Can Universal Turn Spring Into “Second Halloween”? Inside Fan Fest Nights

Philip Hernandez (00:00.664)
From our studios this week in Los Angeles and Tampa, this is Green Tagged Theme Park in 30. I'm Philip and I'm joined as always by my co-host Scott Swenson of Scott Swenson Career Development. On Green Tagged, we break down the top theme park news from each week for business professionals and discuss why it matters to you and your job. And today we're gonna be talking about universal fan fest nights because I just attended, so I have my experience and I have lots of charts as usual, which we probably would not get to, but I think they're fun.

Scott (00:31.145)
You know, it's so funny because when you describe the show, think, wow, this sounds like a really dull show, but we have a good time. I think we really have a good time. No, I think we do have a good time. I'm not sure everybody else does, but I think we have a good time. That's really what matters. Yeah, that's true. No, actually, I've had a lot of people say that they really enjoy our banter. They enjoy it when we have discussions. They enjoy it when we don't necessarily see eye to eye. They enjoy it when we do. So I guess, you know, we're serving our audience, which is great.

Philip Hernandez (00:37.772)
I think we try to have a good time.

Philip Hernandez (00:45.006)
That's what matters, right?

Scott (01:00.105)
And so hopefully, you know, they'll keep telling friends and they'll tell more friends and so on and so on. And our viewership or listenership will continue to expand exponentially. Wouldn't that be cool? Exponential. Sorry, I interrupt. Let's talk about PanFest because I know you're excited.

Philip Hernandez (01:15.34)
Yes, FanFest, great Scott, Scott, Universal FanFest nights. It's the parks, it's here at Universal Studios Hollywood and it's the park's first ever spring hard ticket event. And we've talked about this since its announcement because as we have talked about lots, lots on the show, this has been something that theme park professionals, according to Scott, who's been around for quite a while in the theme park industry, they've been chasing this elusive like spring hard ticket event for a long time.

And it's always been this kind of puzzle of how do we, you know, we, I would say Universal and Bush and those parks did a good job of establishing Halloween. And now it's like, well, of course you do a Halloween event. Well, duh. mean, that's makes so much money, but you know, back in the day, know, Halloween was kind like the first, Halloween and Christmas were the first ones to make this kind of approach work. And as we've talked about Christmas doesn't usually in the U S be a hard ticket event. So it's really Halloween. So it's kind of like.

Spring is the next goal. It's how do we make something in the spring? Because now you need enough time to be able to rotate the show. It's not like can realistically doing Halloween Horror Nights every day would be logistically challenging because of the space and the time turnaround.

Scott (02:25.02)
and would not be financially viable because if it was every day, people wouldn't come. You have to have a fuse. Now again, going back, just kind of going, since Philip did make the allusion to the fact that I'm old, experience, if I'm experienced. Hey, bacon, my day, get off my lawn. No, the...

Philip Hernandez (02:31.096)
Yep. Yep.

Philip Hernandez (02:38.944)
Experienced. You're experienced.

Scott (02:47.688)
What we used to call, so the reason Halloween events came about is we used to call them the shoulder season. You that was the shoulder season between going back to school and the holiday rush. You the Christmas holiday or the Hanukkah holiday rush.

Philip Hernandez (02:51.544)
Mm-hmm.

Scott (03:00.392)
It was a shoulder season and we didn't quite know what to do with it. And Halloween has now filled that and I think pretty much filled that industry wide. It shocks me and amazes me whenever we look at IAPA training sessions and one of the most requested still is how do we do a good Halloween event? And...

So it kind of boggles my mind simply because I've done it for so long. But Halloween, as you say, is sort of that given shoulder season. But you're right. The new shoulder season that everybody was trying to figure out was what happens between the end of the Christmas season and the beginning of the summer rush. You know, spring used to be the time when...

Philip Hernandez (03:40.782)
Mm-hmm.

