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homelessjogger

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Everything posted by homelessjogger

  1. Can confirm that two nights with stay and scream is adequate. We split the front and back portion of the houses for either night. We can do 3-4 per night within the first 60 minutes and then circle back to do a favorite or two another 1-2 times before it gets too crazy (more than an hour wait). I've been going for over 10 years and travel from Wisconsin. I've got this process down. One night we stay in Finnegans for dinner and front lot. The other night we stay at Simpsons for burgers and back lot. Feel free to message me with any questions so we can keep this thread on topic
  2. Royal Pacific. My buddy and I travel down from Wisconsin each year. This is our...11th year now I think. Stayed at RP the last 4 and it's been, by far, the best experience we've had with resort, breakfast, staff, and walking/water taxi. Before that we stayed at Hard Rock for 5 or 6 of the years which was awesome but it wore out its welcome after awhile. We stayed offsite the first year but had to deal with shuttles, lines, wasted time, etc. It was cheaper but in the end we experienced far less each day in the park. We stay 5 days each year. With onsite we get the fast pass during the day and can ride everything 10-15x in a row if we want. It's pretty amazing.
  3. Did anyone see that Universal picked up the film rights to Stephen King's Tommyknockers? With King being so against the usage of his properties at events like HHN, and the rumors circling about his reaction/feedback to The Shining last year or IT this year, it may not only be smart play from the film side with the resurgence of King in theatres, but also an interesting way to force King into a working relationship with Universal. If they can create a stellar film it opens the door for a larger relationship with him over the next 3-5 years. Edit: I just saw TheRobCat's post from the previous page - keeping this here as no one reacted to it.
  4. I figured as much. We've been attending HHN for about 10 years now and only recently began staying onsite about 4 years ago. The express pass lines seem to be longer and longer each year so what you said makes total sense. It's extremely profitable. We've never had to use them before as we go 3-4 times during out stay and can make up any missed houses the next night. That being said, the Halloween house last year was the longest line we've ever waited in to go through a second time (3+ hours). An express pass would have been worth it for that alone
  5. Do you think they will ever give on-site hotel guests express passes for HHN like they do during the day for both parks (sans Harry Potter)?
  6. Even though "it's that easy" it's really not. Even then things that get published need to get reviewed, approved, and go through legal before making its way to us in any form. So unless they sign off on not having to go through typical procedure on these things, the cost is too high to justify it. Just an hour long meeting with specific action items afterward can end up costing the company thousands, or even tens of thousands of dollars to get it to us. Corporations are bloated when it comes to making decisions and being cost-effective. Which is why it's hard to see any change being made. Even if you have a department that is incredibly passionate, wiling, and presenting brilliant ideas day after day, year after year, being part of such a huge company impedes that from seeing the light of day. Which is why so many people end up leaving to start their own independent companies, go to other places that promise to give them more control, etc. Also, Legacy, everything about the business side of things you said in your last post is spot on. Getting people in the park is key. Like a movie theatre the ticket prices aren't the big ticket item to drive revenue. It's the food, the merchandise, etc. Which is why they had LT merchandise could buy with your symbol on it, etc. It's really smart but they just lack the time, upper-management buy-in, or budget (or all three).
  7. Although it has been about 5 years now, Universal Studios was very open to creatively marketing their events and new rides. I was very deep in negotiations with handling some of Hollywood's digital marketing, mini sites, etc for announcements like King Kong, HHN, etc. It was an enlightening time to see how the wheels turned there. I don't follow the details of staffing changes, or executive changes, like some of you do but like Legacy and JDW said things have changed a lot. There was a reason for that change. Maybe 10 years from now someone will make a documentary about HHN et al and showcase the journey, community, and evolution of the vent (good or bad) through the years. Also, my keyboard randomly doesn't type the letter 'e'. I didn't purposely call HHN a vent numerous times...
  8. I think you're both on point here. I do remember back when wearing a vault shirt to the vent meant something. Actors would be able to engage with you much more than rules would allow. Those events created the aura of what HHN is to me. It's definitely long gone and no longer exists. My last experience with HHN was 2 years ago walking through a basically empty Walking Dead house before closing. It was a polar opposite experience. Which is probably why I didn't make the effort to go last year. I will be going this year because the theme park itself has so much to offer since I've been there last. Without that, I'm not really certain I would make the trek to Orlando from Wisconsin and spend a week there like I did in the past. Even with all of that in mind, pulling back a bit, the event does look like a top quality event. Especially for non-jaded types. You guys were more in tune with the goings-on with HHN and probably have a lot of great personal stories (that's awesome you met your wife there, Legacy). For people like you, and me to a lesser extent, it's about the community and coming together. In a way, it's like old people getting together to talk about the better days when things weren't such a joke. But replace prices, kids these days, the war, etc with HHN.
  9. Priority 1 is revenue or the event will slowly be cut off. All decisions stem from that. That's just business. How are customers viewing the event? What can we do differently? Can we make it better? They listen. But the small group that has gone for a decade or more aren't their main demographic. They can't appease everyone at all angles. They try to each year with well known public IPs like the Walking Dead and then also try to appease us with things like Aliens, Halloween, original content, etc. They're definitely trying to do it all. I just don't think it gets noticed enough. I work with big companies like this all the time. It's a lot more complicated than even the smartest of us think it is from the outside. And I know you, JDW, know more than the general people do. Just seems to be more of a personal hurt on your end because it seems like you do understand some of the business decisions being made too from the years we've chatted on these boards (and previous boards).
