[Halloween Horror Nights 30 Speculation]

2 hours ago, Badge said:

At the same time, I seriously don't see them packing the park this year. I see capacity severely reduced. The last thing Universal needs is pictures/video of people shoulder to shoulder in queues, packing the streets with guests, or worst case, an outbreak that is traced back to the event. Depending on how much they limit capacity, queues might not even need a virtual system.

That's kinda the point of reducing capacity though. Cut down the number of people in the park to allow easier social distancing and making virtual queues much easier to manage. Cutting capacity also means less need for Stay n Scream as one of the big selling points to that is getting into mazes before the crowds roll in. Maybe have a larger holding area to accommodate day guests staying for the event or make the entire park a Stay n Scream and give paying guests wristbands like Howl O Scream's setup. Of course there are still pros and cons to that but Universal has pretty much had 3-4 years to perfect the system.

 

2 hours ago, Badge said:

 

My guess for this year is that all houses will use virtual queues + social distancing the queue and no express queue so they can really spread out. Each queue will hold roughly 20 minutes worth of guests. This will prevent any "dead" time in the queue while also promoting social distancing. Guests will express passes will be able to skip the virtual queue and jump right into the line once per house giving express pass holders a wait no longer than 20 minutes. An added perk for express pass holders is that they would be able to be in a virtual queue for one house while still using their express at a different house to see a few houses twice if wanted.

I feel the park doesn't really need Express with reduced capacity. Having Express would just make the regular lines unnecessarily longer, even with virtual queues in place. If Express ends up getting added, they should have it like Volcano's setup where you can go straight to the maze with no wait at all, but there should be a cap on the number sold to keep the standby from getting ridiculous.

 

Overall reduced capacity this year would be a major plus. Less wait time + more distancing in queues + no more conga lines in mazes thanks to distancing guidelines = more time for me to enjoy the event and less time waiting in long lines.

[Halloween Horror Nights 30 Speculation]

Universal has been developing virtual queue for years now. There's really no reason why they can't implement it for HHN. I feel it would definitely improve the event by a long shot if they limit capacity and use mostly virtual queue for the mazes/rides.