Scott (03:44.969)
Well, we would rest, quite honestly. We would rest. would probably do some sort of... Usually we would do some sort of music festival, some sort of concert festival, because booking concerts is much easier than doing a park wide event. But it sounds like this whole FanFest thing, because I've been seeing a lot of it on social media as well. so it sounds like this may be something that is worth looking into, because from what I've seen... Now, Philip, I'll let you talk about it because you've actually attended it, but from what I've seen, it looks

Philip Hernandez (04:03.096)
Yep. Yep.

Scott (04:14.962)
like they're not testing weakly. They're testing with a great deal of fervor and force. They're not just pretending to do this event. They're truly doing this event.

Philip Hernandez (04:25.174)
Right, and I think that maybe was the only way to do an accurate test. I think, again, we talked about last time about how Universal does have some more cash they can do these tests with, but I just want to underscore what this whole thing we were talking about, the history and why this is important for Think Park professionals, this is critical because again, we, you the history of Scott just mentioned establishing Halloween, that becoming a thing and now everybody does it and it's trickled down. If Universal can establish this FanFest thing,

this could really unlock a whole, this whole, another season of potentially a whole nother hard ticketed event. mean, know, Halloween Horror Nights is maybe one of, if not the biggest Halloween event globally when you combine all the brand from all the different locations together, I it's a huge presence. And if you can imagine them rolling out a fan fest event at every universal property and then that trickling down, I mean, this could be.

a big deal and we've talked about the revenue. mean, it's a whole quarter of revenue for them. So if they could basically add another quarter of revenue in a slow season, mean, this is the potential here. I'm much more excited almost about this potential than about some of the other things that they've been testing because I think the potential for everybody, for all of us is great here. And to your point, they really leaned into it to really try and accurately test this.

Well, let's get into the details. So this FanFest Nights celebrates eight fandoms from sci-fi, fantasy, gaming, and anime instead of horror. So it's similar to Halloween Horror Nights, but instead of horror, you have eight sci-fi, fantasy, gaming, and anime fandoms instead of the different horror IPs. So it kind of is conceived as like Halloween Horror Nights meets Comic-Con or Comic-Con at Universal, something in that line of where it's much more of like a Comic-Con fan vibe than it is Halloween Horror Nights.

It's running 12 evenings from April 25th through May 18th, and it operates from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. So they are keeping the Halloween Horror Nights timing even. mean, until 2 a.m. is quite a thing. the prices, general admission is 74 to 84. There is now a same day upgrade if you're already in the park for about $50 you can upgrade. They also have unlimited

Philip Hernandez (06:47.7)
night passes, have two night passes, have Universal Express, they have early entry. So from the beginning, they're bringing like all the same ticket options. There's even a VIP tour. Yep. Yep.

Scott (06:55.6)
Everything they've learned from Halloween Horror Nights. Yeah, everything they've learned from Halloween Horror Nights, they're just automatically installing here. Smart.

Philip Hernandez (07:03.106)
Yes, very smart. So I would say I've read so much about this from the other reporters and from regular fans on Reddit and just all over everything. And I would say that the reception has been overwhelmingly positive. that's, it's hard to find negative. is, there are negative out there, but a lot of it is like stuff you would expect with a first year event. It's not anything that's like critically wrong. The only question I had, so I think this proves that the format

has legs. think the question is going to be whether Universal is going to rebalance the resources towards the different fandoms that clearly showed up more this year. And also, I think my question to a lesser degree is why they didn't do that in the first place. here comes my charts. basically, if you look, basically was like, how do we compare these fandoms? And I kind of made a chart later on where you I kind of look at everything. Yeah, but

Basically, think basically my argument is this, okay? The runaway hit at this event is Back to the Future, which we will talk about in depth because I want to get Scott's insights on it as a theatrical production. But that's the runaway hit. Everybody agrees. Like, that is the thing. But here's the thing. If you do not like Back the Future or you don't know it, should you go to this event? And I think that initially, when Scott and I initially talked about this, I think we were assuming that it would be balanced.

