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Halloween Horror Nights 28 Speculation


Mark M.
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8 hours ago, Kichkinet said:

I feel like I’m one of a few that like the purge as a SZ. It really fits just right as one. Now as a house it sucks. I’m hoping we get the First Purge as an IP SZ this year!

That seems like a house.That scarezone last year was very good! 

 

But.. it’s time to do something original. 

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On 6/12/2018 at 11:59 AM, Kichkinet said:

I feel like I’m one of a few that like the purge as a SZ. It really fits just right as one. Now as a house it sucks. I’m hoping we get the First Purge as an IP SZ this year!

 

I don't see that happening.  New York is the only logical area for a Purge scarezone, and Vamp '85 is going there.  Anywhere else (except maybe Mel's area) and there wouldn't be room for cars - which seem like a necessary integral part of the Purge.

And how would a First Purge SZ really be that much different than what we have seen?  I mean, within the Purge canon, the Purge had become more elaborate and popular over the years.  So there would have been no auctions, no meat trucks, no Big Daddy.  I guess maybe the First Purge might have had an attempt at making it like a reality show/game show - film crews, etc, who themselves ultimately were purged.    

 

Any why exactly are we talking about the First Purge being a house or SZ?  I blinked and suddenly this is high speculation?  What happened?

If First Purge became a house, would that be the Blumhouse 2 house, or would that be in addition to a Blumhouse 2 house?

 

Legacy, save us from this nonsense!

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23 hours ago, Kichkinet said:

I feel like I’m one of a few that like the purge as a SZ. It really fits just right as one. Now as a house it sucks. I’m hoping we get the First Purge as an IP SZ this year!

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Purge last year, but I’d prefer for it to take a break for 5+ years please.

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I'm sick to death of the Purge.  It's been in numerous scarezones, in houses, and it has now become the new Walking Dead.. the thing that won't die.  While I thought Purge Election Year was the best of them, it's just too many damn movies (followed by too many damn HHN references) for it to be interesting or fresh.  I'm over it.  There is so much better material we could cover... not to mention, let's let A&D unload their minds on to HHN because that's the REAL good stuff.

 

No matter what, I'm as excited AF for this year.. bring it on!  Less than 93 days to go.

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The difference in this forum from 12 months ago is amazing.  The absolute dread and doom and gloom last year to this years palatable excitement is refreshing.   

I am hoping there is an icon announcement coming soon.  Next announcement will be on the 21st as I believe it was mentioned.   

And we are coming up on that 90 day mark where I can actually start thinking about my trip and we will start seeing more and more real construction in USF.   Im stoked!
The only thing is that my trip starts on 10/19 and by then my GF will have watched every damn youtube video produced for HHN28. 

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14 minutes ago, Ueeediot said:

The difference in this forum from 12 months ago is amazing.  The absolute dread and doom and gloom last year to this years palatable excitement is refreshing.   
 

I, for one, am incredibly hyped mainly on the promise of more original content houses.  I am hoping for 6, would be very happy for 5, and would be very disappointed with 4.

I would not normally have booked my trip by now, but the night and day difference in marketing has gotten me to do so.

Even the simple act of announcing an original so early rather than dumping them at the end is a message that they acknowledge that original content is important to the GP.

 

Hollywood, on the other hand....

I live 20 miles from HHN Hollywood and think I will pass on it, based on what I am hearing.  They have all but lost a customer in me.  Time for John Murdy to go.

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15 hours ago, zombieman said:

 

I would not normally have booked my trip by now, but the night and day difference in marketing has gotten me to do so.

Even the simple act of announcing an original so early rather than dumping them at the end is a message that they acknowledge that original content is important to the GP.

 

They are listening to us?  

I booked my stay on site back in Feb.  $150 down, completely refundable, and locked in to a room with a King bed for a week.  You cant get a King bed room at any of the big 3 for late October by now.   And this year, we are going the route of buying the lowest level annual pass.   It will activate when we hit the turnstyles on our first day and then next year we are going to try to book HHN one week earlier so we can actually get two full vacations (and possibly a short 3rd) on one pair of season passes.   

