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HHN XX Rants


Michele
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A few ground rules -

1. This is not an open forum to flame anyone or anything.

2. If you want to rant about something, please explain why. Saying that something sucked is not enough.

3. There will be no fighting.

4. Remember to fill out the HHN Survey when you exit the park for the night.

Now that we have that out of the way, I'll start -

Pulsing the lines Sunday night was not a good idea. Lines that should have been (and were advertised to be) short were taking two and three times their normal time because of the pulsing. Sure, it's a good idea, but it's just not feasible.

The Express line for the Hallow'd Past starts much too far back. At the point where you join the line, you still have a considerable wait.

My group and I were told we need to "walk faster" by one of the ops in the house. We were moving a pretty fast pace as it was.

One of the coordinators in Saws 'n Steam told mz_, JackLover, and I to stop asking the guys to pose for pictures. We don't ask people to pose for pictures. And, even if we were, the coordinator should told his guys not to pose for pictures instead of lecturing us.

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The 21+ age on the VIP Lounge: some people. (Younger that 21, are just as, if not more mature than adults. I want in.)

The 20 Years of Fear Tours are only on Wednesdays: (Some die hard HHN fans don't live in Florida, which means it's less likely to be in Orlando on the weekdays.)

There are 3 out of 5 rooms from 2008 in Hallow'd Past: (As much as I loved 2008, this house is about the past, not just 2008. Body Collectors (2005), Mad Tea Party (2008), SS Frightanic, Treaks & Foons, and Dungeon of Terror could make-up the house.)

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Being turned away from AP Preferred Parking ($4) October 1st and 3rd only to see 4-5 cars drive in to preferred on our walk by from the upper JAWS lot that more than likely paid the full preferred price ($20) to park. Awesome way to treat AP holders.

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My group and I were told we need to "walk faster" by one of the ops in the house. We were moving a pretty fast pace as it was.

Ahhhhhhhhh!!!! Now that i have that scream out, i can also express my dislike of ops personnel, all they do is ruin our house by standing in our rooms, because even when one of us is messed with, they dont know what to do or dont care. Also i have noticed in my spot them telling guests to hurry up, who were walking too fast for me to scare them, what good does that do? Gosh Universal save the money and just get rid of them.

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Gosh Universal save the money and just get rid of them.

you say that now until you get decked in the face and you NEED one of them.

also, they usually tend to be attraction attendants/leads.

edited to add: I'd talk to your ASM/SM about any problems you may have, including ops. I had to in Cleaver last year and it was fixed pretty fast.

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I agree on the house ops pushing you along when you need not be. I understand not wanting to it to slow to a crawl but even when you are going through at a normal pace, they've been pretty agressive this year about moving you along. And in some of the houses, there are just too many to begin with. I know they serve a purpose (or are supposed to) but when it seems like there are more ops people in the house than scareactors, there is something wrong.

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you say that now until you get decked in the face and you NEED one of them.

also, they usually tend to be attraction attendants/leads.

edited to add: I'd talk to your ASM/SM about any problems you may have, including ops. I had to in Cleaver last year and it was fixed pretty fast.

Haha its funny you say that because i was punched this past Friday and what do you know, no ops person near.......i went to the exit and handled it w/o ops and i know some in our house have gotten hit and ops just looked surprised that they had to do something, and the SA handled it.

And our ASM hears about it, and she talks to them but you know how it goes.

EDIT: I was not always the anti-ops person i am. I used to say oh yea theyll be great, but i have heard nothing but bad and now ive experienced bad and i kinda converted.

Edited by gatoralex
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We had a scareactor in Catacombs touch me with his beak (I knew him) and grab my arm to get a scare from me, and as we entered the next room the ops personnel pulled me to the side and said "don't let me catch you touching my scareactors again" in an EXTREMELY rude tone and before I could tell him what happened he stormed back to his corner. I didn't want to cause a scene so I just kept walking. Sucks.