in that, you know, I feel fully confident in saying anyone who is a fan of Back to the Future, I would confidently recommend that you buy a plane ticket and fly to this event. That's how good it is for Back to the Future. However, the other events are not nearly as fleshed out and it's natural because it's a first year event, fine, but that begs the question of if it's not balanced, you know, is that enough?

if you're a Jujutsu Kaisen or an anime fan and all you're doing is meet and greets, is that enough to push it? so then that begs the question of why did they invest so much in Back to the Future when the other fandoms have a larger following? So actually I made a chart where I basically did like a weighted average. So I was like, I looked at the global impact, the local impact, and even local ticket sales for similar events around the other IPs. And I rated the

Philip Hernandez (09:27.726)
eight IPs on the scale from one to 10 and then ranked them and Back to the Future is like the last one. So like it is basically it's the least popular of all the IPs they had and they put the most money into it. that would be my only, again, this isn't a negative. I thought the event was great, but I also, I grew up with Back to the Future. So I'm inherently biased. And so that's my only question is like going forward, should they or are they going to rebalance it?

and then why didn't they rebalance it this year? And I'm sure that I already know the answer to why they did it this way this year. And that's because of what Scott always says, which is repurpose your assets. And if you literally have the clock tower from the movie and you actually in your backyard, you have the set where this was actually filmed, you already have something that no one else in the world has.

Scott (10:20.84)
know, when you said, when you said investment, I was like, well, that's because they probably didn't wait the investment. They probably had the same investment, except for the fact that they already had this, well, they had the town. I mean, they had the entire town. And from what I'm seeing, in, in social media and, reports from other reporters and other podcasts, et cetera.

is that they basically just said, hey, you know, this is the thing that most people have just driven through on a tram in the past. Let's open it up and actually use it for something and add some live performers to create an immersive, you know, engaging, interactive experience. And it...

Philip Hernandez (11:04.012)
Yeah, it's definitely, I wanna give some context. think we're, don't wanna get too far ahead of like describing it, but to give context for this, our listeners will understand when I say this, but the Back to the Future Destination Hill Valley is what it's called. And it is basically Sleep No More meets Back to the Future. I mean, it's a little bit more than just putting actors there. I actually, think that the Universal team has created a masterfully written, one of a kind immersive experience. Like it is,

done so well, everything from where you get on the tram and Doc comes on the tram and he tells you how he has found a way to retrofit your tram to be able to send you back to the 1950s and he gives you a guide on what slang to use. Like don't say slay, they won't understand that. that is just being able to set the premise, set the context and then put you into the 1950s and then you show up and you're here and they've recreated the town from the movie.

you arrive and what they've done is they've basically made a time loop. So it's a 45 minute show and it just loops every night. And it starts from when Marty McFly shows up in the 1950s and you get to watch as he wanders around and he recreates scenes from the movie. So he'll meet his parents, you know, his mom will hit on him, he'll perform up there. And then it concludes with the infamous lightning strike on the clock tower, complete with the

lines of fire from the DeLorean and the kind of like spinning license plate and you see Doc. mean, and the thing is, it's like no more because you can follow any character. And I didn't, I think this is what I would want Scott to, Scott's opinion, but like, this is like, I think it looks simple or, know, on its surface, you could say, well, you can just set actors in here, but like, this is a lot of narrative. This is a lot of casting. And then you had to also flesh out the sets to make the movie.

know, movie accurate. mean, like if you're inviting the super fans of this franchise in, everything has to be flawless. And you've seen how fans have tried to stress test it. I mean, they have like showed up as like a whole group of Marty McFly's and presented him with props from the movie. I mean, and the actors, from what I've seen, they have caught every single reference. so I don't, mean, Scott, like this is a lot of work, right?

Scott (13:28.232)
It is a lot of work. It is a lot of work. And what it really relies on, and I find it interesting, but not surprising, that they opted to test this in California versus Florida. I think it's important to recognize that with this particular film, which by the way is an incredibly successful musical right now. So it does have some fresh new legs, some fresh new fans that it didn't necessarily have a couple years ago or a few years ago.

