No Frequent Fear Pass This Year!

[Freak]

The FB page just announced that there will be no FFP this year.

The one first year I was going to buy one!!!!!

[Trevler]

Im actually excited. This will cut down on roving packs of unsupervised 12 year olds. I dont like them.

[DTH316]

NOW I gotta find ONE day to go, the ONE year they have Scream which was the year I said I would actually find such a thing worth it. This pisses me off. They better change this garbage.

Clearly I'm pissed.

Edited August 24, 2011 by DTH316

[Freak]

Honestly, I think we better get used to this knowing that this will be a permanent decision. The execs saw how many people were asking for the FFP on the FB page and realized that it would cause them to loose money if they had it this year. We have to remember that Universal is a businesses and that their main goal is to make money...like all businesses. I know that's a hard concept to grasp, but that's the way it is. Besides, if they did have the pass this year and saw that they were losing money, that would put the event back on hiatus, which none of us want.

I too, was a bit defensive when I first heard about this, but after thinking about it, I think it will be better for the event in the long run. If Universal will make more money this way, that will mean a bigger budget for the event with better quality and maybe even another show. If you really want to save some money, buy an annual pass next year. You'll save with "Killer Deal Nights" on certain nights (It was $25 last year). Besides,we'll have Transformers by then.

Besides, I was originally planning on going two nights anyway...which is plenty for me.

[Creeper06]

No. Sorry. This sucks. And it's a real "F*ck You" to all the local fans who support the event every year. I get that "there's profit to be made" but not at the expense of those who've supported the event since it's return. I look forward to going multiple times every year so I can take my time, enjoy the event, and do the houses multiple times. Now I'm going to go once. Not because I can't afford going multiple nights. Because they don't deserve the extra income.

[DTH316]

Alternative ways to fix this instead of the idiotic decision to eliminate it completely:

1) Hike the FFP prices from it's original $69 - 99 to $159 (the equivalent of about three nights for the price of toning it down to let's say, I don't know, 6; most people wouldn't go all 6 days anyway)

2) $4 increase on regular ticket prices

3) 3 night maximum pass for $119

4) FOTL pass for $139

5) More hotel packages at varying prices would bring in more revenue

6) Add Wednesdays onto the event; up the price of day/night combo to $109

7) Sneak preview mazes for day guests as advertisement (HOTC since it has a roof and would block most sun) = bring in more guests and incentive to upgrade to day/night combo

8) Bring ticket stub from The Thing for a $4 discount, hand out advertisement cards at the local theaters explaining the process

9) RIP Experience $20 more than usual prices

10) Behind the Scenes Experience, separate from ticketed event for $59. One tour daily (NOT by Murdy since he's a busy man)

Implement all those, fix the problem.

[Freak]

^Those are all good solutions DTH. It'd be better than just eliminating the pass system completely and tell the fans, "Thanks for the free advertising on YouTube guys, but screw you. You're paying full price every night. *Puts on troll face* Have a nice day!"

Ruh!

[djevilclown]

Hey guys how much was the FOTL passes last year?

[DTH316]

Early on, before the event and for about the first week or two, it was ONLY 69 - 79 bucks. After that, it SKYROCKETED to 99 - 129.

[fresh2otown]

Early on, before the event and for about the first week or two, it was ONLY 69 - 79 bucks. After that, it SKYROCKETED to 99 - 129.

Remember they randomly raised the advance price on FOTL Passes, a big jump after they were already on sale. I assume they were selling well on non peak nights. That was pretty shady last year.

[DTH316]

I remember it really well because the entire time leading up to my trip, I was planning on saving up for the FOTL. About two weeks before I went, it jumped and I immediately went UGH WTF!!!!!! haha I waited around in hopes they'd have some last minute deals (something they did in 09) but no dice.

[Freak]

Wow. I have never seen so many people complaining about this! Just scroll down for pages on the FB page and you'll see nothing but complaints! Hopefully they'll worlk out some compromise.

