Fortnite, Art the Clown come to Halloween Horror Nights

Thank you so much for sticking around with us streaming. Hi there! We have Theron. He is our theme park expert. We were just talking about all the amazing and fun things we could do this weekend, but you have information, the latest details, on Halloween Horror Night. Fill us in. Yeah, so there is a lot that is coming to Halloween Horror Nights, and honestly I've been Fox 35 for a couple years now, and I feel like every year we say they're getting even bigger, they're doing even more, and yet again I get to say that. We're going to have scare zones, we're going to have haunted houses, we're going to have shows, but they've even announced that we're going to have these roaming characters that are going to be going around, and they're bringing back some fan favorites like Jack the Clown, Art the Clown. There's going to be a lot of clowns, I'm going to be honest. So there's going to be some haunted houses that we have here. That's the Evil Dead Burn. That one was just announced this past weekend. The thing that announced this morning, just a few minutes ago, was the downtown Clown Town, and in that area it's going to be in the New York section, so we're going to have guests that are going to be swarmed by clowns. Of our two icons this year, one of them is going to be a returning favorite. It is Jack the Clown, and he is helping invade the largest scare zone in the entire park, and we're going to have clowns not just for Killer Clown from Outer Space, not just from Art the Clown, but Universal said there's going to be some new and scary creatures that are walking around as well. And what might be the most surprising news, it was a rumor, but something we were really surprised to see is that Fortnite is on its way as well with the Fortnitemares. This is a fan favorite video game. They do something for Halloween every single year, and the fact that that is going to be in the lands, I think people are absolutely going to love this. Oh, absolutely. I have a nephew who's going to be like, hey, I need to come to this. So you talked about the clowns. I'm not a clown girl. I try to be a spooky girl, but is there an option? I know this is brand new, but is there an option for people like me that don't want to be like super scared? Well, one of the best parts about Halloween Horror Nights in recent years is they have been going from only scary in certain areas, so they kind of have what we call like a vibe, a Halloween Horror Night vibe. You walk into the fog and you get to enjoy it. That's why there's going to be certain areas. There's one like Club Horror, and it's really not a scary area. It's a spot where they're going to play club music. They sell some drinks. You can go and dance with some of the characters, and people love that. I will say if you don't love clowns, this might be a bit of an intense year because Jack the Clown is one of the icons, and anytime he's there, they fill the area with clowns. So you might be able to find some areas that you can go through and get around, but we'll have to see. One of the things they've done in the past are kind of these like scare necklaces. It's something you can wear that blinks and lights up and make sure that the characters in certain scare zones don't get you. They haven't confirmed it yet for this year, but I'm pretty sure it's going to come back as it's been something that was pretty popular with guests in the past. So you might be able to get that, but those do not work inside the haunted houses. So if you go to a haunted house and there's a clown, they're probably going to go right for you. I'm signing myself up to get scared, aren't I? You said you can wear a necklace that says, hey, I don't like to be scared. Listen, I totally, I would. I really would. But okay, so these new additions, they've got people. I mean, we've been checking our social medias. People are very excited about this. Dive in a little bit deeper about what they can expect this year that is completely different from last year. Well, the one thing I'll jump back to then is going to be Fortnite, as that is something that was rumored. It's something that we didn't know if it was going to happen, and I'm still honestly a little confused how it'll work exactly in the park. If you ever played Fortnite, it is going to be a first person shooter game, and so obviously we're not going to have all of those aspects and the gamification inside of the area, but we've been seeing a lot of fans that have been set up inside of the Central Park area. Fortnite is known for what's called the storm. It's what kind of pushes all of the players in the game closer and closer and closer until the end of each match, and so because of that, I have a feeling that they're going to try and recreate this storm. It's like a big purple evil-looking cloud, and so if they can have enough fog and enough fans, they might be able to emulate that. Another iconic part of that is going to be the battle boss, and they said that that prop will be there, and it's very cool to see that Fortnite, the creators of that Epic Games, are working with Halloween Horror Nights to bring in some of the characters from