Philip Hernandez (13:38.446)
Oh, that's a good point,

Scott (13:57.705)
But the tour of the musical is going great guns. It's selling out. So that's pretty impressive too. I think one of the reasons, just to kind of take a half step back before we dive into the work that it takes to do something like this, before we get too much into the how, I do want to step back and talk a little bit about the why. I think one of the reasons that this is probably over and above the assets that they already had,

This is also a really strong multi-generational IP. This is something that, and it's an IP, and it's an IP that, and we've said it before on this show, we say it over and over again, in a family setting, and even in a date setting, it's usually the moms that make the decision. And it's one that is not so male-centric.

It's one that is, that I think is evenly split amongst genders. I think it is something that is now multi-generational because again, I grew up with this film, you grew up with this film or an incarnation of this film with these characters and now with its musical status, it just keeps, it just keeps showing it has legs.

So it makes, to me, actually makes quite a bit of sense. And it's also, it also hasn't saturated the market. You know, you, you've got things like, neither has some of the, the, some of the, the, the manga IPs that are coming up, but like Star Trek has a, has kind of saturated, has a saturated market. You can, you can go to Star Trek things a lot of places. You can't go to back to the future things in a lot of places.

Philip Hernandez (15:46.818)
Well, that, I think that's one of my, I would push back a tiny bit on that. I do have the numbers. I knew you would ask about this. So there are 833,000 Broadway tickets sold so far, which is incredible. I mean, that's a lot. That's a lot of like fans that pay to go watch like this on Broadway. That's a high ticket item, right? So just to your point, you show that on the multi-generational thing. I've seen this echoed a few times, but basically like,

Scott (16:03.058)
Mm-hmm.

Philip Hernandez (16:15.086)
I took Jason and he had no idea what this was. I think it's basically millennial and older is what I would say. I'm not sure about.

Scott (16:23.388)
I think it's, but I also think it is American centric. Jason was not raised in the US.

Philip Hernandez (16:27.502)
That's true. Well, and that's why when I made my chart, I did weight it based off of the global and the local. I put more weight on the local emphasis to see local events. just like for context, right? Like this has sold 833,000 Broadway tickets and it's had one reboot. Super Mario has sold 830 million. So it's almost like 830,000 versus 830 million. mean, that's the scale.

Scott (16:39.846)
And who's the?

Philip Hernandez (16:55.31)
here of Super Mario in One Piece, 516 manga in print, the number one show on the Netflix platform. The AX here, Anime Expo in Los Angeles here sells out 150,000 attendees.

Scott (17:03.944)
but it is a much smaller demographic. they are all, they're higher numbers, smaller demographic. Higher numbers, smaller demographic.

Philip Hernandez (17:11.084)
Well, the, right, in the LA market where this show is located, they have a bigger demographic. So on any metric, it loses. But I think to your point though,

Scott (17:24.666)
No, no, wait a minute. No, wait a minute. No, no, Demographic. I'm talking about age range. I'm not talking about numbers of people. I'm talking about age range.

Philip Hernandez (17:33.41)
Right. One Piece has had a longer run than Back to the Future by far. Star Trek also, longer run. Dungeons and Dragons has been going on for a very long time with a fan base that's multi-generational.

Scott (17:44.966)
Yes, but Dungeons and Dragons, Star Trek, both, there are multiple places that you can experience those. There aren't many places that you can experience a Back to the Future experience.

Philip Hernandez (17:55.586)
Well, think that's what I mentioned at the beginning, which is basically that Universal has succeeded in creating a once in a lifetime unique experience. Like you cannot do this anywhere else and you never are gonna be able to because nobody has the set for Back to the Future. Like they have the literal set. You are literally in the movie. Like nobody can do this. And I think that is what makes the event so good, but it also is what raises, I think, my main thesis.

Scott (18:10.317)
Correct. Right.