[fresh2otown]

I will have more to say later, but I just think it is such a slap in the face to the hardcore fans. HHN Hollywood and Murdy uses and exploits social media year round more than any other theme park to grow this event and a loyal following (and we bit). They acquired this following (opening scaremonies acknowledged Killer Deal Night's last year by asking the crowd to cheer how many nights you have attended) just to diss them, cut off the hardcore people 100%. I understand capacity and other issues but they could add more non peak nights, raise the price, offer different variations. Uni Florida has multiple variations this year of the Frequent Fear Passes. They are really f'ing the fans buy taking away a multi night option, but still offering Front Of The Line. You can pay full price for the event to still have an up charge double your wait. Pure GREED, no love! They should have never set the prescience of a multi night ticket. So everyone can experience the event, no multi night passes = no Front Of The Line IMHO. So my question for the multi night people on here what is your game plan now and how does this affect you? At the end of the day we are all consumers and HHN is a product, they are making that clear.

[zombieman]

This announcement makes zero sense to me.

The Killer Deals pass turned several non-peak nights into sell out nights; it was never valid on peak nights - which were not always sell out nights, due to the existence of the Killer Deal pass....what's the problem with this?

If they seriously were concerned about denting gate sales, all they need to do is raise the price of the Killer Deal, or limit those sales. What if they doubled the KD price? Made it only pay for itself if a person attended three or more nights. Maybe it would drastically reduce the number of KD passes sold - problem solved. Maybe everyone would still pay for the KD and it would offset the revenue loss from gate sales - problem solved.

And I still don't understand the problem with having to turn people away from an exceedingly popular event - if I was going to do a general admission last year and missed out because the event was sold out, I would be pissed, but I would make doubly sure to buy an advance purchase ticket this year. So don't feed me a line that "we're reeeely doing this to benefit our customers."

Knott's used to sell out most nights of its run. Perception was it was the best game in town, and because perception is reality, people made sure they purchased their tickets waaaay ahead of time at Ticketmaster. This was before Al Gore invented the Internet... Nowadays, Burger King coupons litter the ticketing area at Knott's and they rarely have any sell out nights anymore. Well, guess what? Last year, HHN gave the perception that it was THE place to be - IF you could get a ticket. This is not a negative in the marketing world, folks, it's something you dream about.

Disneyland learned a long time ago that although locals don't spend as much as tourists in the park, AP holders are just as important in their own way. They raise the price of AP every year and still they have some mon-summer-non-holidays that are more crowded than summer days...and they're not losing a dime doing it. Could you even imagine what the response would be if DL dropped the AP?

They are not just screwing the hardcore fans with this idea. They are helping cash-strapped customers make easier decisions about how to spend their haunt money. With a low cost AP off the table, a large number of them will probably opt for Knott's, who universally (no pun intended) gives deeper discounts.

I had planned on going to HHN several nights, but now I will definitely hit it once and visit some of the other local haunts. God knows I don't want to keep any "paying customers" from attending...

I said it before: why the hell does a Californian have to fly 3,000 miles to attend a real haunt?

Edited August 24, 2011 by zombieman

[Creeper06]

This announcement makes zero sense to me.

The Killer Deals pass turned several non-peak nights into sell out nights; it was never valid on peak nights - which were not always sell out nights, due to the existence of the Killer Deal pass....what's the problem with this?

If they seriously were concerned about denting gate sales, all they need to do is raise the price of the Killer Deal, or limit those sales. What if they doubled the KD price? Made it only pay for itself if a person attended three or more nights. Maybe it would drastically reduce the number of KD passes sold - problem solved. Maybe everyone would still pay for the KD and it would offset the revenue loss from gate sales - problem solved.

And I still don't understand the problem with having to turn people away from an exceedingly popular event - if I was going to do a general admission last year and missed out because the event was sold out, I would be pissed, but I would make doubly sure to buy an advance purchase ticket this year. So don't feed me a line that "we're reeeely doing this to benefit our customers."