 

15 hours ago, zombieman said:

Hollywood, on the other hand....

I live 20 miles from HHN Hollywood and think I will pass on it, based on what I am hearing.  They have all but lost a customer in me.  Time for John Murdy to go.


So, you're a 3 hour drive or a 5 hour flight from either park? B)
I've only ever seen videos of the HHN Hollywood, but I would be pissed if I paid that money for that product.  Tent houses with no ceilings, all those black halls with no scares.....  Yeah, Ill stick to FL. 

Edited by Ueeediot
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11 minutes ago, zombieman said:

Hollywood, on the other hand....

I live 20 miles from HHN Hollywood and think I will pass on it, based on what I am hearing.  They have all but lost a customer in me.  Time for John Murdy to go.

 

Gosh, it sounds like you don't even appreciate the wonderful aesthetic a black hallway brings to the event. [/sarcasm]

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21 minutes ago, Ueeediot said:

 

So, your a 3 hour drive or a 5 hour flight from either park? B)

 

20 miles in L.A. = 3 hours.  I see what you did there!  :D  And you would be correct, sadly.

 

 

20 minutes ago, faceleg said:

Gosh, it sounds like you don't even appreciate the wonderful aesthetic a black hallway brings to the event. [/sarcasm]

 

I know, I know.  We don't appreciate the little things.

But in all seriousness - you know how much a can of flat black paint costs around August at my local Home Depot?  Trick question - it ain't available.  Murdy has cornered the market.

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1 hour ago, zombieman said:

I know, I know.  We don't appreciate the little things.

But in all seriousness - you know how much a can of flat black paint costs around August at my local Home Depot?  Trick question - it ain't available.  Murdy has cornered the market.

 

Seriously. I was watching a walkthrough of their Blumhouse to see how they did HDD, and I was like "oh, the people on here didn't exaggerate this black hallway thing did they?". I thought it was cool that the house had outdoor sections(?) tho.

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1 hour ago, faceleg said:

 

Seriously. I was watching a walkthrough of their Blumhouse to see how they did HDD, and I was like "oh, the people on here didn't exaggerate this black hallway thing did they?". I thought it was cool that the house had outdoor sections(?) tho.

 

All - yes, I know this belongs in the Hollywood section, but (a) that section is dead, because no one cares about HHN-H and (b) nothing else is going on at this moment and (c) you may actually find this bit of USH/HHN history interesting.

 

The outdoor section of Blumhouse has had quite a history.  It used to be the site of a stunt show stage, then was an open space ringed by facades into which they placed an HHN tent for a few seasons.  Most recently, they opened it up and it became the central hub of the upper level of the park - a large open space with ground fountains.  It's kinda sorta like the  Magic Kingdom hub except USH doesn't have distinctive "lands" around it.  Before it was a  hub it was just a bad choke point causing crowding.  It's used for Grinchmas and Chinese New Year (Kung Fu Panda).  They sometimes try to use it as a small concert stage; I don't think they have fully fleshed out the potential.  Most people use it for a short cut. 

 

So putting The Purge out there was a natural.  What was interesting was that rather than making it a standalone Scarezone with all that open space (like Orlando's New York), they made it a linear scarezone - an outdoor house as you suggest.  Super wide walkways, but maze like.  They also do this sort of thing in the backlot - a linear but winding scarezone "gauntlet" to get you to the backlot houses.  But let's go back to the upper lot.  Adjacent to the hub is the "Parisian Courtyard" which is a semi-outdoor area where people would normally sit and eat, or rest.  Think of it as a longer version of Sting Alley.  Way back in the early days of HHN, Chucky took up residence in a 2nd floor window, hurling insults at everyone passing by - and man, it was totally uncensored.  If they did that same thing today in the same way, Gloria Allred would amass a thousand clients in the first 5 minutes of the show - which is how long it would last before they shut it down.  It was way too mature for today's delicate college students.  If you search hard enough, you can find some VHS-camcorder quality recordings back from 1997-2000.