Scott (18:21.496)
Well, so, but so I'm curious then to see, because this has been, as you, as we've all said, and everything that I've read has been painfully successful, and you just basically told people to get up, get on their butts and get a plane, get on a plane to go there if you're a fan. I'm, I'm curious to see. But again, I think in the US, it is, it is...

Philip Hernandez (18:34.252)
Yep. If you're a fan. Exactly.

Scott (18:49.754)
If you look at, I think it spans a broader age demographic than the other, than many of the other experiences. I'm, Star Trek may be a little bit of pushback, but like with One Piece and with Dungeons and Dragons, those are.

Philip Hernandez (19:09.59)
And Harry Potter? Super Nintendo?

Scott (19:13.872)
Hmm. Yeah.

Philip Hernandez (19:18.087)
I think there's nothing wrong with them focusing on, I guess it's just I'm saying. I think.

Scott (19:18.94)
Let me put.

Scott (19:24.86)
I just think it's more family. I just think it simply embraces a more multi-generational family experience than any of those other things. Because, for example, I have absolutely zero interest in doing Dungeons and Dragons. None. None. I have zero... Well, I have some interest in doing One Piece, but only because I just recently discovered it on the net because of the Netflix series. And I think it's a fun story. But I have no emotional connection to it. I know it exists.

Philip Hernandez (19:46.712)
Mm-hmm.

Scott (19:54.769)
Star Trek, yes, but that's because I'm a sci-fi nerd who was around for the first Star Trek. So I've been around through all those things. And maybe we're barking up the wrong tree completely. Maybe the reason they invested the most money is because they felt they had the same concern that you have, which is that this is going to be the weakest of the IPs. And so therefore they had to shovel the most money into it. I will still argue and I don't think we're going to be able to find the data, but well, you might because you're that kind of guy.

But I don't think we'll be able to find the exact data. But I would venture to say that if you look at the amount that they've invested, they have taken an existing asset. And I think that's where they could save money. And it makes it look like they've invested more. But who knows? Who knows where this is going to go? I just think that part of the reason that Back to the Future is doing well in an industry that's not doing well, which is

live musical theater and the fact that it is doing well as part of this event to me that just kind of says this is a great family outing this is a great thing for people that people want to do it's got a warm and fuzzy feel to it it's not the i have to see these characters it's i get to go and live in that time and in that town and i think that's i think that's probably the smartest thing they've done is to not try to make it come you know come meet

Marty and and you know Doc Brown it's come and live in the town in the 1950s.

Philip Hernandez (21:27.852)
Yeah, I think,

I think they have done something that we've talked about. I don't even remember when we talked about this. I don't know it was a while ago, but we talked about the idea of how can you create an experience that doesn't exist anywhere else? And that creates the ultimate FOMO because you have to go there to do it. And that's kind of what we're saying.

Scott (21:46.057)
Right. It's the same question I ask all of my clients. It's like, what can you do that nobody else can do? And one of the things that Universal California can do that nobody else can do is to utilize and give people the opportunity to walk around the set where the movie was done and fill it with the characters and the life that they have experienced in the film itself. Or one of

Philip Hernandez (22:07.692)
Right, think overall the, yeah, exactly. I think overall though, it's like, it's basically a LARPing experience for Back to the Future fans, which again, like nobody else can do it in this way because you have the actual clock tower, you have the, I mean, you know, it's the ultimate experience in that way. So I think, I think, and it's not, I'm not even saying it's a bad strategy, I'm just looking at the future and being like, well, I think the best thing to do would be to keep this experience and just bring it back next year.

and then put your budget, your new budget behind maybe an equally immersive anime experience or creating something.

Scott (22:43.868)
But they're also bringing in the bridge of the enterprise from Picard.

Philip Hernandez (22:51.03)
Right, yeah, we can talk about that. It did not get good reviews at all, and I think it's valid about some of the concerns about it in that the script just falls apart. I want to talk to Scott about the logistics of a show like this, but also really quick. I feel like other people are listening, like, what are you talking about? Just a very quick rundown.