Knott's used to sell out most nights of its run. Perception was it was the best game in town, and because perception is reality, people made sure they purchased their tickets waaaay ahead of time at Ticketmaster. This was before Al Gore invented the Internet... Nowadays, Burger King coupons litter the ticketing area at Knott's and they rarely have any sell out nights anymore. Well, guess what? Last year, HHN gave the perception that it was THE place to be - IF you could get a ticket. This is not a negative in the marketing world, folks, it's something you dream about.

Disneyland learned a long time ago that although locals don't spend as much as tourists in the park, AP holders are just as important in their own way. They raise the price of AP every year and still they have some mon-summer-non-holidays that are more crowded than summer days...and they're not losing a dime doing it. Could you even imagine what the response would be if DL dropped the AP?

They are not just screwing the hardcore fans with this idea. They are helping cash-strapped customers make easier decisions about how to spend their haunt money. With a low cost AP off the table, a large number of them will probably opt for Knott's, who universally (no pun intended) gives deeper discounts.

I had planned on going to HHN several nights, but now I will definitely hit it once and visit some of the other local haunts. God knows I don't want to keep any "paying customers" from attending...

I said it before: why the hell does a Californian have to fly 3,000 miles to attend a real haunt?

AMEN BROTHER!!! Ditto on all points! *tips my hat*

Another great example of how Orlando does it right while Hollywood manages to fumble the ball.

[00nightcrawler]

Yeah, this blows. I think the best argument against this is that the pass was only good on off-peak nights, so it prevented minimal people from getting in. Also, they added more nights this year already to solve the problem.

[Creeper06]

Yeah, this blows. I think the best argument against this is that the pass was only good on off-peak nights, so it prevented minimal people from getting in. Also, they added more nights this year already to solve the problem.

Exactly! It's a no brainer. Make it valid only for non-peak nights or early in the season. You know, like they do in Orlando. Sigh...

[zombieman]

I've been giving this announcement a lot of thought, and I've come to the conclusion that this decision was not based on dollars, and not to the supposed benefit of customers. I believe the decision was made because the KD pass was a headache to administer. Understand, I totally disagree with the idea to eliminate it, rather than to tweak it, but I really believe this is the case.

We have heard for a long time that Hollywood and Orlando are run as essentially two separate business units. Neither is aware of what the other is doing and upper management is perfectly happy with this. As a result, neither coast is able to benefit from the lessons learned by the other. Those who follow Disney closely know that it's pretty much the same story with the Anaheim resort and Orlando resort. Hell, last year Hollywood sold an HHN hoodie. Orlando customers have been screaming for a hoodie for the past 15 years. The Hollywood hoodie is totally generic - it could be sold in Orlando with no modification. I called Universal corporate to tell them that they need to put the hoodie on the web store so people in Orlando can buy it. They said it was TOO HARD TO DO. So Hollywood boxed up the 2,000 hoodies they had left over and incinerated them. Can you say "stupid"? Bang your head against the wall stupid.

The ticketing at the Hollywood park is very disorganized, and confusing for the customer. The lack of thought is evident even as early as the HHN website itself. They have always insisted on bundling the FOTL with a general admission, not allowing you to purchase a FOTL add-on. Last year, we were given a link to a FOTL add-on page...mid-way through the event...via a single tweet. They never did add a link on the website that worked.

Because they linked FOTL to an admission, this was a common scenario: You could buy a non-peak FOTL that included admission on a non-peak night for $109. If you used the early bird code, you could buy the admission alone for only $39. Since the code does not apply to FOTL, that means the FOTL perk was a whopping $70. But people who purchased just the discount admission got to the park and saw they were selling the FOTL add-on for $29, which means the poor sucker who bought the FOTL on line wasted $41.

So people would line up and complain to Guest Relations that the website ripped them off.

Their handling of the KD was not much better. Processing is a pain in the butt compared to Orlando. As with general admission, the website never makes it clear whether FOTL can be an add on. Killer Deal customers can be turned away at the parking lot if the park is full, yet the website offers no real-time indication as to whether the park is at capacity. Everyone has a Smartphone, Universal...they'd really like to be informed while on the road, not when they get to the park. I was in GR one night trying to find out why Murdy didn't show up to a location as promised in a Tweet, and I heard person after person griping about the FOTL passes and how their friends with KD passes got turned away (after purchasing a FOTL add on in advance).

