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Potential New Universal UK Park

I also think there may be an element of cynicism and opportunism from Universal in choosing the UK. They’ll be aware of the anticipated political swing, motivated mostly by an anger towards the current powers that be.

In this thread alone, there’s a lot of posts that (very justifiably) demonstrate users disbelief that this could even potentially happen. For a long time, it’s felt as though nothing good ever happens in the UK.

So, I think it stands to reason that Universal felt like they’d be received with open arms as they’re proposing something good for the UK! Something that isn’t totally reliant on tax contributions, and is actually fun!

I found myself impressed by a rock climbing centre in Oldham the other day because it looked purpose-built and clean. That’s how low my expectations (and probably others) have become over the last 15 years.

In summation - I think Universal chose the UK because it’s got a bit rubbish here, and Americans love being the shiny (profitable) heroes.

And, I welcome that.
 
I think as Brits we’re very quick to put ourselves down and only see the negatives.

The UK, despite the last 15 years, is still a fantastic place to invest. It has excellent transport links worldwide with multiple major airports, one of the biggest financial centres in the world, and a well educated English speaking population.

Also, years of low growth and a declining pound means that investing dollars here is *cheap* for businesses.

And parts of the country are genuinely booming; I live in Manchester and the amount of new skyscrapers that have popped up in the last ten years is incredible. The amount in the pipeline is even more impressive. The city is definitely rapidly evolving into a world class location.

And seeing as we’re theme park geeks, we’ve got Therme Manchester and the surf park and an ice rink about to start construction to add to the existing ski slope, indoor sky diving etc.

Universal building in the UK at the location they’ve chosen is a no brainier. Comcast are already very well established in the UK (Sky TV) and the UK film industry is massive. Loads of Hollywood blockbusters are filmed here. There’s a ready made market of English speaking people who enjoy the Universal Studios product. And there’s no real local competition (Disney, Efteling and Europa Park are basically in direct competition).

We need to stop being so negative.

The UK isn’t really that crap.
 
Excalibur said:
I’m guessing they just see something in the UK to delve this deep into it and consider building a park in the first place. Apart from international visitors and good transport links to the area I’m unsure what else they see but obviously they know more than we do obviously!
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We have no window into their financials and have had no look at all at any concrete plans. Their exact business case would have been researched down to the smallest detail and discussed at length in various board meetings.

They'll have economic growth forecasts, average wage info, population growth information and projections, demographic data, in depth knowledge of our tax and planning regimes (I'm sure their acquisition of Sky has given them great insights into this). They'll know how us and our European neighbours spend our leisure time and where we go on holiday, how many of us have cars or not and where we live. They would have visited almost all of the other major tourist attractions in the country, and companies like Merlin would have been poured over with a fine tooth comb. They would have met both the serving and shadow secretary of state for levelling up.

Although I have no doubt that the exact location coming up was a major catalyst in driving much of this (maybe they've had plans drawn up for years and the land acquisition is what's made things fall into place and old documents to be dusted off and revived), I very much doubt a pin was stuck in the map just because the UK hasn't had a good theme park built in a while. There remain a great deal of unattractive reasons to come here, and I'm interested in a business sense to know what they are. Judging by the speed of this so far, I would imagine in rough laymen's terms that these are:

1. The perfect site came along at the right price.
2. A desperate government looking for a good news story is being more accommodating than usual, like they were with that electric car battery plant in Somerset.
3. English is spoken as a second language all over Europe.
4. The UK has a high population that's still growing.
5. That high population only has access to a small amount of low and mid-tier parks, with the mid-tiers monopolised by one company of which Comcast has a breadth of knowledge on and can thus predict their behaviour.
6. They've already done significant background research into the local area and local economy before risking any kind of consultation.
7. In depth market research of consumer trends conducted over long periods of time has suggested that UK citizens are travelling abroad to find these experiences, but a significant enough proportion of these will not do so if they could get what they want here. Similar research finding that European tourists are also willing to tag this on to their typical London trips.

Maybe factors similar to these are why? It certainly won't be because we have open arms planning laws, affordable energy, a productive labour market, an attractive tax regime, good transport infrastructure, and blue sky economic prospects.
 
If they eventually start building and reveal the park's design and what themed areas will be included I wonder if quite a few areas of the park will be undercover. Universal should be fully aware of the unpredictable and erratic British weather and how different the climate is compared to Hollywood, Orlando and Osaka. If they plan to be open year round undercover portions of the park would seem ideal
 
jesterrace989 said:
If they eventually start building and reveal the park's design and what themed areas will be included I wonder if quite a few areas of the park will be undercover. Universal should be fully aware of the unpredictable and erratic British weather and how different the climate is compared to Hollywood, Orlando and Osaka. If they plan to be open year round undercover portions of the park would seem ideal
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They made a joke about the weather at the presentation on Saturday, so they're more than aware of how unpredictable it can be!
 
jesterrace989 said:
If they eventually start building and reveal the park's design and what themed areas will be included I wonder if quite a few areas of the park will be undercover. Universal should be fully aware of the unpredictable and erratic British weather and how different the climate is compared to Hollywood, Orlando and Osaka. If they plan to be open year round undercover portions of the park would seem ideal
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I have no doubt they'll be following the DLP model of the vast majority of attractions being indoors (and i'm still astounded UK parks have so few indoor attractions)
 
I wonder if the City Walk are will be covered over, it would allow for all year outside dining and there is quite a bit creativily they could do with that.