We talked about the Back to the Future thing. There's also the next biggest one is how to rank these is the Dungeons and Dragons experience, Secrets of Waterdeep. I would describe this as a 12 minute D &D play in the round, basically. So you're walking through multiple sets and there's a performance kind of in each room, but it's kind of done like theater in the round. So like the stage is like in the middle and then the guests are like around it. And so you can, you you can walk around the room while they're talking, but essentially it's like a, it is a play. think.

They describe it as guests being able to play a role and choose characters and et cetera. But you, the reality is you do none of that. really, which is fine. I mean, I'm not, I'm just saying it is like, it's cool that it's like a walking play. You you walk from scene to scene and you, the characters are there, but effectively you're just, you're just on a quest to find a staff. And then, you you run into trouble. There's a monster. This had a lot of budget. could tell because they did that Jim Henson giant Xanthar, Xanathar.

who's like eight foot tall. mean, people were like gasping. mean, that was like, you know, I think a lot of people that I was listening to and asking, well, what do you think happened? Like, I think people really, you're, again, if you're not used to D &D, you're just like, I don't know what happened. We just wanted a quest. There was a monster and like a staff and whatever. But the monster's really cool. And you don't need to know anything about anything to appreciate how cool a giant monster is. Right? So I think that got a lot of positive stuff.

The Star Trek Red Alert is the other one. It is in the old Walking Dead attraction. And this one felt the most like an HHN maze. It's a pulsed, so you're in groups and you are pulsed into, and you just move through the scenes, right? There's a little bit of noise bleed because you can kind of hear some of the stuff in the future, what's going on. effectively, yeah, it's exactly, yeah, it's exactly, there's, so basically the premise is that they've turned the enterprise,

Scott (25:06.024)
So it's exactly like a walk through haunted attraction.

Philip Hernandez (25:15.338)
into a museum and you are going to visit the museum. And so you visit the museum and then there's this amorphous thing that shows up and like everything goes on red alert and then you get it gets like hacked and you get sent to the bridge and it's like, it's actually just a new life form. And they're like, it's first contact. then you leave. So that's, that's basically it. There's no almost zero interaction. You're really just watching them perform vignettes and going from scene to scene. And then it's really just, there's almost like

no climax. It's like there's not really the climax is it's a new life form and the resolution is its first contact.

Scott (25:51.856)
It's a new life form. The climax and the resolution are exactly the same.

Philip Hernandez (25:56.374)
Yeah, basically. it's really the story is. And then the rest of them. So now you'll see what I mean about the scale. OK, so those are the three experiences.

Scott (26:03.784)
And then it's just meet and greets or things imported from other parks.

Philip Hernandez (26:06.894)
Yes, literally, exactly. So like the Jujutsu Kaisen thing is actually just the same video that I saw when I was at Halloween in USJ. And they didn't even change the USJ references. Like they're literally like, we're here in Japan. I it's just a 100 % brought over, which is, you know, I mean, it's actually harder than I think fans think to change that, you know, to actually go in and change the media. It's harder than you think. But then otherwise it's just meeting greets.

Scott (26:32.36)
Mm-hmm.

Philip Hernandez (26:36.27)
You know, lines, like the line for Yoshi is usually 90 minutes. I mean, the line for one piece characters, it's like really long. They do have a, in the universal plaza, there is a stage there where they do cosplay meetups for each of the four fandoms where they're like, if you're a sci-fi, meet at nine. If you're anime, meet at 10, you know, and I did actually count. So when I was there, I went to the anime meetup. There were 10 people that went on stage and there were 30 people watching. So not exactly a huge crowd.

and they did some trivia, whatever. I mean, I think they didn't do a good job of really getting cosplayers to attend for whatever reason, but yeah, and then.

Scott (27:17.924)
Cosplayers want to be the star. don't want to go see the stars, they want to be the stars. And even when you go to a cosplay show, even when you go to a Gen Con or any of the shows that are loaded with cosplayers, even when there are the stars, they're not in costume. So they, that's...