So understand that while the Facebook post talked about all the General Admission that got turned away, the reality is that many, many KD pass holders got turned away due to capacity. I was one of them, getting turned away on a Thursday at 8:30 pm. Had I been able to check the park status online, I would have not wasted my time and gas driving there. And I did complain to GR - not about the KD pass itself, but rather the lack of a way to check status.

GR gets inundated with complaints all day long. "The lines are too long". "The bathroom was a mess". "The locker at Mummy charged me". "Spiderman groped my sister." You name it, people will complain. HHN brings its own set of unique complaints, and I believe that between the FOTL and KD it is a migraine for the workers. And the workers filter the complaints to management.

I think that every year, management has a list of the same ticket items up for discussion. Notice that this year, they took forever to even announce the dates, let alone ticket info. I bet that they were debating changing or dropping either FOTL or KD and the debate was hot and heavy. With time running out, changing was tossed off the table, and a hasty decision was made to drop KD. Look, they STILL haven't officially released ticket info, yet for some completely random reason, they post a FB that they are dropping KD. Excuse me? Why the hell do you drop that bombshell in a FB post.....unless you are licking your finger and holding it up to the wind. And Murdy tweets tonight that he understands our pain, and even though it's not his call, he will make a plea on our behalf.

Given that the response is about as positive as the one Netflix got recently, I think there's a very good chance that the KD will show up this year. Maybe not initially, but I think that maybe even a week into the event, they will announce a pass good for Thursdays and Sundays.

[fresh2otown]

I've been giving this announcement a lot of thought, and I've come to the conclusion that this decision was not based on dollars, and not to the supposed benefit of customers. I believe the decision was made because the KD pass was a headache to administer. Understand, I totally disagree with the idea to eliminate it, rather than to tweak it, but I really believe this is the case.

We have heard for a long time that Hollywood and Orlando are run as essentially two separate business units. Neither is aware of what the other is doing and upper management is perfectly happy with this. As a result, neither coast is able to benefit from the lessons learned by the other. Those who follow Disney closely know that it's pretty much the same story with the Anaheim resort and Orlando resort. Hell, last year Hollywood sold an HHN hoodie. Orlando customers have been screaming for a hoodie for the past 15 years. The Hollywood hoodie is totally generic - it could be sold in Orlando with no modification. I called Universal corporate to tell them that they need to put the hoodie on the web store so people in Orlando can buy it. They said it was TOO HARD TO DO. So Hollywood boxed up the 2,000 hoodies they had left over and incinerated them. Can you say "stupid"? Bang your head against the wall stupid.

The ticketing at the Hollywood park is very disorganized, and confusing for the customer. The lack of thought is evident even as early as the HHN website itself. They have always insisted on bundling the FOTL with a general admission, not allowing you to purchase a FOTL add-on. Last year, we were given a link to a FOTL add-on page...mid-way through the event...via a single tweet. They never did add a link on the website that worked.

Because they linked FOTL to an admission, this was a common scenario: You could buy a non-peak FOTL that included admission on a non-peak night for $109. If you used the early bird code, you could buy the admission alone for only $39. Since the code does not apply to FOTL, that means the FOTL perk was a whopping $70. But people who purchased just the discount admission got to the park and saw they were selling the FOTL add-on for $29, which means the poor sucker who bought the FOTL on line wasted $41.

So people would line up and complain to Guest Relations that the website ripped them off.

Their handling of the KD was not much better. Processing is a pain in the butt compared to Orlando. As with general admission, the website never makes it clear whether FOTL can be an add on. Killer Deal customers can be turned away at the parking lot if the park is full, yet the website offers no real-time indication as to whether the park is at capacity. Everyone has a Smartphone, Universal...they'd really like to be informed while on the road, not when they get to the park. I was in GR one night trying to find out why Murdy didn't show up to a location as promised in a Tweet, and I heard person after person griping about the FOTL passes and how their friends with KD passes got turned away (after purchasing a FOTL add on in advance).