their game, but they're also working with Universal to design all new characters, and I'm hoping that that means that those characters are also going to show up inside of the video game when Halloween Horror Nights debuts. So that's a scare zone with all new characters and all new stuff, and I think that's going to be really cool and think something that fans, not just of Halloween Horror Nights, but of video games, are going to love seeing because we're getting a lot more video games now inside of our park, like with Super Nintendo World and Epic Universe. Yeah, yeah. It'll be so nice to know when you're playing Fortnite that there's a little nugget of Florida in there, right? Potentially. Exactly. Okay. Yes, I have a feeling a lot of those characters are going to be, they're going to have to go and buy their character. I mean, how cool is it that you can, you know, portray a character here inside of our Florida parks and then go on a video game and still play your character? Well, they're, they need to make one for you. That would be pretty cool if they could just throw that in there. Now, would that mean that you would represent yourself in Halloween Horror Night? I don't know. You know, I'll try it any way they'd let me. They did let me a couple of years ago be a guest character for a couple of hours in one of their scare zones. We got to do the makeup. I had it look like my eye was tore out. I was covered in their fake blood. And so they do a ton of work for their makeup team to be able to transform me into a character. So if I ever have that opportunity again, I would definitely go and do that. One other thing I should mention when you were talking about things that are different this year is that Halloween Horror Nights is known to be in kind of the evening. People know that they get there at six o'clock or seven o'clock and it goes all the way until 2 a.m. This year, you will be able to go and decide if some of those haunted houses starting at two in the morning. So you could potentially go there at 2 p.m., I'm sorry, 2 p.m. You could get there at 2 p.m. and go all the way until 2 a.m. And so a full 12 hours of going inside of haunted houses, getting some of the themed food, seeing the shows, that is a lot of walking, that is a lot of scares, but I think that is something that fans are all for because the lines keep getting longer every year as this event gets more and more popular. Yeah, we were just having that discussion of ticket prices and fast passing and stuff like that. Is there anything changing about that this year? Yeah, so for this year, one of the big changes when it comes to their Express Pass to let you skip the lines is that you can no longer add that on to a season pass. If you still want to buy it for a single night, you can do that and you can go and skip some of the lines, not only for the rides, but for the haunted houses as well. But they used to have a version called the Frequent Fear Plus with Express and used to be able to get that and go every single night and be able to skip through the houses. That is not going to be an option this year. Universal says they are working on basically trying to work with the lines. This is the world's most popular event when it comes to Halloween and it is very obvious when you're inside of the park. It's almost funny to go there during the day and see a lot of people and then you go at night and it's like there's mobs everywhere. People love this event and so I think they're just trying to rework exactly how do they get people into the lines and make sure they have a good night. And with how they've been adding on to these scare zones, they've talked about even more characters just roaming throughout the land. I think they're really trying to make sure that people have a great time no matter where they are. So that has changed if you're a person that's going there for the entire season. But if you're just going there for the night, the tickets and the Express, even the RIP tours where you get like a really custom experience, all of that is going to remain the same. With of course, as all of our theme parks do, a slight price increase. A little bit. So we're talking with Johnny, our producer here. He was a little split on the new tickets and the Fastpass and all that kind of stuff. Are you hearing that yourself? Yeah, I mean there are definitely fans online that they have bought the exact same ticket with Express every single year and they were upset that they could not get it. But at the same time, I have other friends that they used to buy the Express and because they kept raising the price, trying to kind of find when people would stop buying it. They never found that. Last year when they were selling it, you were looking at a thousand dollars and it still sold out within seconds. And so I think that's where Universal said, okay, there's not a price point that we don't get to that almost doesn't seem like price gouging to an extreme level. And so maybe it's better this year that we can try it without Express for that pass, see how the lines work and just kind of move stuff around. Even compared to a couple of years ago, Universal works a lot when it comes to taking