  10. Art does not equal business. You guys seem to compare what you think is best versus the arc of the industry itself. Successful marketing is entirely about context. Your Kool-Aid reference was funny but true on some levels. What's inside is exactly the same. If people have an underlying expectation that an event will be high quality (award winning year after year, good experiences, word of mouth from friends, etc) they could put up a white billboard with the name and a few IP logos and people would come. That's how this works. From a business standpoint it doesn't make sense to spend more money to bring in the same amount of people. If 1% of the people, essentially this message board, complain but still go what's the point? Even if you guys didn't go it wouldn't matter. They have focus groups, user testing, data analytics, and behavioral metrics that showcase to them what works. We're only guessing and complaining because it might not align with what we want as an individual or small group. We don't know the business logic. It's clearly working. They are producing profit, word of mouth AND winning awards. There is no sense in changing that at all. They do change the formula a little each year, try new things, etc. Some work, some fail. But it's still a good experience. Point is, are you going to the event? Why are you going? If there is one reason, one house, one situation you are going for they did their job and did it well. It's a pipe dream to expect one person will love all the decisions they make. That's just not reality. It's an awesome event even if some of the houses don't turn out. It's a great value for the money. The website is great in the context of the industry and Universal's own website. They're doing a good job folks.
  11. As much as we would all love this the surveys we've seen make it near impossible to gain traction. I obviously don't have the results of the tests but I imagine a large majority of the people taking this rank the importance of a more in-depth website low. Most just want the basic information and a clear way to look at prices and dates. I've done user testing and web work for ages, even spoke with Universal Hollywood about handling some of their digital marketing a few years ago, and what some of us want just isn't financially feasible for Universal. To say it is as simple as spending 250k is also a long shot. Just yesterday I had a meeting about a project that had a budget of 150k (bid by other companies as even more than that) with a very simple corporate website. Employees would help keep that low but you would need to have a Lead Developer, a Junior Developer, a Designer, and more than likely someone in User Experience (in some fashion) to make a team that is adequate. That puts you above 250k even with 3 of those roles if you want it done properly. Now, you have to factor in legal reviews of content, content creation, digital marketing being involved, security testing, etc. Now you're roping in other departments and their time would be taken from other aspects. So things get out of hand pretty quickly. Games, apps, interaction of any kind, etc would be awesome. But it doesn't generate revenue beyond the cost of building it. So it just won't get buy-in from corporate. A shiny interactive mini-site could happen with a vendor one year. I could see that. But I highly doubt anything more will ever happen without major changes in corporate.
  12. for those stuck on vengeance - just click and hold your mouse button on the crank and do not move it. tada! tried it 6 times every way i could think of. then did that. glad it worked
  13. I can see where the direction on the commercial is actually pretty good. It's film trailer quality. I would not be surprised to see an extended :60 second cut without a voice over. If you look at the direction it's actually well done. I think we should all take a step back and calm down They are not marketing to us. We will be there without a commercial. We will be there without a website. Maybe we will be pissed off. Sure. But we will be there to experience it unless everything is horrible or there is no storyline. When I met with Universal (Hollywood and Orlando) in regard to possibly handling a new direction of marketing for them (not just HHN but company wide) I was pretty surprised at who the consumer decision makers are, who they market to and what their main demographic is. And, in that sense, this is exactly what they needed to do. Remember, there are only a handful of us. What maybe 30-50 that post weekly? A couple hundred that read this each week? We are clearly not their main concern from a money standpoint. They have our money. So their priority is on pulling in the next phase of people.
  14. Thought that was hilarious. I've been chatting with IH for the last hour. I can't imagine how she has the time to talk with everyone right now. How many people do you think message her at a time?
  15. Ignatia Himmel just sent me a message saying "We are all responsible for the breakdown and what is to come." Nice knowing everyone.
  16. LegendaryTruth - The Collective (Official) We've already removed our warning alert from your website.Scott T.j. Mannarino Thank you. I have had some resistance to the investigation due to my concerns about what might happen...
  17. Did anyone ever notice on the website's Legancy / Iconic era that HHN 16's note says - Halloween's Sweet Sixteen Party had four "special guests". Notice the quotes around special guests...plays directly into what many of us have speculated this past week about the 5 parts of the emblem, etc.
  18. Reminds me of a couple of websites I built about 5 or 6 years back for horror films and another one maybe 4 years ago for a horror comic book I got published by Devil's Due Publishing. I won't post the links because I think that'd be spam But I love interactive Flash sites like this. Not enough companies do this sort of marketing.
  19. Agreed. I am right along side you in the Charon theory. If we were all looking for a robed figure before seeing the flames in that image it would be one thing. But we weren't. And when many of us noticed it looked like a hooded / robed figure it shouldn't be something to shrug at.
  20. Sounds like I was pretty damn close. Called the lantern with souls before we saw the update with icon faces in the flames. Called Legendary Truth coming back before it happened. The only thing I really missed was the person that opened the gate wasn't this year's icon. It was Legendary Truth / The Collective and the major icon comes this year to "showcase a level of fear we haven't seen before." Do I get a cookie?
  21. Cain is the last name of The Caretaker. And he clearly had a child. Interesting...
  22. Ah, good point. Maybe the float would be by Mel's Diner or over by Twister, etc? Or...possibly...at the front gate?
  23. Yeah. I saw that last year when venturing up in that area of City Walk. Stood out and looked odd there. I don't remember the sign or what it said though.
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