 

During HHN, they used the Parisian Courtyard (and continue to use it) for a house.  It is by far the worst venue for any house because there are some long narrow portions where they can literally only place black walls; they can do nothing else with those portions.  They can't even have scareactors there due to fire codes.  So you have a couple of rooms, long black hallway, a couple rooms, etc.  The only saving grace is that it has a really nice permanent movie theater facade.  For Blumhouse, they had the good foresight to use that to present a "Blumhouse Marathon", but the facade was also littered with graffiti because, after all, we were in the middle of the damn Purge.  So you had a half-inside/half-outside house with a super long Purge section.  Back to the room-hallway-room thing.  Since Happy Death Day is a slasher-film-meets-Groundhog-Day, it was basically a white dorm room --> black hallway --> exact same white dorm room --> black hallway --> exact same white dorm room, etc.  I kid you not.

 

Those black hallways are a cancer.  They spread to the Mummy overflow queue house for This is the End, and remained there ever since (Exorcist and Shining).  They simply did not have to be there; that venue is perfectly rectangular.  They were put there to save money and use a strobe light pop scare that Murdy has had a hard-on about for the past few years.  It's the same scare that Orlando used in Tomb of the Ancients (croc scare at the end).  He loves it so much, it shows up 4-6 times per house.  Black hallways are the new Black to Murdy.  They spread to Saw, Freddy vs Jason, Ash vs Evil Dead, Titans of Terror, and AHS: Roanoke.  There are more that I have thankfully forgotten.

 

So unfortunate, because Hollywood used to have a really good event.  It was almost as good as Orlando and then fell off the cliff around the time Murdy started spending more time in Ireland.  Meanwhile, every other haunt in a 50 mile radius has grown and evolved in leaps and bounds.  HHN Hollywood is running in place and truly becoming less relevant.  People say "but, but it sells out many days every year!"  True, but it has terrific local marketing (terrible web marketing) and its capacity is a tiny fraction of Orlando's HHN.  Selling out the event is not a huge feat.  So it's very profitable, and as long as it's selling out, it can coast.  Question they have yet to answer is: the event is being ravaged on social media (it ain't just me, guys).  How long do they think it will be until attendance catches up with that?

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I have seen a video of the Chucky show on YouTube. I honestly haven't really paid attention to Hollywood's event until recently with all the shared houses we keep having, probably around the time La Llorona moved over. I had no idea of all this. I've only been to that park once and I literally only got butterbeer and did the tram. 

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1 hour ago, faceleg said:

I have seen a video of the Chucky show on YouTube. I honestly haven't really paid attention to Hollywood's event until recently with all the shared houses we keep having, probably around the time La Llorona moved over. I had no idea of all this. I've only been to that park once and I literally only got butterbeer and did the tram. 

 

Ironic, as La Llorona was one of the houses that Hollywood did much better than Orlando.  It happens. Hollywood's was gritty and uncharacteristically hyper-detailed.  There's nothing like entering a large room and seeing two children face down in a river (I have twins).

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5 hours ago, zombieman said:

I, for one, am incredibly hyped mainly on the promise of more original content houses.  I am hoping for 6, would be very happy for 5, and would be very disappointed with 4.

I would not normally have booked my trip by now, but the night and day difference in marketing has gotten me to do so.

Even the simple act of announcing an original so early rather than dumping them at the end is a message that they acknowledge that original content is important to the GP.

 

Hollywood, on the other hand....

I live 20 miles from HHN Hollywood and think I will pass on it, based on what I am hearing.  They have all but lost a customer in me.  Time for John Murdy to go.

 

So for you HHN vets the original houses gets you more excited?  will be attending my first HHN in October and im most excited for the IP houses, but i have nothing to base it on outside of familiarity.

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Too me HHN Hollywood never looked interesting especially after seeing the videos from last year... wow what a down fall. 