And pulsing the lines sucks. I was looking forward to hitting lots of houses on Sunday but only did 2. Not waiting 45 minutes when the park has very low projection for that night. Especially when they're closing at 12. Waste of time imo.

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you say that now until you get decked in the face and you NEED one of them.

also, they usually tend to be attraction attendants/leads.

edited to add: I'd talk to your ASM/SM about any problems you may have, including ops. I had to in Cleaver last year and it was fixed pretty fast.

I love that we don't have any through the entire first half of the house (at least). not sure when the first one appears.

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There are 3 out of 5 rooms from 2008 in Hallow'd Past: (As much as I loved 2008, this house is about the past, not just 2008. Body Collectors (2005), Mad Tea Party (2008), SS Frightanic, Treaks & Foons, and Dungeon of Terror could make-up the house.)

Yeah I agree with this a little, and If they did 08 so much, I cannot understand why they would not put a Hallow room, I would have loved to see the goat character from the beginning of that house,

But for the most part, I've been happy with Uni this year.

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the only thing that bothered me this year was the overuse of guys with chainsaws. when we were walking through the streets of new york (between saws n steam and hades) there must have been 20 guys with chainsaws. i even walked by groups of 3 or 4 scareactors at a time standing around with chainsaws. it just seemed a little overkill. after we passed the saws n steam chainsaw guys, we walked right into the moving gang of military chainsaw guys. it was just chainsaw after chainsaw. haha.

now don't get me wrong, i like a good chainsaw scare, but when there are so many chainsaws all standing around the same area you just sort of get used to the sound. so when a guy revs up his chainsaw beside you it's not very startling because you already hear 10 chainsaws around you.

but overall this year was absolutely awesome and the saws n steam guys did look really cool. especially the glowing goggles in the fog.

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One of the coordinators in Saws 'n Steam told mz_, JackLover, and I to stop asking the guys to pose for pictures. We don't ask people to pose for pictures. And, even if we were, the coordinator should told his guys not to pose for pictures instead of lecturing us.

I think he was told by someone else to speak to us. I only say that because I think he was coordinator. I still think that situation was weird though. Makes me wonder.

Edited by Jakemeister
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OK so I would like to rant about Catacombs Lame plain facade. and also gatoralex if your in the Orphanage then I saw you Friday night at the exit talking to some people, you walked up to them with the look on your face like you had just been punched or something so apparently I was right, and I feel so horrible that something like that would happen. :blink:

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Just a few things for now...

-Unnecessarily spaced out pulsing. I love the pulsing, I'd like them to do it when they can - but letting in 5 people every 5 minutes makes no sense. Send 5-10 people in, wait 30 seconds, and then send 5-10 more. A 5 second wait at The Orfanage turned into a 10 minute wait due to this strategy. (That said, I had a great experience in the house, but I could've had a similar-to-identical one with smarter pulsing).

-Being rushed by ops, especially those who don't seem to understand that people are being pulsed in the first place. I know where to go, you don't have to tell me to move along or flash your light - this isn't a crime scene, let me enjoy the house. Just because someone isn't directly in front of me does not make me a criminal.

-21 or older age limit in the VIP Lounge. It's unnecessary and really an insult to the younger HHN fans, of which there are many on this board. See the VIP discussion for my full argument.

-FEAR's lack of involvement in the event. He's completely overshadowed by the charismatic Jack, who I can encounter not once, not twice, not three times, but a total of 5 times throughout the park (Fear Revealed, Photo Booth, Psychoscareapy, Zombiegeddon, and front screen). FEAR has no appearance in any house and thus does not get an opportunity to even scare - ironic that you can't really fear FEAR himself since he's only a photo op. In addition, that photo op lacks the intensity of the FEAR we saw biding in the preview videos. At the very least, some projections of FEAR throughout the park (on MIB & New York buildings) would be nice, similar to Mary & Usher. Not to mention the character himself is extremely vague and one-dimensional, but that's a conversation for another time.

