Universal Horror Unleashed: Can Year-Round Scares Survive in Vegas

0:08 Universal is launching year round horror in Las Vegas with Horror Unleashed, a one hundred thousand square foot attraction opening August fourteenth at Area fifteen. But can Universal seasonal HHN formula work in a permanent haunted space that is coming up? Welcome to the show. I'm Philip and on the Hot Attraction Network. We bring you the news and information you need to prepare for Halloween. This show is just one small part of what we do. Our best coverage is in our free weekly email newsletter, so check for the link to that in our show notes. Today. Universal's Horror Unleashed is its first ever permanent horror attraction, promising four hundred houses, themed bars, and immersive horror experiences in the heart of Las Vegas. Unlike Halloween Horror Night, so this venue will run year round with the rotating selection of IP driven haunts and a focus on ever breaking the immersion.

1:01 On March twelfth, during the Tha Stories from the Fringes series, the Universal creative panel shared insights into how they're designing or Unleashed to keep guests coming back every season. This episode features an edited recording of the panel discussion. I mostly just took out their ums and pauses and focusing on their design philosophy challenges and what makes this project different from JGEN. The full description is in the show notes. Are you ready? Here we go in three two one. Horror Unleashed is a ten thousand square foot warehouse rising as we speak out of the Nevada Desert that is going to be home to four immersive walk bars, themed eateies, themed retail all under one roof. This is leveraging our very successful Halloween Horror Night's content for a new year round activation and tickets are in fact on sale now.

1:57 This is also one of our first new ventures for US. New Ventures is an exciting new part of our business that you might have heard of. Our universalis part also happening right now in Prisco, Texas. And so as we are covering the light, so too we must cover the dark. But let's fee a little gloose into what's going on in Las Vegas. Bringing the part of life for Universal is very meaningful because Universal's branded the Auto. Universal Correlation is a brand new immersive experience.

2:38 This is a test of courage. This is a place you want to go your friend to show them that you are strong enough to place your fears and. Lived at tea that the corect Warehouse in Las Vegas. Ancient artifacts have been brought. In and collected and their cursed energy has been contained within this warehouse. It is going to provide four amazing immersive quantit houses. They put you right in the middle of iconic and terrifying scenes. We're also going to have really unique cutting edge entertainment retail dining experiences. When fans walk through the front door of Universal Horror on leash fulaspheas, they're going to enter a newgal NiFe anything they've ever seen before.

3:23 It's going to be exactly what you wanted to be as a fan of horror, or even as a catitu or fan of horror, or just looking to have a good time out in Vegas. This really is the place where horror comes to lest year round. When you step foot inside this building, you're going to have the most immersive, most horrifying experience in your entire life. Okay, great, We've got some new faces and some familiar on so I'm going to welcome to the stage Abby Finnett, Corey Shirt and Sean Shirp. Well, all right, so for everybody who sat through my very long intro earlier today.

4:19 You know that a Universal creative our titles tend to have a lot of commas, so rather than possibly butcher them, can just go down the line very quickly. What your role is at Universal? Hi, I'm happy, Bannan. I am the show predacer for Great High Hollywood. I'm the show preducers specifically for seventy four on. Yeah, I'm Corey Sure, I'm architect and a senior design manager. Excellent. All right, So I am again perhaps too close to this so as moderating this, it feels like quite a family reunion for us. I'm just excited. I'm also very curious. I worked on the front end of this project, so I'm also dying of like, what does it look like today? What's going on now? So let's talk a little bit about the decision to make a horror destination.

5:05 What do you guys think maybe going down the line makes horror so evocative and such a great potential year round destination. It's the excitement of it. You know, you don't know what you're going to get. I think people like to enjoy beings here but in a safe environment. Hence the parks and roller coasters, and this is just a much more extreme version of death corns makes perved sense, do you think? I think I have this theory that haunted houses are the original immersive experience. Right. Let you talk about any theatrical experience. The whole goal is to get the guests and audience to connect emotionally.

