BenjaminNicholas
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Posts posted by BenjaminNicholas
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I'm heading there in early October and it will still be sweltering. Not looking forward to that humidity.
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33 minutes ago, Rikku said:
Any updates on main entrance arch?
They seem to have actually been creative this year.
I hear projection mapping (pixelated green blocks, very '80s) and bright red projected lines on the sidewalks.
9 hours ago, itsabee said:To be honest, I don’t have a massive problem with lighter content being featured. Trust me, I love the intense stuff, but I think that, as said before in this thread, it’s important to introduce a new audience of teenagers and young adults to HHN. I know that ST coming to the event ultimately serves as a means for Universal to make massive bank, but it does that by drawing in a population that might never have been interested in the park before.
With the event coming close to 30 years old, we have to consider the generational differences between the diehard fans and the newcomers. Horror Nights wasn’t incredibly dark in its first few years, as they mostly revolved around the classic monsters (which are back again), and it sort of amped up in terror-factor over time. I don’t think that the older audience is “growing out” of the HHN fandom - we definitely have many middle-aged site members - but not everyone from the older days has still been frequenting the event. Passion and dedication towards theme parks in general is kind of niche as an older person with a career and a family.
I also don’t think that we’re being patronized by “softer” content. Compared to, say, the Carnival of Carnage, the event has steered away from a lot of the intensity it once had, but that may be to welcome those who are just getting into horror. I don’t know about you guys, but HHN was NOT my first horror attraction, and I think I had to be exposed to other things first to not be terrified. I think that, even with “soft” content, it’s undeniably a blast to just sit in a street and witness what’s going on with areas like Vamp ‘85 and such, and being fun is harmless and what can pull people back.
Also, I think it’s important to consider the toll that gun violence and internal terrorism has had on the United States and the world at large in the last decade, just as we did with 9/11; from dozens of school shootings to the Ariana Grande bombing to the horrific events of Pulse only eight miles away from Universal, it’s sort of difficult to tackle gore in a way that doesn’t drive people away.
I don’t know how much of that side of things actually influences the HHN team, but I think it’s important to consider that the audience isn’t necessarily the stereotype of otherwise stable adults that can’t handle the slightest offense, but younger people who are invested in ST and likely the rest of the houses once exposed to them, as well as the possibility of a community heavily affected by Pulse.
None of this talk really means anything anyway, because the team is going to choose the IPs that they choose and base it on profit in the end, but I think we should be more welcoming of younger people and their lack of exposure.
Of course, I say all of this as a twenty-year-old who was first exposed to Horror Nights content at twelve but has only gone for 28 and soon to be 29. Personally, I had a blast last year, to the point where I not only bought more individual tickets, but ended up upgrading to an Ultimate Frequent Fear pass, contributing hundreds as just one individual. I was prepared for the gore and violence that comes with HHN (the first house video I ever saw was that of La Llorona, and damn, was that dark), but I left with a smile on my face every night. The scareactors put so much energy and joy into their zones, and the concepts were expressed so creatively that it didn’t matter whether they were “dark” or not, at least for me. Did anyone here particularly hate Vamp ‘85? To me, it was so unique and entertaining compared to other ‘traditional’ haunts, and that’s what kept me coming back.
Anyway, yeah, if HHN30 isn’t a celebration of everything that the event has been, brutalization and all (including a Jack show, please god), I’ll be bothered. But for 29, it looks like, if nothing else, the HHN team wants us to have fun. Based on how much enjoyment the event brought last year, I went ahead and got myself a UFF+ pass as well as the six-house tour, and I’m anticipating so many nights of excitement. If you got this far, thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great time, guys!
I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but draw my own line at softening the event due to the outside world.
Horror is escape. Horror is also frightening. While I know this isn't Blackout level scare, I don't need HHN to turn into just another money pit that only cares about getting a 15 year old Instagrammer through the gate. As long as a balance remains, I'll be happy to keep going.
And I'm sure they'll continue being happy with the money I spend
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They risk it because it's an adult event for adults.
If snowflakes can't handle that, they should stay home.
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I really hope that HHN doesn't mirror current societal trends of toning it down because everyone is offended by everything.
If I could tell Aiello one thing for this year, I'd say GO WAY OVER THE TOP.
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3 hours ago, zombieman said:
The Hollywood house was VERY good back in the day. Hope that Orlando does at least that good of a job.
In 2010 and 2011, it was billed as "Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses: in 3D Zombievision".
The facade was the Murder Ride which also comprised the first few rooms. This first part was very much done in 3D. From there you went to the Firefly house and beyond, ending in Dr. Satan's lair. I don't recall the last 2/3 being 3D.
They also had a house-based T-shirt that was done graphic novel style, similar to the Chucky T-shirt from last year.