-Lack of pre-XVIII rooms in Hallowed Past; two rooms to Body Collectors, two to Dead Exposure, and one to Alice in Wonderland? Dungeon of Terror, Psychopath, Screamhouse, and RUN all deserved representation and sadly got none. That said, the maze is still excellent, but a missed opportunity to be sure.

-Lack of gore in general. I guess the vibe they were going for this year is that with a few exceptions, everything in the park is attempting to kill YOU, not anyone else - but I (and other horror fans) still love me some gore. Cleaver and SAW had plenty last year, Interstellar/Body Collectors/Doomsday provided lots in 18, and most of the houses in 17 and 16 had it in droves... tone the gore back up, Uni! I want to see blood'n'guts in more than just a few rooms in Hallow'd Past & Hades.

I think that's about it. Everything else (that isn't nitpicking, and excluding Bill & Ted) is excellent - not a weak house in the bunch this year.

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Agreed with the line pulsing on Sunday night. You could tell the park really wasn't crowded enough for the lines to be as long as they were.

Agreed again about the Hallow'd Past express line. Also, that whole set up is just awkward. The regular line is at a stand still for most of the line. There's gotta be a better way to work that.

Exiting Hallow'd Past/Catacombs line: people hitting the fence drives me absolutely insane. I got hit in the face with it 2 years ago, so every time someone does it around me, I go off on them. I wish they could put someone there to watch this but they'd be blocking the flow of traffic.

This isn't about Universal. But walking through Esqueleto Muerte, I saw the girl in front of me touching all the scareactors' costumes and wigs/hats, and she went so far as to rub her hand down a female scareactor's chest. She seemed drunk, but that's no excuse. I LOST it. My brother dragged me out of the scarezone to keep me from saying anything. He insisted that if the scareactor felt unsafe she would have gone and gotten someone to help her, and I knew it was right but still. I know it could have been worse. At least this guest wasn't punching people. But what in the world makes you think you have the right to touch anyone at all? They certainly aren't touching you, and I would bet that if anyone did, you would have reported it to security ASAP. Oh that's right. ALCOHOL makes you think you have the right to touch people. :rolleyes:

Oh, and I WISH ops had been rushing us through Hallow'd Past. These jerks in front of me were literally at a standstill and having a freaking conversation during the Body Collectors scene. I could understand stopping to watch the spine extraction. But they weren't. They were standing there chatting like they were at the mall or something. Not only is that rude to the guests behind you, it's totally disrespectful to the scareactors.

Edited by MartyMcFly
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I'm really glad this topic was added, wasn't sure where to post my concerns.

My biggest beef right now is also where the express line dumps out for Hallow'd Past. While I am mentally and emotionally able to wait and be patient, right now I physically can't, and one of the reasons I have the Express is because I can only stand and walk about 15 minutes at a shot before I need to sit and rest my leg. If there is any kind of significant line for Hallow'd Past, this makes my Express Pass essentially worthless. I'm working on restoring function, but in the meantime, I don't want to rent a wheelchair just for this one house. I see that there isn't room for a parallel line, but could they possibly find a totally different route for Express, maybe coming from the right instead of the left? Or find a way to level out part of the gravel next to the line (if they can do that safely)?

I haven't had as much problem this year with ops, and I do think, within reason, they serve a good function. I definitely want to ensure the actors are as well protected as possible, and when I can't tell which direction I'm supposed to go, I never hesitate to ask them. I also try to engage them positively whenever possible, with a smile, nod, hello, and a small handful have responded kindly. That said, I agree there are WAY too many in the houses this year, around every corner. It dampens the effects of many scares. Also, an uncomfortable percentage of them are, well, grumpy and surly. That job is already taken by the actors, and they are much more fun to watch doing it. I recognize this must be a miserable job, but please, don't take it out on all of us guests. I also agree that there is a time to ask someone to move who is truly blocking a line, and "keep moving" for every slight misstep is uncalled for.

