Universal Orlando already planned to start its Halloween Horror Nights earlier than ever this year. Today the resort announced that it will kick off the event even sooner.
One night before Halloween Horror Nights opens officially on August 30 at Universal Studios Florida, the park will welcome a limited number of fans for its first-ever Premium Scream Night.
Tickets for the August 29 event will cost $350 plus tax (with a $25 discount for annual passholders) and include staggered entry into the 10 haunted houses as well as all you care to eat from a selection of themed food and non-alcoholic drinks. Attendance will be limited to reduce wait times for the houses, and self-parking will be free for the evening.
Premium Scream Night tickets will go on sale June 6.
The regular Halloween Horror Nights starts August 30 and runs select nights through November 3 this year. Tickets for those nights are on sale now and start at $83. Universal has announced six original concept houses for this year's event, including the returns of Slaughter Sinema and Major Sweets. See our May story archive for those announcements.
* * *
To keep up to date with more theme park news, please sign up for Theme Park Insider's weekly newsletter.
My thoughts exactly Francis 24. Considering that RIP (which is pretty much what you're getting here minus the tour guide) is $300-500 and doesn't include admission (another $60-100), I can see this selling out pretty fast. If nothing else, all of the bloggers will snatch up a bunch of tickets just so they can get footage and reviews of the event before anyone else.
The only downside is having to do this on August 29, when it's likely to be steaming hot and actors are probably still trying to figure out their rolls.
I'm with you, Russell. I think this would be very appealing if it was offered in September or October, but I'm not all that interested in paying a premium for what's essentially a beta test of the event.
People are willing to line up in the blazing sun at 3pm on opening day. No doubt super-fans will snatch this up. But for me, I'll wait until October when the houses are dialed in, and the weather isn't brutal.
Once they find out how successful this will be I'm sure they'll add more dates next year. They could offer this a couple days before and a couple days after Halloween the best being after Halloween so they could charge a bit more for those dates.
They could even offer staggered entry VIP events once a week during the event on a night they normally don't run it like Monday or Tuesday and they will for sure sell out no matter what. I would definitely pay a premium on an RIP tour on a date that has staggered entry.
I don't think there's a real demand for post-Halloween visits, certainly not for an RIP-exclusive type of experience. Plus the actors and staff are probably DONE when they reach the end of HHN season.
Before the start of HHN, I think they could probably do 1 or 2 "preview" nights, like what they're doing here, but that's probably it. Once all the bloggers go through, I think most people are going to wait for the normal nights. The prospect of more or less being Guinea pigs for what is essentially a technical rehearsal (at premium prices) might not be that appealing to your average HHN guest. Also, the real HHN fans (beyond the bloggers) probably prefer to get the Frequent Fear Passes that allow for multiple visits throughout the event.
I agree that after Halloween isn't ideal but during the event on a night they are not already having HHN would be the best. The key thing here is the staggered entry. I would pay extra for staggered entry since it would make the experience much better!
This article has been archived and is no longer accepting comments.
oh wow that's gonna sell out super quick! Next year they'll offer RIP tour for $750 lol