5:49 If you're watching a movie, you want to cry, you want to feel joy, you. Want to feel sadness. But when you're talking. About four, you want them to feel afraid, and that fear feels good and people like being afraid, and I think that's what makes horror that immersive theatrical experience, and that's what makes it possible year round because fear is not seasonal. There's something that we can experience three hundred and sixty five days. Year and then, just to build on what Sean said, the storytelling and the suspense for me is really key and being able to capture that and one footprint year round is really exciting, especially for a pretty universal as there mm hmmm.

6:35 So as we early on, we were kind of looking at the early design principles and I think I definitely carried through the things we sort of landed on were spectacled world class spectacle, spectacle being one of our pillars social scare, and how fun and delicious it is to sort of the social barriers break down if you're kind of like somehow running and grabbing a stranger and like gott to get out of here, and that's very powerful. And then the third thing being variety and making sure that we can keep this very fresh and as of the moment and new as hallween Hornites feels every single year, with new houses every year. Sean, maybe you can talk a little bit about going from our very successful Halloween Hornites into this new universal Horror unleashed. What are the considerations.

7:20 I mean, Halloween Hornites, as we all know, is just insane successful, right, and it builds upon an insanely successful industry of haunts that is just across the entire nation. You go to any major city in the US and some major cities overseas now and haunts are a stable. But there is a piece that's kind of missing, right, Like even at Halloween Horrnites, you're walking into Universal Studios roller coasters, maybe Hogsmeaves is in the background. It gets even worse when you're at a local high I don't know if you guys have never been to a local hank, But you spend time standing on the sidewalk in the cold, like in.

8:06 The middle of the night. You get long, you walk through a mall in order to get to where you're going. You want a place to hang out afterwards, but you get kicked out and you're just in the parking lot with your friend. Well that was kind of fun. You got a drink and talk about this. No, you can't get in your car and go to separate park. There's this dream I think that all. People in the hot industry have had, including us in Universal and the creative director TJ. Mattorino. I don't know if you guys know TJA. He was in that clip. He was a home haunter forty five years ago. He's been doing this forever. And that dream is being brought to life here. And the idea is really simple, never break the immersion.

8:52 What happens when. You walk into this space. From the moment you walk into the moment you walk out, you are completely immersed in that world before one overarching storyline that connects all of the houses as well as the space in between, interactive characters that bring out storylines that you would never get when you're just trying to wander through. The streets of Universal or going through a parking lot and Mike, what happens when you take all of that and you give guests a place to go before and after, because that's part of the scare, right, the best part of the scare is that suspense.

9:32 Let's do that. Let's hang out right before we go into the house and talk about it. Let's go into the house, let's get terrified, and then when you leave, have that moment of Catharsis where you. Can hang out with your friends and God. Wasn't that amazing when Jack jumped out at me or when this thing fell or this huge crack happened, and that experience together afterwards is that recap solidifies that memory. It makes it special. You get to do that. Over and over ere a leash. Every time you leave the house. You get to recap. Every time you leave the house, you get to. Think about the next one that's coming up. And that's what makes it special. This one continuous immersive experience.

10:13 I think it's it's the dream coming in life. Okay, I know all about this, and I still I got mus Bumpsy, something are gone. He's so passionate about this, you can't tell he's really what a team, So may transition a little bit. So, Corey, I have so many I just adored working with Corey on the early part that I have such a vivid memory. We have like a core and shell that was sort of defined, and we were really trying to like, how you fit this, how do we do this? How you do this? And just to speak to the discipline of facility design and also the brilliance of you, Corey, you have like a lightning bolt thought that sort of I think became sort of the heart of this attraction and how these things fit together. So again, just your biggest fan. As we are looking at this, you know, a lot of this was business as normal for us.

10:59 We're building in traction somewhere, and at the same time, a lot of this was completely new. We're in a new venture. This is a new space, a lot of unknowns. So how is this similar to our day job designing rollercoasters, and how is it different? Yeah? Yeah, I think in the case. Of Las Vegas, right, we're now in a new. Footprint for us, leaving our Orlando or our Hollywood kind of home bases and engaging in a new new. Location, Las Vegas. In this case, of course, we're looking to our partnership we land with Area fifteen. If you haven't been known, I'm sure, but you have exceptional partner for us. They really share that commercive kind of culture and environment that really will elevate our experience as much as offer that kind of balance for us and being a partnership with them and making sure that that it's held both of our kind of brand standards that way.