I was on the positive end of a line pulse when I went through LT, and that was the best time I have had in that house. But I didn't understand why the lines were so long when the park was clearly slow, and this explains it. As much fun as I had, it's not worth it to triple people's time in line for this benefit. As another poster stated, judicious use of pulsing at appropriate times would be a nice experience, but know when to say when.

I guess that was nothing new to add, but I'm having a great year at HHN so far, and just wanted to agree with others with the same concerns, so that these issues don't continue to detract from an otherwise terrific experience.

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Last time I went, I think it was in the Psychoscareapy house, there was a very tall black ops guy right next to a doorway, leaning against a wall. He was wearing complete black, and could not see him....so naturally, I stomped on his toe when rounding the corner. Oops. I turn around immediately to apologize, but the guy is a friggin wall....looking back towards the guests coming through, earplugs in his ears, and doesn't even flinch. That weirded me out a bit. Still, he's an idiot for standing right in the walkway.

Anyhow, I had a horrible experience right before going into the even this past Thursday, that stuck with me for the rest of the event and in my opinion lowered the quality. I posted an entire thread about it in the other forum, but didn't realize this thread was here. I'll retype it....be warned, it's hard for me to condense this. I'm still pissed about it.

Previous Thursday, 9-30-10, I stopped by a friend's house before going to HHN. My two friends that were there expressed interest in going, but said that they can't afford 70 dollar tickets. I told them that they're only 40 with the burger king discount....and I called in the ticket office about the BK discount. They told me "All you have to do is mention it to the person selling your ticket, and you'll be fine." I said "Are you sure now? I can stop by BK on the way up there, but we don't want to get caught without enough money." she said "Yes, you'll be fine. Just mention it to the ticket person." Ok, I thought, cool. We show up, and sure enough the ticket person says "Sorry, I can't do that..." then tries selling them frequent fear passes. I politely push my friend aside, and say "Excuse me ma'am, but I was told over the phone that we just need to mention the discount and we get it. We are Florida residents, and we all have our IDs." She calls over her lead, who again tells me "No, we can't do that. There's a Burger King in City Walk, go get the coupon there." Ok, so the lady on the phone lied to me. No biggy. Go to BK, and sure enough, THEY DON'T GIVE THE COUPONS. Ok, now I'm pissed. So the ticket lady over the phone lied to me...and the ticket lady in the booth lied to me.

I storm over to guest services, and the kind gentleman at the beginning of the line asked me what my problem was before allowing me to go into the line. He told me "Oh, you just got a really crabby ticket person. I apologize for that. We don't need your empty coke cans or coupons, they're just trash and get thrown away anyhow. Go ahead and wait in line, and they'll take care of you." Ok, wait in line, get to the guest services person and...guess what? "We can't do that without a coupon or coke can, sir." :angry: Really? So she calls her manager...lady by the name of "Jackie" who is extremely crabby herself. "You may be Florida residents, but we NEED the coupon or coke can to give you the discount." "Ma'am, no we do not. I was told by TWO people that I do not." "WHO?!" uh oh. "That guy over there at the line, for one." so he comes up, being very kind...and she starts bitching at him. "WHY ARE YOU TELLING THESE GUESTS THESE THINGS?!?!" and he retorts "We don't need their trash ma'am, they're Florida residents just like the rest." she continues to scream at him, then screams at the lady who was taking care of us "Just go ahead and sell them the tickets! And you, sir, I'll see you around back." So the kind guy was apparently in trouble. As he's walking around, I catch him and say "Sir, I apologize if we got you in trouble." he says "It's ok, I'm just trying to do my job to keep the guests happy. Besides, we don't need your trash to give you the discount."

I'm still taken aghast by this horrible service from the park that usually gives me awesome services. Had I known that this was going to happen, I would have taken down everyone's name, but the only name I remember is that Jackie lady who I think was from NY (on her nametag) who was a total bitch. The nice gentleman, all I remember about him was a mole on his left eyebrow...heh.

