to the new location, and then they could do one year of five new houses that would cover them for five years in all of the bodies. Yep, yep. So Anaconda, the Slither Tour, I don't know anyway, right, Well, we got way, we got way in the weeds on this one, as we knew we would. So anyway, that is that is our time. And once again, guys, thank you all so much. I hope you enjoyed listening to me.

30:29 Reminisce a little bit about the way Bush Gardens is and hopefully looking forward to making it once again a nationwide contender for one of the top Halloween experiences. It was there at one time, and hopefully someday it will be there again, if if it's not already again, I can't really make those comparisons with a whole lot of with a whole lot of of without being biased in some way. So anyway, thank you guys so much. On behalf of Philip Bernandez with GANDAM lighting and control on myself Scott Swinson from Scott Swinson Creative Development. This is green tagged theme park in thirty and we will see all of you next week