This might be the first good house done in the MIB location...
Let's be frank... 99% of things that have been on both coasts end up better from the Orlando team anyway
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On 8/24/2019 at 5:26 PM, _Veritas_ said:
Ugh, dream job
It's a lot tougher than you'd think.
I work for a well known entertainment company in creative design and as much as I love it, it's a grind.
You end up realizing that if you don't take mental health days away from it, what you love quickly becomes what you detest.
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The fandom is changing, clearly getting younger. A lot of the discussion I see on the net feels disjointed, not really event detailed and is really much of the same questions asked repeatedly.
The young fan of this event ain't reading Chaucer on their downtime, that's for sure.
It doesn't help that US marketing is doing near zero to hype the event using well-designed websites and creative social media. They know the event sells itself now and don't need to dump a ton of money into the front-end to push ticket sales. I guess that's good, but it's a lot less fun for those of us who got used to it in the past.
The true fear in the event is long gone. Now, it's a push to sell as much as they can and upsell as hard as possible.
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46 minutes ago, Ringwraith said:
What's really sad, is with the amount of money it took for a location, CGI, crew, talent, crafty, and both sound and video editing for this commercial, they could have easily made a badass interactive website and built up excitement and anticipation. This commercial is just bad and marketing is 100% to blame. Marketing, get your heads out of your butts and give the power back to A&D to do what they do best.
Please.
Thank you.
Marketing at USO is laughably weak, extending into all of their seasonal events. Quite frankly, for the amount of profit that HHN generates, they should have a specific marketing/social media team for this event, year-round.
I'd love to see some of their resume work. I can't imagine they have incredibly diverse backgrounds. This is very basic, lazy campaign 101.
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Nice to see them adding intelligent fixtures to the Zombie SZ. A welcome change from the usual lekos.
Intelligents will create better atmosphere. They should really be using them all over the park, in every SZ.
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At the very least, they need to have the lagoon lit for all of the HHN event using the existing intelligent fixtures. It creates atmosphere.
In the few years past, they kept things mostly dark. If you've got the ability, I say use it.
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So, this is US attempt at WOC. Gotcha.
Perhaps this will keep people busy and space out crowds a bit more. One can hope.
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This feels like filler
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Once again, Marketing for USO really has no clue how to build anticipation or utilize the latest tech to keep it interesting.
This year's campaign felt thrown together, but I guess since creative wasn't able to stick to an 80s theme either, I shouldn't be shocked.
The Rob Zombie news was no surprise, but it still feels boring and untimely. It's shoehorned in. Meh.
Bottom line: US knows they can put any piece of crap into the event and people will still show up. It's become a juggernaut and ultimately, everything like that fails under it's own weight eventually.
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The leak from the Ghostbusters house looks promising
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1 hour ago, HHN Explorer said:
As much as I'd like to see the main gate all fancied up, it just doesn't make sense anymore. They don't need to sell the event like they use to. I think it was mainly used to attract visitors during the daytime, the one's who didn't have a HHN ticket. Seeing the gate may have persuaded them to see what HHN is all about. Also, the immersive overall theme has gone to the wayside. Personally, I'd love for them to bring it back, but if they're going to use that money on making the houses/streets better instead I'm all for it.
We're acting like they're on a baloney and white bread budget here.
They've got the cash... They can shell out for a decent front gate without it eating into their bottom line too badly. Just throw up three more alcohol tents. BAM. SOLVED.
Bottom line, I want the whole event to remain immersive. Sure, it probably won't happen because Joe Six-Pack probably doesn't care about what a front gate looks like, but I'm still putting it out there.
I don't put it in a signature or my profile, but I've been doing HHN since it was simply Fright Nights. I'm an OG. And in being an old codger, I am ridiculously opinionated on what I want to see and how the event has changed (and continues to change).
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I've worked A/V for a long time and they wouldn't need to put up huge towers to facilitate projection mapping. New projectors are no longer water-cooled and don't need a ton of space to park.
I've worked with this company's products before. HHN could easily integrate these:
It's a matter of budget, I know, but for the amount of cash this event rakes in (and don't fool yourself, it's insane), they need to constantly be upping their game along with their ticket price.
I remember the year they did the crumbling/melting wall with projection mapping on the street. Cool effect, but I also noticed it was relatively dim and the image definition was muddy. Took a look at the projector they were using: It was ancient considering what they could have probably gotten their hands on being USO.
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15 hours ago, kablue said:
My guess would be they have to be careful what they do with the front gate since it stays up the entire time and they want to remain family friendly during the day. I think they could do more than what they've been doing, but might not want to risk it.
They've done screens before. They can spend a little and jazz it up again.
What they can do with intelligent lighting and projection mapping could make the front gate look incredible. Daytime show wouldn't be affected.