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I had to just chime in here with my two cents because I am a former OPS team member and I feel the need to do this every year...to clarify a few things. Now, I know that the good majority of you out there deem the presence of the OPS team members unnecessary. Well, tell me exactly how the houses would run without them? Who do you think sets up/breaks down that queue every day of the event? Or who cleans up all of the nastiness at the end of the evening? (and coming from someone who cleaned up pretty much every bodily fluid that could come out of a person; it's no easy task). Do you think that the scare actors are the only people that take the physical/verbal abuse during the event? Nope. The operations team members that blend in with the surroundings of the house because they wear all black, have to..(and yes, they need a lot of different "safety" people through out the house because there are so many potential things that could go wrong so Universal is covering their own ass). Wouldn't that be a little silly to have the ones that are working the queue in the bright orange shirts, inside the houses? Universal Wardrobe makes those decisions; not the operations team. Team members only do what is instructed to them by their supervisors and the reason they are told to keep the line moving through the house is because the "higher ups" want to see those high numbers of people being pushed through, hour by hour. Every hour on the hour the team leaders have to call in and report that number and if it's not up to the goal that's been set for that hour, they are instructed to tell their team members to get it going. While, I understand what some of you are saying because let's face it, no team member is 100% perfect, and there are bad, or lazy ones sometimes, there HAS to be operations team members, otherwise the houses wouldn't run. It's as simple as that. Everything that doesn't involve scaring, is taken care of by operations so think about that. I know that it may be frustrating the way things are done sometimes, and you may not understand it but REALLY think about all the work that those people have to do before you bitch.

...and as for the issue with the Express Line for the "Hallow'd Past"; the way that the regular queue is set up, and given the tight space as it is, there would be no other place for the Express line to go...that's it.

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I had to just chime in here with my two cents because I am a former OPS team member and I feel the need to do this every year...to clarify a few things. Now, I know that the good majority of you out there deem the presence of the OPS team members unnecessary. Well, tell me exactly how the houses would run without them? Who do you think sets up/breaks down that queue every day of the event? Or who cleans up all of the nastiness at the end of the evening? (and coming from someone who cleaned up pretty much every bodily fluid that could come out of a person; it's no easy task). Do you think that the scare actors are the only people that take the physical/verbal abuse during the event? Nope. The operations team members that blend in with the surroundings of the house because they wear all black, have to..(and yes, they need a lot of different "safety" people through out the house because there are so many potential things that could go wrong so Universal is covering their own ass). Wouldn't that be a little silly to have the ones that are working the queue in the bright orange shirts, inside the houses? Universal Wardrobe makes those decisions; not the operations team. Team members only do what is instructed to them by their supervisors and the reason they are told to keep the line moving through the house is because the "higher ups" want to see those high numbers of people being pushed through, hour by hour. Every hour on the hour the team leaders have to call in and report that number and if it's not up to the goal that's been set for that hour, they are instructed to tell their team members to get it going. While, I understand what some of you are saying because let's face it, no team member is 100% perfect, and there are bad, or lazy ones sometimes, there HAS to be operations team members, otherwise the houses wouldn't run. It's as simple as that. Everything that doesn't involve scaring, is taken care of by operations so think about that. I know that it may be frustrating the way things are done sometimes, and you may not understand it but REALLY think about all the work that those people have to do before you bitch.

...and as for the issue with the Express Line for the "Hallow'd Past"; the way that the regular queue is set up, and given the tight space as it is, there would be no other place for the Express line to go...that's it.

I'm glad you piped up, honestly. I appreciate what the Ops do during the event. I've seen far too many people get scared into a boo-hole across from me to the point where I actually requested an Ops member be in my room. I'm glad they are there. I also know how management wants to see 1,000 people through a house every hour, and that can only happen with an hour long wait and a fast moving congo-line. I know the Ops's job is even more thankless than the scaractors, because even though the scaractors get abused regularly we are still the "stars" of the event.

