...Except for Halloween. In my Orange County Register column this week, I write about my trip last week to Universal Orlando's Halloween Horror Nights and how it provided a welcomed opportunity to judge how designers handle a bunch of original and IP attractions at once.
If you read my review of HHN27, you might remember that two of my top three houses at the event were based on original themes. Five of this year's Halloween Horror Nights houses in Orlando are based on IP, while four are based on original themes.
For me, too much IP actually can hurt an attraction. I knocked two of the IP-based houses at Halloween Horror Nights — The Horrors of Blumhouse and American Horror Story — for each cramming three different productions into one house. For me, that made going through those houses feel more like watching movie trailers than experiencing an actual film.
Part of what makes a theme park attraction unique in entertainment — and powerful — is the opportunity it provides visitors to immerse themselves in a physical environment that recreates a theme. Whipping us along from one theme to another undermines that immersion (even if the experiences are from the same "brand.") We need time to appreciate each experience.
I am encouraged to see that the source of a particular theme doesn't matter as much as the execution of the idea in elevating an attraction to top levels of quality. Great IP can inspire great attractions. Original themes can inspire great attractions. Heck, even crap IP can inspire great attractions. (Quick: Who did the better job in going above and beyond with an IP: Universal with Waterworld or Disney with Avatar? Discuss.)
This year's new Halloween houses remind us that talented themed entertainment designers can create engaging attractions based on original ideas, as well as on IP. So, to me, the answer to the original themes vs. IP debate remains... "it all depends upon what you do with it."
Read Robert's column:
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Generally speaking, if the park is building a long term attraction you probably want to go with something thats either so old its proven to be evergreen, or can be moved to "generic" without much thought - DIsney's "True Life Adventures" and "Davey Crockett" aren't in the public's mind, but ADventureland and Frontierland stand on their own as the generic theming is so good.
But on the other hand, The Simpsons RIde we can get right into the action because we know who Sideshow bob is, and we know what beef he has with the other characters.
Like everything else (and I know you're not saying anything different) it just depends on the attraction and the execution. I'm all for a great original attraction/maze (La Llorona is one of the best mazes Horror Nights has ever done), and I love a great IP maze (The Exorcist was phenomenal last year). I think this is a fun discussion point, obviously, but getting too wrapped up in it can make it tough to appreciate what each attraction has to offer.
And he's also right about HHN's ability to make great houses out of questionable IPs.... One year they had house based on re-boots of both Dracula and Frankenstein. The movies sorta sucked, but the houses were awesome!
Except a lot of classic Disney rides have no "Disney" characters - The original Pirates, Haunted Mansion, Tiki Hut, pretty much all of pre-modern Tomorrowworld...
But for theme park attractions, all I want is an immersive experience.
In the end, the IP is only needed for marketing and to get guests in the gate. The WWoHP could have been themed around generic kid wizards living in London, and people would have been just as amazed by the level of detail in the theming. However, it would have taken much longer for guests to catch on, and obviously tapping into a fanatical base of guests that may not have considered a theme park vacation before the WWoHP existed, certainly enhanced the success (Star Wars will do the same, though I think PtWoA will stand more as a generic IP unless the sequels further develop that fanbase). When you're talking about projects that approach the billion dollar price tag, you can't simply hope that people are amazed and tell their friends. It's got to be a hit right out of the box, and linking attractions and expansions to well known IPs with built in fanbases that don't necessarily overlap with your typical theme park audience guarantees some level of initial success (even if the additions are complete rubbish). Original concepts can be just as successful, but take longer to germinate, and in this era of instant satisfaction and short attention spans, most theme parks are not willing to take that risk, and instead put their money in bankable IPs (just like movie companies have been doing for nearly 100 years now).
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