So understand that while the Facebook post talked about all the General Admission that got turned away, the reality is that many, many KD pass holders got turned away due to capacity. I was one of them, getting turned away on a Thursday at 8:30 pm. Had I been able to check the park status online, I would have not wasted my time and gas driving there. And I did complain to GR - not about the KD pass itself, but rather the lack of a way to check status.

GR gets inundated with complaints all day long. "The lines are too long". "The bathroom was a mess". "The locker at Mummy charged me". "Spiderman groped my sister." You name it, people will complain. HHN brings its own set of unique complaints, and I believe that between the FOTL and KD it is a migraine for the workers. And the workers filter the complaints to management.

I think that every year, management has a list of the same ticket items up for discussion. Notice that this year, they took forever to even announce the dates, let alone ticket info. I bet that they were debating changing or dropping either FOTL or KD and the debate was hot and heavy. With time running out, changing was tossed off the table, and a hasty decision was made to drop KD. Look, they STILL haven't officially released ticket info, yet for some completely random reason, they post a FB that they are dropping KD. Excuse me? Why the hell do you drop that bombshell in a FB post.....unless you are licking your finger and holding it up to the wind. And Murdy tweets tonight that he understands our pain, and even though it's not his call, he will make a plea on our behalf.

Given that the response is about as positive as the one Netflix got recently, I think there's a very good chance that the KD will show up this year. Maybe not initially, but I think that maybe even a week into the event, they will announce a pass good for Thursdays and Sundays.

I agree admin/ticketing always seems very unorganized and not well thought out. I still believe greed plays a huge factor in getting rid of a multi day ticket. Years past they felt they needed it to build the event and were happy receiving the ancillary income the pass generated. Now they feel they can have their cake and eat it too. As far as people being turned away last year with GA or KD tickets, once again to me that is GREED and unacceptable. If you have a park capacity of 23,000 and sold 5,000 KD tickets you should not sell more than 18,000 GA tickets. You have to assume all your multi night ticket holders could show up. I know I will be spending a lot less money, if any this year at HHN. Last year my one KD pass brought them over $1,500 in business (friends buying single night tickets, parking, food ,mech, FOL…) that they will be missing out on this year (without me organizing, spreading the word, etc. none of those people will attend this year). It really pisses me off for them wanting to be so fair and equal that if you purchase a GA single night ticket you are still second class to the FOL pass. I know they don’t care now, but I really hope as a community our voices will be heard and impact Universal's wallet. Damn, wishing I did not scrap my FL trip now 

[Creeper06]

Damn, wishing I did not scrap my FL trip now

Dude. Never, ever scrap a trip to Florida's HHN!!! It's always worth every penny

[Freak]

Great news guys! According to the FB page, they're consulting to work out a compromise. They said no promises, but if they do bring the FFP, I imagine it will probably be only a three night deal.

[LeeRay]

Freak beat me to the punch! I cant really have much of an opinion on this topic this year since i live in the sacramento area and can only go once (I should actually get to go twice this year!) a year. But I was planning on moving to LA next year or the year after and i was DEFFINITELY planning on buying this pass so i hope that they bring it back or atleast a form of it back, cause im going to want to buy it!

[zombieman]

Dude. Never, ever scrap a trip to Florida's HHN!!! It's always worth every penny

I second that.

Should I go to the county fair (HHN Hollywood), or the World Expo (HHN Orlando)? Hmmm....

[Creeper06]

I second that.

Should I go to the county fair (HHN Hollywood), or the World Expo (HHN Orlando)? Hmmm....

LOL. So very true...

[electro_killer]

I am very upset that there is no pass being offered (as of yet). But I also understand that at the end of the USH is a business, and devoted fans or not, they have to make money off this event. I just hope they will offer it still.