That said, and I'm sure you will agree with me, there are definitely some poor Ops personnel who either need to be better trained or have a better disposition. I've lucked out with fun, patient Ops in my room, but I've also had Ops personnel tell guests to keep moving forward while we are (intentionally) scaring them back. I've also had an Ops person stare about me for a full minute when I went to the exit to try and get security. She never bothered to flag one down, and the guy walked out. Those are the Ops people hate, and we have all experienced them. For every Ops person who is never noticed (and there are a ton), there are two who futs something up and give the entire crew a bad name.

If you're a good Op, thank you so much for what you do.

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I had to just chime in here with my two cents because I am a former OPS team member and I feel the need to do this every year...to clarify a few things. Now, I know that the good majority of you out there deem the presence of the OPS team members unnecessary. Well, tell me exactly how the houses would run without them? Who do you think sets up/breaks down that queue every day of the event? Or who cleans up all of the nastiness at the end of the evening? (and coming from someone who cleaned up pretty much every bodily fluid that could come out of a person; it's no easy task). Do you think that the scare actors are the only people that take the physical/verbal abuse during the event? Nope. The operations team members that blend in with the surroundings of the house because they wear all black, have to..(and yes, they need a lot of different "safety" people through out the house because there are so many potential things that could go wrong so Universal is covering their own ass). Wouldn't that be a little silly to have the ones that are working the queue in the bright orange shirts, inside the houses? Universal Wardrobe makes those decisions; not the operations team. Team members only do what is instructed to them by their supervisors and the reason they are told to keep the line moving through the house is because the "higher ups" want to see those high numbers of people being pushed through, hour by hour. Every hour on the hour the team leaders have to call in and report that number and if it's not up to the goal that's been set for that hour, they are instructed to tell their team members to get it going. While, I understand what some of you are saying because let's face it, no team member is 100% perfect, and there are bad, or lazy ones sometimes, there HAS to be operations team members, otherwise the houses wouldn't run. It's as simple as that. Everything that doesn't involve scaring, is taken care of by operations so think about that. I know that it may be frustrating the way things are done sometimes, and you may not understand it but REALLY think about all the work that those people have to do before you bitch.

...and as for the issue with the Express Line for the "Hallow'd Past"; the way that the regular queue is set up, and given the tight space as it is, there would be no other place for the Express line to go...that's it.

I don't think anyone here has any real disrespect for the ops team. I've been a scareactor for 5 years now and the ops team has helped me out in times of need but at the same time you do get those ops team members that like to guide people with their flashlight and shine it on you right before a scare. Or the ops guy that use to take naps in my room in frankenstein last year. The point is, i don't think the events possible without ops but I do have to agree that their presence is a little too much sometimes. I think you might feel the same if you worked as a scaractor (if you have I'm sorry) I appreciate you guys having to do what you gotta do, especially after someone had to clean pee in my room twice last year but there is no reason to express our concerns as bitching and don't take things so personal... we do love you guys.

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To be honest, there's really nothing I can rant about. This was probably one of my favorites out of the five years I've attended. All I have are very minor complaints. Several people already voiced their opinions on Fear, and I tend to agree that he should have been more involved. I even had trouble getting a damn picture with him; I guess he can't hear so well up there. The actors who portrayed some of the icons were a letdown, too. Don't get me wrong: the people they got to play The Usher, The Storyteller, and especially Cindy were all pretty much spot-on. The Director and the Caretaker just kind of hung around, though. Hell, most of the time The Caretaker wasn't even in the scarezone; he was hanging out over by Mel's, looking like he was hoping no one would come up to him. Jack just plain wasn't there when I went through. I even came back about an hour later and I still couldn't find him.

But these petty squabbles aside, it was a pretty great events. None of the houses were duds, most of the actors were busting their asses to get scares, and even the security staff were all polite and courteous.

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I am somewhat disturbed by the lack of security presence in my scarezone, and this has been discussed with the coordinators. Last year in Mel's, we usually had 3 security/cops every night, stationed in that area, and this year, they just walk around. Some of the icons take a lot of abuse, and knowing that security is nearby would be really helpful.

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