 

Orlando to me has always had more to it(space, and creativity). And an overall change every year! That’s very smart as well.

 

Only plus Hollywood is IPs, but do you want an IP or the exact same IP over and over? Of course not!

 

orlando knows when to do the Freddys, Jasons, and Leatherface etc etc. And that’s not to overuse their welcome like what happened in Hollywood.

 

do an IP once or twice, just don’t do like The Purge, Walking Dead, or even People Under The Stairs.

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6 hours ago, rj macready said:

 

So for you HHN vets the original houses gets you more excited?  will be attending my first HHN in October and im most excited for the IP houses, but i have nothing to base it on outside of familiarity.

Welcome to the club! Last year was my first HHN and, like you, I was more excited for the IPs this time last year. I knew they did originals, but without anything to compare them to it’s difficult to get an idea of what they are going to be like. 

 

Having said that, it’s very different experiencing the event first hand. Whilst the IP houses are great, the issue I had was because you knew the story and the characters you already had a preconceived idea in your head of what to expect, and what the house would be like. Because of that, you may feel a little disappointed if something you thought would happen or be there ultimately doesn’t appear in the house. For example, the shining house last year got some (minor) criticism because some of the scenes in the house were in a different order to the scenes in the film. I love the Insidious films, but was left really disappointed with that section of the house last year as it wasn’t what I wanted it to be. 

 

Also, IPs can restrict the creativity of the houses. There’s certain scenes they need to do, certain beats need to be hit, so can stop the team really showcasing what they can do. 

 

This isn’t true for the originals. With these there’s more freedom to be creative and really go to town. Plus you have very little idea what to expect the first time through. For me, last year I went for the IPs but stayed for the originals. I remember the originals a lot more vividly than the IPs.  

 

In either case, they tend to put on an excellent show for both IPs and originals. I’m sure you’ll have a great time. You’ll have to let us know afterwards if you’re a convert to originals over IPs as well haha. 

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8 hours ago, rj macready said:

 

So for you HHN vets the original houses gets you more excited?  will be attending my first HHN in October and im most excited for the IP houses, but i have nothing to base it on outside of familiarity.

Makes perfect sense, after all, an IP (Back to the Future) is what got me interested in Universal in the first place. But trust me, you don't want to miss the originals!

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On 6/11/2018 at 11:43 PM, Midnight Detective said:

So have we come up with a conclusion to the Pickle Rick clue set? Is it connected to Schwartz pickles?

I’d be ok if it was a throwback to Meetz’ Meats since I missed 08/09. Could be Sam Meetz opening an all new delicatessen.

 

Also, I considered pickle to be a Shaun of the Dead/Cornetto trilogy mashup due to Shaun’s nickname being pickle. That connection seemed too simple though.

 

For he love of god give us a Killer Klowns house, my girlfriend has never done hhn and hates clowns.

 

Unfortunately, this is all wishful thinking for my first year since I moved back to the east coast.

10 hours ago, faceleg said:

I have seen a video of the Chucky show on YouTube. I honestly haven't really paid attention to Hollywood's event until recently with all the shared houses we keep having, probably around the time La Llorona moved over. I had no idea of all this. I've only been to that park once and I literally only got butterbeer and did the tram. 

But... it’s the 54th annual Chucky’s Terror Tram!

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15 hours ago, zombieman said:

I, for one, am incredibly hyped mainly on the promise of more original content houses.  I am hoping for 6, would be very happy for 5, and would be very disappointed with 4.

I would not normally have booked my trip by now, but the night and day difference in marketing has gotten me to do so.

Even the simple act of announcing an original so early rather than dumping them at the end is a message that they acknowledge that original content is important to the GP.

 

Hollywood, on the other hand....

I live 20 miles from HHN Hollywood and think I will pass on it, based on what I am hearing.  They have all but lost a customer in me.  Time for John Murdy to go.

 
I think they announced the terror tram would be  Original. 
  I doubt that any of Hollywood would have original houses.