11:42 So exceptional partnership for us there. But they did give us a box, so that is the. Thing, right. But one of the things that we had in working through the program was trying to be able to make sure that the architecture inside of it or the design orientation of that really kind of carried through some of those storylines that Sean and the team had kind of brought and are pushing to kind of bring to bets. That's the table there. But of course we have new jurisdictions building officials that are looking at us and saying like, what the hell are you here? Is the word maze that throws everybody off the charts, right, Like excidd we landed towards some other words that maybe we're more amenable to our building official partners, and even with our design partners, we found that a lot of them had never even been to following more nights, So we're starting from square zero with them, and it's like, let me talk about this day's we're also gonna call it a house.

12:31 We're gonna tell you about. How you're gonna exit it safely, We're gonna tell you about how all these things happen, and really building on some of our entertainment archives with decades of legacy conk ponts that we can share photos of, but also from just various postings that we found from the number of our fans and may be able to kind of introduce them to the concept and. Being able to share that and get build that trust and relationship. Also evolving from this time temporary isolation to a permanent one. How does that transition happen and what are the key things that we need we need to to. Kind of focus on to pull it all together at the end. But really on this case of course, leaving Hollywood, leaving Orlando, it's that relationship with these new partners that was really important to being able to deliver the success. Being transparent really exceptionally over communicating all the things and being able to share with them and the passion and the stories that we are so excited to bring to old Space.

13:23 That was awesome. So you know, the facility is a slice obviously show similarly having to find that duality between the twenty year plus build, rigorous GPS and OPS we tend to apply to things. How is it the same? How is it different on the shows? Sign Yes, that's quite different. It has been of the learning curve. I think for a lot of us. I primarily do the. Attractions in Hollywood, but working with our entertainment partners in Florida all is wonderful. We do take so fundamentally different. Our codes are different, different GPS is different. So it's really try and figure out how to speak that same language, what's first and format? Most they generally run a little bit more fivetitu of your pants.

14:07 We generally want more money. Our show out of it was to be very particular. So there was definitely that quite a bit of a learning curve. That we could try to meet in a middle round to get the types of drawings models that are vendors could build off of, and having you know as quite much in that communication. Was incredibly, incredibly important. And in my situation, after about a year, I handed it over to Sean and now it's been his problem to figure it out. So I will let Sean take it from Lyre. I mean, I think it's exactly as Abdi said. There is that transition, there's growing paints, so to speak. But it is important to recognize that these haunts, these mazes, these stories, in these worlds, they get.

14:54 An energy from that organic character. That is born out of that's guess right, like it So much of it is about finding stuff that you thrift off the streets and things like that. It is, but then making those things safe gets in our space. And the huge. I think kurdle that was harder to communicate than others is that there's just so much in each one of these haunted houses, right. Even though the footprints are I mean, we have this massive coaster going, I feel, massive foot price, it's so complicated all that, but we have over forty individual rooms and sets that we have to figure out that are each different, that are each unique, with their own sets, with their own profts, and that I.

15:47 Think is what makes this such an interesting and mandatory collaborative process. Right, it's organic, it's gotta last forever, it's got to be same for guests. But also it's got field, dangerous, scary at ease satter. That's someone else mentioned generally in Tempe great experiences. Gas b breaks things, they can fix it pretty easily. It's harder, especially being in Las Vegas rather than in one of our own bases where we have our tech services teams, you know, the team who built it there there. In this case, it was also trying to find ways cheek account for that make it a little bit more difficult to damage or hurt yourself on or anything like that, because we don't have that quit overnight. Okay, someone will be in at four o'clock in the morning.