I still think a decent part of the park will be outdoors, they are not going to slap a roof on everything but it will certainly be more weatherproof than other UK parks
 
I've been watching a bunch of YT reviews of all the Universal Parks and honestly I hope they never put a Kung Fu Panda type area in the GB park. I'm not talking about the IP itself but a whole area indoors, it just felt like walking around a basement, the lack of natural light was a huge issue to me. I'm not against indoor attractions and large themed buildings, but please to god allow some natural light in.

*edit* Thinking on it, my main issue is the lack ofnatural light for an area that is themed around being outside. The dissonance between what it's trying to be and what my mind expects is discombobulating.
 
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xtpower said:
I've been watching a bunch of YT reviews of all the Universal Parks and honestly I hope they never put a Kung Fu Panda type area in the GB park. I'm not talking about the IP itself but a whole area indoors, it just felt like walking around a basement, the lack of natural light was a huge issue to me. I'm not against indoor attractions and large themed buildings, but please to god allow some natural light in.

*edit* Thinking on it, my main issue is the lack ofnatural light for an area that is themed around being outside. The dissonance between what it's trying to be and what my mind expects is discombobulating.
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You should check out some of the UAE parks, especially Warner Bros World that is entirely indoors but all themed to see how they can be done well. The Gotham City area in particular looks incredible.

Edit: That just made me think, a Marvel or DC themed area at this park would be an open goal! Obviously Marvel is owned by Disney now (though we do have the precedent of a Marvel attraction at a Merlin attraction at Madame Tussauds) so some kind of licensing with DC would be more realistic of the two.

A Universal park in the UK with DC, HP and Nintendo alone is a licence to print money.
 
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Relife said:
The Mayor has been quoted as saying that 93% of resistance are supportive of the scheme. If true that's a staggering figure for such a major project. No idea how they got that figure though and as always id take it with a pinch of salt
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It's likely collated from surveys and other such means, it seems high but they are likely including everyone who doesn't state they disapprove of the project. I expect between the local gov and Universal they probably have canvassed a majority of the local community.
 
Bowser said:
You should check out some of the UAE parks, especially Warner Bros World that is entirely indoors but all themed to see how they can be done well. The Gotham City area in particular looks incredible.

Edit: That just made me think, a Marvel or DC themed area at this park would be an open goal! Obviously Marvel is owned by Disney now (though we do have the precedent of a Marvel attraction at a Merlin attraction at Madame Tussauds) so some kind of licensing with DC would be more realistic of the two.

A Universal park in the UK with DC, HP and Nintendo alone is a licence to print money.
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Zero chance of a Marvel area at this Universal park. If you look at what Disney have done with Avengers Campus or Cosmic Rewind they are not going to allow one of their biggest competitors to use a massive IP of theirs. As for DC you’d think it would be unlikely as well given the Warner parks but you never know, offer enough money for something and even unlikely things can happen, though I’d imagine that licensing rights would be extremely complex.
 
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Shaggy_Dog_ said:
Zero chance of a Marvel area at this Universal park. If you look at what Disney have done with Avengers Campus or Cosmic Rewind they are going to allow of their biggest competitors to use a massive IP of theirs. As for DC you’d think it would be unlikely as well given the Warner parks but you never know, offer enough money for something and even unlikely things can happen, though I’d imagine that licensing rights would be extremely complex.
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Warners seem happy enough licensing to Six Flags though doesn’t look like they are for Saudi so maybe they want continental exclusive which I guess would rule out England due to the Spanish park.

Also Universal and IMG technically had Marvel rides but I think they all pre date Disney so yeah pretty much no chance.
 
The Marvel IP licensing ownerships are an absolute minefield, I doubt they'd touch them these days. Regardless of certain character rights being with other companies, Disney have wrestled back far too much control of other elements of the business to make such IPs worthwhile. Sure there's some legacy IPs like the comic characters at IOA, but they were in place and established long before the MCU was established and characters revived on the big screen.

There's plenty other options around in terms of IPs which would be far less hassle to handle and ultimately generate far more revenue than trying to navigate Marvel IPs.

In Disney they can have the actual film characters in place, elsewhere that's not going to be the case. Since such huge stars are now associated with the characters, that makes any IP not featuring them a bit of a lame duck and likely viewed as a cheap knock off by most guests.
 
I'm using Epic Universe as the template but changing the themes.

HTTYD - Minecraft / DreamWorks (Shrek)
Super Nintendo - Pokémon
Potterverse - Middle Earth
Dark Universe - Sherlock Holmes / Dr Who

And then a general hub area too with a huge rollercoaster and some filler rides.

What I really hope we don't just get is a carbon copy of what Singapore got. It's just basically the American parks but on a lesser scale. Would be a bit of anti climax. However because Brits travel in big numbers to Florida already I don't think they'd go that way personally. Would seem very redundant to do so.
 
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