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9 hours ago, rj macready said:

 

So for you HHN vets the original houses gets you more excited?  will be attending my first HHN in October and im most excited for the IP houses, but i have nothing to base it on outside of familiarity.

Yes. 

When there is a Texas Chainsaw Massacre/Nightmare on Elm Street/Halloween type house, I know exactly what I'll be in for.  Lots and lots of really awesome sound effects and slashers swinging at me.   When you walk around the corner of the curtain and see a gigantic riverboat facade and step inside you have no idea what's next.  IPs are awesome and lots of fun, but the originals is where the unknown happens.

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9 hours ago, rj macready said:

 

So for you HHN vets the original houses gets you more excited?  will be attending my first HHN in October and im most excited for the IP houses, but i have nothing to base it on outside of familiarity.

Welcome! My first HHN was in 2015, and I was excited for Freddy Vs Jason, and American Werewolf in London. I was completely caught off guard by how great the originals were. It did help that 25 Years of Monsters & Mayhem helped give me a crash course, and Body Collectors was breathtaking. Enjoy it, man!

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10 hours ago, rj macready said:

 

So for you HHN vets the original houses gets you more excited?  will be attending my first HHN in October and im most excited for the IP houses, but i have nothing to base it on outside of familiarity.

 

Absolutely! I've been going to HHN since 2003 and just as many others have stated, the originals have mystery and "the unknown" surrounding them. There's not a much better mix than that for a great house! While some IP's over the years have been favorites, there are far more originals that I've enjoyed. The IP's can be very hit or miss because if you're familiar with it, there won't be much that's unexpected. But with originals, it's amazing reading about the story lines that are created and then physically seeing this new idea come to life. There's nothing like it. Enjoy! :)

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14 hours ago, rj macready said:

 

So for you HHN vets the original houses gets you more excited?  will be attending my first HHN in October and im most excited for the IP houses, but i have nothing to base it on outside of familiarity.

 

Oh yeah!   This will be a TLDR, so if you don't like my stories, move on...

 

As I mentioned, I live in CA, and didn't even learn about Orlando's HHN until 2003. 

Even though the very first HHN was at Hollywood (believe it or not), Hollywood has had many years with no HHN.  1994-1996,  2001-2005.

In that drought from 2001-2005, I would always scan newspapers around September, hoping that I would find HHN returning.

One day  in 2003 I see this commercial on cable promoting HHN.  Something about a jester with fish hooks in his cheeks, spreading into a forced smile, and a creepy director inviting you.

So I immediately call Universal Hollywood and try to buy a ticket.  They have no idea what I'm talking about.  So I start scanning what passed as the Internet back then and discovered this was HHN in Orlando!  I must have been watching an east-coast feed on satellite TV.  Honestly, I had no idea there even was a Universal in Orlando at that time.  I went to their website and fell instantly in love.  At that time I didn't care if a house was IP or original - I mean, a Jason house?  Sure!  Sounds like fun.  At that time, local haunts often had Freddy or Jason featured (without paying any licensing rights, because back then the studios saw it as free advertising).

 

Sadly, I couldn't go to HHN 2003 because I had newborn twins.

But then came 2004.  I checked the Orlando site in July and saw what looked like boxes of files, and they were all locked, and there was this crazy guy in a straightjacket in a padded room....

Came back a week later, and one of the files was open.  It gave a sneak peek at one of the houses for HHN that year.  Had audio, letters, photos.  So interesting.  Every couple of weeks later I came back and another was revealed, teasing more.  This was AMAZING, as I'd never seen a haunt teased like that.  And more importantly, every house was brand new - was not there in 2003.  I was astounded, because EVERY haunt whether local or theme park introduces only a bit of new stuff every year.  They repeat haunted houses, milking as much as they can without affecting attendance.  100% new stuff every year was unheard of; it's just too expensive.  But here was this place, HHN Orlando, and the houses were totally unique.  I discovered The Vault around that time and was even more amazed to learn that HHN Orlando was known for presenting brand new stuff every year.  This was not a one-off that 2004 was totally new.  Miss a house and it's gone forever.  Simply unheard of in the haunt industry.

