Cody

Yeah the actual show is 100% different except for slight makeup similarities.

I think the hay bale outfits were a stopgap due to not having the intended costumes finished in time. A friend of mine is in the zone and every one of them got a costume upgrade.

Actually thinking back to audition emails, it would make sense for Chucky to be a live puppet here. The audition emails they put out for puppeteers were saying you could perform a song with your own puppet as part of the audition, which is something you'd do for a performance role rather than a scareactor role. Previous house puppets like the AWIL werewolves and the AvE Xenomorphs were run by regular scareactors without any specialized skills or experience (myself included). An audition for skilled puppeteers would imply a more complex role.

But will we get real skeletons like the movie did?

Have Chucky costumes been confirmed? If they wanted him to be accurate size, they could do him as a live actor controlling a puppet to insult the guests.

"80s cyberpunk AoV in a full stadium" is probably the best show ever put at HHN.

You don't have to worry about the sprung tents lacking in space or detail. While the early houses in them were a bit hashed together (especially People Under the Stairs: Under Construction), they've figured out how to use the space much better in the last few years. Scarecrow and Texas Chain Saw Massacre were some of the most detailed houses of their years despite being in tents, only differentiated from soundstage houses by the lack of jaw-droppingly huge rooms or elaborate indoor facades.

Despite the reveal of Bill & Ted 3, I'm not so sure they're going to bring the show back that fast, at least not in its original form. There's good reason it was finally discontinued.

Very, very few scarezones got as big of a fan reaction as Vamp '55. There's art, cosplay, some people even did a little work on a comic. If the actors can be as good as their predecessors, we're in for a good time.

I wonder if moving to the Fear Factor stage would let them bring more dancers. Their troupe is far larger than the gang that comes to Universal.

At least the rights issue with Marvel just means they probably won't be able to do a horror version of Marvel like 2002 again. Nothing stopped them from putting differently themed scarezones there before, like Blood Thunder Alley in 2005. But the ring design and narrow pathways are crippling, and having one or two lands completely devoid of horror content with Seuss and Hogsmede means people will have no choice but to get funneled through or even stuck in unthemed areas as they traverse the park.

Budget houses aren't necessarily a bad thing if the gimmick is done right. The In Between was an awesome house because they used 3D and blacklights (ordinarily a cheap fair gimmick) and used them for immersion. The original Dead Exposure got some good scares out of people with minimal money spent on sets and costumes.

Giving Academy the old arena (assuming it's still standing and not used for a house) sounds like a good bet. Their two years have been extremely strong and their popularity has rivaled or even exceeded Bill & Ted (especially when you remove the nostalgia filter from B&T fans and go by show quality). I have no doubts that they'd consistently fill up the arena for the year and be able to do even more extreme stunts and artistic expression with the whole huge stage at their disposal.

The design of IOA is one of the big things keeping it from coming back for HHN, especially as the crowds only increase every year. Because the lands in IOA are designed to be more immersive, the paths are much more narrow and filled with chokepoints where you'd end up with severe traffic jams. The ring design of the park also completely eliminates any possible shortcuts between different parts of the park; you have to walk the entire circle to get to the other side. Universal's lagoon, by comparison, only takes up about half the park and the other half is filled with different paths that you can take to the exit. IOA is even more hamstrung by the utter refusal of Seuss's estate to allow horror content in Seuss Landing and the possibility of a refusal for Hogsmede (while the international parks have done HHN stuff with Harry Potter, the issue may be with how contracts and licensing agreements were made rather than Rowling herself intervening), which means 1 or 2 entire lands would be devoid of any HHN attractions. Universal only keeps Diagon Alley normal, opening the entire rest of the park to scarezones and houses.

Probably have been him coming out and finally saying "I hate Disney" in person to the entire audience instead of trying to use his show as the vehicle.

No. I'm just tired of The Purge.

Aiello was present and going through houses last night.

http://www.insidethemagic.net/2017/11/universal-orlando-will-hand-wristbands-final-bill-ted-show-halloween-horror-nights/ Not like I had any plans to see it more than once...

I absolutely adore this troupe. Every time they come through the crowd for their intro, they're taking selfies and hugging people they recognize (Francis Tyrell, their dance director who you remember as the doctor from last year's show, held a dance class in Orlando recently). Victor Yellow, the contortionist, is using a portrait of him by Shelby Denham (who's made some awesome HHN art lately that you can find on her Instagram) as his profile picture on Instagram. A picture I took of their show on Monday has been liked by the official AOV Instagram page and received comments from two of the dancers, as they regularly go through social media looking for cool pics and videos people take of them. The amount of love these guys have for their audience is astounding. They put together a coherent show despite having their original plans completely ruined by the hurricane when they could have just cancelled and went home, and they come out with the exact same energy and smiles every single night. And every single show has the same big crowd, often full of regular fans who clamor for front row spots. I sincerely hope they remain part of HHN for many years to come. Universal found a gem last year.

I'm starting to get kinda tired of purging.

I've heard this as well, along with anger from some team members that they were unable to get access to the final show because they were working at the only time spots were handed out.

Seriously. I got a Liquid Courage (the orange one) last time purely out of curiosity because I've never gotten a signature drink before, and it had maybe as much total alcohol content as a single bottle of beer. And not even a strong, 9-12% ABV beer. Just a regular beer.

So the "new" show is actually an extended version of their original short Irma show. It's now 14.5 minutes instead of 10 and includes two new sequences, presumably both taken from Afterlife. While I'm disappointed in the lack of Afterlife, I like that AoV and Universal have taken it in good humor and even officially call it "The Irma Show" on the screens. It's still a quality show since AoV is a quality troupe, and it still attracts huge crowds for every show.