care of the queue for people that are in the standby and Express. They had haunted houses that were all the way in the back of the park in their backstage area and it used to just be outside. But if it rains or you were standing in the sun or even just the Florida heat, so they went the next year and built a gigantic tent and that's all it was for. This tent was to take care of the guests just for two months out of the year for horror nights. They installed more fans, added more bathroom options, and so I think that's what they're doing. We know people love this event and even though you might be here at two in the morning, it can be a lot. A lot of people, a lot of heat, and so they're working on trying to figure out how to make sure everyone has a fantastic experience. And so that's just when you have 40,000 people walking around, it's a lot to work on. Yeah, I mean, that's just a lot of people to please. Okay, it is. I've never gone. I've never gone. There's people all around that have never gone. What are your tips, your tricks to having the best time? Having the best time. So probably the best tip I can give you is the one where I said they now are going to be starting at 2 p.m. That is your scream early or your stay in scream ticket. If you are a Universal Orlando annual pass holder, this is going to be included with your annual pass to stay in the park. You do have to buy a Halloween Horror Nights ticket, but you get to have this with it. Or if you're someone that's just buying a day ticket, you can also go in from your day and then immediately be able to go into Halloween Horror Nights. What this is going to allow you to do is to go into some of those haunted houses early when there's going to be less lines. You're going to be able to get some of those knocked out before people who just have a Halloween Horror Night ticket get to go in themselves. And I've noticed it feels just a lot more calm. Because you're out there and you can go and get a drink and have a little snack item. You're in this section. You can kind of just start your day a little bit slower if you don't want to be someone that stays there until 2 in the morning. So that's definitely one to do. Another is really just kind of pay attention to the lines. A lot of people go in and they go to the very first house that they see. And so if you go on the Universal Orlando app and you see that there's a one hour and a two hour wait in front of you, if you're willing to make that walk at the beginning of your day and go all the way to the back and start from the back and go to the front, you're definitely going to have less waits. That is definitely one of the best ways to do it. Right there you were just showing kind of on screen one of that shows. Whether you're going to do the Lagoon Show or the Dancing Show Nightmare Fuel, going to the very first or the very last showing is also a great way to be able to go and do that. And there's just so many different ways to explore and go and enjoy. So you don't have to just worry about haunted houses. I mean they've got themed food. They've got entertainment. We've got here this video from a couple years ago. I went with Stephanie Bufamante and I got to show her inside of the Wizarding World. You can kind of hang out with those characters. And it's just there's a ton of fun areas. A ton of fun areas. You're talking about the changes with the parking or I mean with the amount of people and just kind of the differences this year that could generate a big crowd. My next question as a person who's parking as much of a horror and scary as the inside. It can be. If you're someone that decides to show up at nine o'clock. It's funny if you get there for the opening at six o'clock it's usually not too bad because you're not having to deal with all the people that are leaving the park. But if you're going to get there at nine you have the family that's been there for a normal theme park day and then they went and had food either at the park or they had it at City Walk and then they decide to leave at the same time that you're getting there. You can definitely experience some traffic. Overall though I don't think it's that bad unless you're going to be going there on a Saturday evening or you're getting there like the very first weekend. It's going to be like how it is when you pull up to any of our theme parks. They're going to be busy right at the beginning and then it'll start trickling and get a little bit better. And the same thing if you have a universal annual pass your parking is still going to be included just because this event is at night and just because the event isn't included with your ticket does not mean that your parking is not. You can still enjoy City Walk and they even are going to have some special stuff happening in City Walk including their red coconut club. That is going to be one of the things you can experience. So if you don't go and buy necessarily a ticket to Halloween Horror Nights you can still have some extra Halloween there inside of City Walk and enjoy some drinks and some theming there. So much new and exciting things there and thank you so much for being with us today. We are going to switch gears here.