16:30 To you know, put you know, reattach or something like that. So we had to absolutely figure. Some of that out. Oh well, and even the ambition to be open. You're at even our own what is it Monday? Tuesdays tend not to be at theologies, So how interesting. Okay, So knowing our audience and knowing the great group we have here both universal kids and of course this has opened up sort of a new vendor opportunity, So we're able to look at maybe vendors we haven't normally in the past asked or or niche and really look at vendors more geographically located to help us navigate some of these challenges of going into new markets. What would you guys say, as words of advice or maybe to describe the perfect new veture's vender, what qualities would you look for.

17:15 Being able to pivot very quickly and very easily and not get a very vacant. That's fair, yeah, yeah, And on the side we you know, saying kind of leading into what Abbey says that being able to kind of pivot but be able to pace with us. Right, we're gonna lead a certain cadence that is unprecedented. Right, We're leading into our history of universal but also launching a whole new concept. So it's a lot of a lot of moving target, it's a lot of learning hers a lot of movie targets, and being able to kind of stay paced with us, allow us to kind of lean into us to kind of help you, but also bring your expertise and be able to be nimble and quick and creative kind of problem solversas.

18:01 Yeah, I mean, I guess I would say that you're not gonna survive unless you're also just. As passionate as we are. Let's not for the fan of heart than this whole New Ventures thing is scary. It's moving fast, and it's often changing. We don't have the rules yields around the parameters that we do generally, which has been frustrated more changing there we go, we would say, more frustrating for our typical vendors. Actually it's they're used to having specific guidelines and with you know, this being a fully new experience, we're kind of figuring out as we go. So maybe just a show hands and this will illuminate the vendor pool who here feels like they've been personally victimized by the universal DS. Actually all right, but so we as person Ventures have been able to effectively author a brand new GPS. So that is how foundationally different we're approaching these opportunities and how we want our vendors to show up as well. For us, this is about being competitive, and we're moving into competitive spaces and some of the baggage we've perhaps rightfully inherited over those several decades can't come into these new ventures with us. And then another point we have brought up and thinking about versatility, the versatility of vendors. Yes, Corey, you mentioned in the Truth so most of your vendors, if not our first time when we when we were coroaching the.

19:20 Kind of Las Vegas, we really needed somebody who knew knew the fabric of the community and could be able to bring that to the table and offer us kind of that extension of ourselves into into that that realm. And that is proving really valuable to us here. Sure awesome for all those in the room. What does UPS stand for? Well, it's a dirty word, I think, Oh now I actually I just got there, and then I would have been embarrassed, super and will call me thank you again. It sort of you know, when you get a contract universally, you also get like a tome slams down your front door. That is our specks all right. The time is ticking, and in fact it is nearly upon us. Tickets are on sale now the first and I would I made myself a book and I'll be there first weekend too, knowing that we're not fully announced, but with the privilege of this awesome group. What are you most looking forward to or what do you think is I to surprise people on August fourteenth.

20:17 So I'm a little bit of a chicken with this kind of stuff. So I do like that, like if I need a break, I can go with Chilla, one of Fur's friends, can go do their own thing. But we are still having this experience together. Seaga and I've been friends for many, many years, and he's definitely seen me to be like, I'm going to Klaria now all the time. So I like that. It's still we're still in the same place where I'm having to split up to go and do our own things. And I get I think that the show is really gonna survise some people, and for the first show is really I'm looking forward to saving for them. So big, just to say, so that's the entertainment that's in addition to the mazes. Yes, excellent, all right.

20:58 I mean obviously everything I've said and everything that you saw on trailer, but honestly, the thing that is most exciting for me is knowing that when those doors open, that's day one, right, It's not going to look the same a year from that point on, because yes, we are all experts. Yes, we know what we're doing. Thirty years upon experience, et cetera, et cetera, doesn't matter. Universal or Unleashed is a completely new product. It's not out there anywhere else, and nobody knows exactly how it's gonna work.

21:44 That to me is so exciting because it's. Going to grow. We're gonna nurture it, and when we do that, we're gonna need passionate partners to come on that journey with us. We're gonna need people who want to learn and grow and transform this into what it's eventually. Going to be. So that's what excites me is watching it. You've taped into one of my things, which is like, I think we can all picture what this might look like September, October. It gets a little bit fuzzier thinking what this looks like at Christmas, on Valentin's Day, Mother's Day, And I think that's super exciting. Yeah, I'm gonna Anita to a little bit of what I Abas said.