That makes total sense to me. To me, they haven't quite been able to tap in. As this continues, they may find their audience with cosplayers, but...

Philip Hernandez (27:50.562)
Yeah, as it can, yeah, I think that's the key. So that's the event in a nutshell. I think you can see where they had three kind of tent pole experiences and then the rest was really added on. And I think my only thesis is like the tent pole experiences are actually objectively speaking, the less popular. And there's probably really good reasons that we're not privy to and we're never gonna know. I assume some of them are gonna be IP costs, you know, like they don't own One Piece, right? So having to license more than just the characters.

versus they own the back lot and it's just sitting there. All they have to do is write the scripts and hire the actors. It's much more attainable but

Scott (28:26.854)
Well, and it's also again, as you said, it's completely unique to them.

Philip Hernandez (28:29.942)
It's completely unique. Yeah. So, I mean, again, I think my only point is when you're looking at growing this event in order to bring in more people, I think you keep back to the future, but then how do you expand the other stuff? And Scott, how, I mean, the only other thing I noticed, logistically speaking, I noticed this and then I saw comments about it. If you think about Sleep No More and you think about this immersive experience, when we went, we tried to follow some of the characters, but we...

because so many people were in the land and they were following the characters that you couldn't hear what they were saying. I mean, the crowd was like 20 deep and it was like surrounding the characters while they moved to the point where I actually saw two guests fall over because they were trying to back up. Like Marty was moving in direction, the guests were trying to back up to get a side of him and the guests behind them couldn't move fast enough. So they tripped and fell over each other.

I'm sure Universal will fix that or maybe they'll try and put people around to help people not trip. Because it's a town, there's trip hazards and then you have people walking backwards and then also it's LA. So everybody is trying to film these characters. I mean, I think we're out of time, but I wanna ask Scott like logistically how you would fix these things. So maybe we'll do that in Unhinged.

Scott (29:49.385)
Well, yeah, think just super top line. I one of the things that I would suggest, and this is based on not even attending in person, one of the things I would suggest is to perhaps right size your batch, perhaps right size the show itself. And that means perhaps make the show.

bigger and a little bit more linear so that you can control your crowds a little bit better. That doesn't mean that you lose any of the immersive quality. It doesn't mean you lose any of the interactive quality. But as you've said, and I've seen the same things in the reviews that I've seen online, these characters were so trained and so prepped and basically lived the world so that no one can throw them off. And I think that when it comes to, you know,

What a horrible problem to have, right? It's so popular that we have too many people there and we have to figure out how to keep them all safe. Right.

Philip Hernandez (30:40.206)
Yep. Yeah, and there's no capacity. So people can just keep, and some people will stay there all night and then people just keep coming. So it just gets more and more crowded.

Scott (30:48.274)
Correct, correct. think guest flow, I think it's more of an operational question than it is a creative question, but I think one can work hand in hand with the other. But anyway, that would be my top line. I tell you, I think it sounds like a great event. think that leading with the thing that nobody else can do makes a lot of sense.

And I think that whether they keep it or not, maybe they find a different spot on the backlot that they can bring to life for a different IP. That is certainly an opportunity or a possibility. But anyway, it sounds like a great event. The one thing that I would love to get into that we really don't have time for is how can this be applied to places that don't live or die by the IP? Because that is what Universal is known for. And is there a way to create these pop-up fanfests

for, you know, can a zoo do, like for example, Knoxville Zoo just did Pandemonium, which was their Red Panda Festival. It doesn't have the impact, but can we, can there be lessons learned from this that can apply to there? And who knows, maybe we'll talk about that in Unhinged as well. Because this particular show is over.

And on behalf of Philip and myself, I want to thank you so much for tuning in every single week and either watching or listening to us Yammer on about this industry that we love so much. Until next time, this is Green Tag Theme Park in 30 and we will see you next week.