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On another topic, I'd love to see them get away from such an antiseptic/standardized front gate facade. It's the first thing you see when you're walking into the event... It needs to pop.
I believe the last decent year of front gate design was with Bloody Mary.
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32 minutes ago, Dripping Venom said:
I don't like when people use the terms "real horror" or "actual horror" because it's just so subjective. Horror isn't always slashers and gore. Case in point, the house that actually scared me the most last year was Seeds of Extinction because that existential, Lovecraftian, Weird Horror just frightens me. That wouldn't be considered "real horror" but it worked really well for what it was.
I understand totally that 'horror' is subjective... And I certainly never said that it only encompasses slashers and gore.
I'm all for IPs... As long as they can provide an adequate event atmosphere and true scare. While I get that 'bringing tv shows to life' brings in an incredible amount of money to the event, I don't want them to stray too far from their roots.
Seeds was brilliant. And yes, it was unsettling and that made it scary. I'm all for oddball concepts... As long as the execution is pristine (as Seeds was).
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As much as Aiello talks about this being his dream house, the event seems to be getting away from actual horror.
Gigantic latex masks of clowns don't scare me. Unless they can jury-rig some animatronic masks to give the clowns some detail, this will end up as boring as the scarezone was last year. Let's just hope they have a ton of jump-scares planned.
At least Ghostbusters can rely on great sets, effects and, if done well, some nice puppets. I'm down for that.
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The longer HHN goes, the more it's getting away from attempting to be truly scary.
While I love Ghostbusters, I question their place at the event as a house. It's the same way I'd feel about GOT. It's just not a right fit.
Granted, I can't expect Uni to be like going to Blackout, but damn if it doesn't feel like they're just selling out and going for the easy buck at times.
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Reading through the last few weeks, some observations...
IT ain't happening. WB won't let that go for all the tea in China.
GOT has no place at HHN. It's popular, but it's not Halloween.
I'm depressed at remembering how ramshackle the 'Scream' house looked that year. Such a waste.
I may be the only one, but I'd love to see NOES back in the mix. I mean, it's quintessential '80s.
Dawn Of The Dead/Day Of The Dead/Return Of The Living Dead. Who has the rights and why aren't they included?
Beetlejuice would be interesting, especially since the new Broadway show has reinvigorated the character.
I've been to every HHN event since inception. Excited as always, but as the crowds get larger and the conga lines grow slower and longer, it's more work that it used to be.
On 6/11/2019 at 8:46 AM, ultimateforce said:The idea of pricing people out of the event seems like such a bummer to me.
I agree, but it's the only way to keep it under control. Disney does it and they still hit capacity in their parks.
HHN needs to keep finding ways to control the crowds that attend.
On 6/11/2019 at 9:57 AM, Rikku said:I agree but I guess only time will tell however the pricing for this year does not bode well for the future, I am sure it won't jump drastically to Legacy's pricing by next year but just steadily climb there over the next few years. It just was a shock this year since last year with AP discount I paid $407 per FFP+ Express and now this year it is $460, and I buy both my partner's and my own pass so not just a $50 increase but $100. If I was still single it probably wouldn't hurt as much as when I traveled to the event as single I didn't have as many responsibilities so it was whatever but now it hits a lot more buying for two especially the past couple of years traveling to the event as a couple lol.
The price jump this year was considerable for private RIPs.
Last year I paid $2300(ish). This year topped out at $3100.
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On 7/7/2019 at 11:59 AM, Hunterhorrorfan said:
Heard from inside sources just the other day at the park that 5 people were JUST casted for “surprise zone” on October 26/27 and November 1/2. Who knows what this could be? could there possibly be a shadows of the past type of zone coming?
The term is 'cast' not casted.
Sorry... I'm pedantic and from a theater background.
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I agree with raising prices and thinning out the crowds a bit (hopefully)
HHN keeps getting more popular and the event does shortfall because of the intense crowds.
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Halloween Horror Nights Orlando 29 Discussion Thread
in Halloween Horror Nights 29
Posted
While it doesn't warrant an entire review, this year's HHN felt off to me. It's now fully commercialized and only a couple of the houses go for real scares. There was a sameness to the houses and I didn't get that same level of excitement as I have in the past.
The private RIP was fine for speed, but Uni screwed me on my guide. I had been with the same guide for years and they bait/switched me at the last minute with someone new. He was a total dud. His energy was off the whole night and it killed the event for me. It felt like $3500 somewhat wasted.
Moreso, when you're charging those rates, the experience suffers when you cram a ton of people into La Bamba. It felt like a Walmart.
Bottom line, they're making so much money off this event that it's clear they don't really care about improvements. Perhaps it's time for me to put that cash elsewhere and just retire future HHNs to better past memories.