22:32 For me, I've been a passionate, passionate about, passionate about for for many years and being able to tie this together in a full on project is really exciting. But I do recognize there are several people that don't engage with this kind of genre on a regular basis. And what I think is really important about. Being in Las Vegas we get to kind of touch our toe into it just a little bit. You're saying like, I'm gonna go with you, and I'm going to get this little bit of universal experience. And that's just this little side thing that that I went seen from Las Vegas. I didn't have to go to Hollywood to spend a lot of money or Orlando to spend a lot onney, but I can get that experience at my own pace, right, And I think that's really important and being able to introduce a genre to people that maybe didn't think that it was going to be something that they're going to enjoy.

23:14 But at the end, you know, you continue to challenge yourself visit after visit, and you're gonna feel that same sense of passion and exploratory suspense that everyone. Else in the end has learned to. I'm coming love, I'm really great. That's so awesome. Oh my gosh, you guys, it's fantastic. Again, it's been I feel so grateful that I got to be involved. But now I just get to be a fan and sit in all of you guys, grateful that you're here, Grateful that you're able to be a part of this. I think we probably have time to you from a one or two. I'm going to say two questions. Oh boy, Cory, you spoke about engaging with the fabric of the community of Las Vegas. I was curious to the entire team, what did you learn about the Las Vegas audience and how did you need to adjust your thinking with intellectual properties that have been historically successful on both coasts.

24:03 See how to say this in a certain way. Vegas is America's playground. You know, you have to keep that in mind. This is a little bit more of an adult community, you know, visit tourist wise that what we typically get at our team parks. So we were able to i. Think push some boundaries a little bit more than we can standard late, so that that I think has been funded without has also of course, got to keep in mind, you know, there are certain rules that we're not trying. To push anyone away. But you know, sex sells, there's you know, lots of things to see. So it's also like, you know, keeping in mind we have to pull.

24:50 People away from a strip. How are we going to do that? Why are we getting to utilize. And we were luckily lucky to be able to use Universal war Everybody classic universal wear, So. I think that, Yeah, it's just kind of been interesting and it's a little different for standard Vjet. Yeah, I want to echo a little bit. And again going back to the sort of leading ideas at the time was like Vegas is ephemeral. Vegas change is like crazy, and I think when things make big, sort of like permanent steps in Vegas, it can be a feast or famine. It's a very you know, it's a boomtown. So making sure we're sort's built to be dynamic, and that's where that sort of seasonality and other things come in the world class spectacle. You know, we're not competing with other theme parts right now, we're competing with circusile, we're competing with other types of entertainment. So I can maintain that spectacle was import to us. And then again, we have now thirty ish years of really cool IQ relationships and I think we actually had an embarrassment of riches where many of our partners wanted to be a part of this and we had to be selective, but I think that just speaks to the future and all the fun activations we can do to bring in those brands. Yeah, okay, well well I'm just going to go until Eric comes up and then Pill holds the mic. Sean, that's up.

25:58 Good question. First, can spend part of the genre Since houses number one in Orlando and being in guests of walking through what would be the one new experience as a guest, I'm going to take away that I've experienced thirty plus years of houses in Orlando? What do you think this is gonna bring these a guest as a takeaway? No, there was whispering I do. This is not a shill. This is I'm gonna I don't want to say gotcha, this is they redacted. There are some grateful stuff and this cool video you guys saw here. I have the privilege of knowing there's four or five more of these on the way, probably in short order as well. What would you say, I can use words the.

26:39 Emotional emotional yea, yeah, yeah. There are interactive moments within the experience that will take the storyline and the guest immersion up beyond what you would normally experience. At HHN and we are given the opportunities because we have a more intimate space to work with and a more controlled guests flow. Up. The idea of you man will be matter. We share that design philosophy. Do you shars make any design choices kind of purposely for social media? We kept it in mind.