 

I made a point of going in 2004 and have not stopped since.  But it wasn't just Orlando's new lineup every year that brought me back.  These were not generic "clown houses" or "slaughterhouses" or "zombie houses".  These has well defined backstories.  The detail was incredible.,  Every character had a purpose.  These guys did houses better than anyone else.   There were many years where all of the houses were original, with maybe one house based on a movie.  Some of the original houses were clearly homages to IP properties (i.e Zombiegeddon was slightly based  on "Fido"), but with their own unique characters and story.

 

Then the IP started up in earnest, and while HHN Orlando still had loads of detail, it was honestly just painting a picture based on freeze frames from a movie.  We knew all the characters.  We knew what kill scenes to expect.  We were disappointed when our favorites were left out. We knew how we would be attacked.  We knew what we would see, hear, smell - the whole experience ahead of time.  To me, that was just not fun.  The designers were handcuffed.  They couldn't add a unique kill.  They couldn't create a character.  They couldn't place a character into a different scene unless it was in the movie.  They couldn't create a twist ending.  There were very few exceptions to this (Freddy vs Jason allowed them to have two different endings, Cabin in the Woods allowed them to invent some characters, etc).

 

So for someone who had never seen the full creativity of an original house, something like Scarecrow: the Reaping would just be a house with scarecrows.  How scary is that, and why would you go out of your way to visit HHN for the first time over something else?  But, hey, they have AHS, and that was one scary TV show!  So people go there for AHS or some other IP, but they leave remembering that scary-ass scarecrow house.  Or that house with the huge paddle boat at the start.  And AHS was maybe OK for them, but would have been better if it included that character they really liked from Coven.  I can't tell you how many people talked about Scarecrow in every line I was in last year.  My point is that IP can pretty much only set you up for disappointment, because unless it has absolutely everything, something will be missing.  An original is a blank canvas.  You have a vague idea of the theme, but have no idea what you will experience.  THAT has nothing but potential.  Biggest complaint about Dark Waters that was heard everywhere?  It was too short.  That "complaint" is a pure compliment if you were designing that house.  People wanted more of it.  As a designer you should be so lucky to hear that complaint.

 

The vets around here love to see A&D doing what they love, and they love doing original content.  It clearly shows.  And the people clearly love it.  I mean, some original characters have become so beloved that they become franchises themselves.  Just look at the Body Collectors, Psychoscareapy, and Screamhouse.  They've been back multiple times as houses and/or scarezones, each time telling another piece of their story.  I still don't understand what's up with Body Collectors, because it's canon created by A&D, yet the makeup is 100% from a group of baddies that appeared on Buffy the Vampire Slayer for one episode ("Hush").  So, are those characters IP?  Does Universal have to pay someone for the rights to use those masks?  Was the original intent to have a Buffy IP house in 2005, and it morphed into Body Collectors?  I'd love to know the story behind that, if anyone knows....

 

I totally see why new people would come for the IP, and maybe even still want a lot of IP a few years later.  But I have to believe those originals must totally take them by surprise and grow on them.  I think there are only a few people around here who would prefer IP over originals. 

 

And they are weird, so I shun them :D

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21 minutes ago, zombieman said:

I totally see why new people would come for the IP, and maybe even still want a lot of IP a few years later.  But I have to believe those originals must totally take them by surprise and grow on them.  I think there are only a few people around here who would prefer IP over originals. 

This was my wife and I exactly.

 

It was the IPs that drew us in initially, but once we saw that the originals actually had a ton of thought and creativity behind them, we were absolutely hooked. Now I'm a total slave for the event, and it probably eats up way too much of my attention throughout the year.

 

That being said, I think it's very important to get at least a few big IP draws every year. We as fans need to keep getting new blood in. The bigger the general public draws get; the more focus gets put on the event; the bigger the budgets become; the better the event gets.

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