27:25 We definitely kept it in mind, you know, with the scenery and the central exploration and exploration in particular is different than you know, being in the park, right, so we have to make sure that every part of that was. You want to take pictures, you want to share those with your friends, you want to have a good experience to. Live in that space. So I would say that entire space is designed to emerge social media share and interaction and it's what connects the housing. Theoretically, it'll be a smaller audience per evening than typical hh so you can have these great moments, take these photos with your friends. You know, Like I said, I know a lot of times when I do get dragted to know. One of these my Friendsman had a laughing at the end because you're like, you got so scared, but you know, like and you're able to still have that moment still in this environment without being like forced through like you are.

28:16 Did I just hear hot take no congo lines? M h. There is a fluctuating flow depending on capacity, but because of the year round aspect, there will be the opportunity to experience a conga line free experience at Universal that. You ever hear okay to keep Eric okay, if we're gonna go right here, and then we'd go in the back and then that's it, okay, yes, right, So. I feel like there's this theme with lv s where the first couple of years they pop off, they go wild, you know, you can't in tickets, and then it dips and then they don't know how to keep sell like tickets. So how are you guys designing this so that there is longevity and repeat visitors.

29:04 A little bit, but it's everything we've been talking about in terms of the IP selection for. The foremost, the immersion. Of the story, the fact that we will have interactive elements that go above and beyond what you would normally experience at Halloween Hornet, and. It will change as the years go on. I mean, I don't want to say too much, right, yeah, we're not naive to it either and then shall we even touched on it? Right? Like that February part is really important to us, and we're going to make that just as important to our visitors as much as our divine challenge. You tell me, I can say that enough.

29:46 Through Corey's amazing work and along a lot of partnership, we are building the facility of the individual a. Mazons are kind of ma areas are more like black boxes, so that we can continuously change our rip as needed, you know, seasonally. Like mentioned, I think, you know, it's funny, interesting. Ip ideas for different holidays, so we could do so, you know, even overlays in the central Yaravia. There's been different talks about festival like romance, changing out shows. You know, there is a lot of diit and gamut ness to this building. Like you said, it was kind of just a shell, and then we built some really big rooms and you know else would put houses inside of them similar to it. So there's still some of the element of how HHN is built. You take a sound stage, build, you know, build the house in there.

30:39 We're keeping the mentality in mind, but just a little bit longer than six weeks. We've also shout out to our wild optimist friends where we're still some ideas. For part of it is like, yeah, we want to have interactive content that goes beyond what you would experience just in amazeings. That's also part o. Thank you so much. And I think the other like last thing, I'm goouna say we invite them. They can come, but our operations partner that you know, Vegas is going to keep them on their toes partner, they're us, it's universal, but they are going to really really keep their pulse on the finger, you know, or whatever, and get us, get us to make sure that we don't go stale and are always moving. Our gm is actually have a background in casinos and the shows and everything like that, so I think cool.

31:24 She will be a fantastic resource to keep everything fresh. Yep, Kim Scott, we love her all right. That's what it has a future guest who would truly seek safe fiber in the bar. Yes, other areas are those going to be activating scar zones. We are keeping in mind with Martini. If you walk around with Martini, you don't want somebody. Don't want to wear a Martine, but you know you're just paid twenty two dollars for a Martine. You don't want to spill it. So there there's some of that being kept in minds. And there's bars that you will get scared, and there's bars where you won't get there. I don't know how well we labeled them, Maura guys, So thank you again, so lustly for bringing us.

32:15 Today's episode was edited by me Philipernandez, with post production by David Swape and original music composed by Chris Thomas. Support for today's episode comes from Gantum Lightning and Controls. Gantum illuminates attractions worldwide with the world's smallest intelligent spotlights. From Dark hourg to Other World, Super Mario Land to Hagrid's Bike. Gantum goes where other fixtures can't see what you're missing. With a free demo, sign up at gantum dot com slash demo. That's scantum dot com slash demo. The h A N Team includes Daryl Plunky, Emily Luis Rua, Megan Spells, Gavin Burns and Omniadventures. Until next Time, Stay Scary.

32:56 This is a Haunted Attraction Network