Universal Parks & Resorts Texas and Vegas Expansions

[Matt N]

Hi guys. In very intriguing news, Universal today announced its intention to build two new regional-scale attractions in the USA; one will be a family-focused theme park in Frisco, Texas (near Dallas), while the other will be a horror experience in Nevada: https://www.cbsnews.com/dfw/news/universal-studios-theme-park-frisco/

The Texas park will be a family-focused theme park. It has been described as being "unlike any other [park] in the world", and it will be "specifically designed to cater to fun for families with young children".

The park will span 97 acres, and a themed hotel is planned for the future.

The following was said about it:

It will be full of family-friendly attractions, interactive and playful shows, character meet and greets, unique merchandise and fun food and beverage venues. Although smaller in size, it will still carry the same quality as Universal's other larger resort destinations.

The entire area is intended to have a completely different look, feel, and scale than Universal's existing parks and will appeal to a new audience for the brand.

The following concept image was released by Universal:


Little else is known other than this.

What do you guys think of this news? I think the idea of Universal moving into regional theme parks could be really exciting, and the park looks like it could be very nice!

 

[John_P]

They've also announced a year round scare attraction at Las Vegas.


From: https://twitter.com/HorrorNightsORL/status/1613254607500898304?t=wIG_tV0ugzQnXHG7EJZd_A&s=19

 

[Craig]

I've renamed this topic to cover both new attractions which have been announced .

The Texas attraction is a strange one I must admit. It seems a bit of a risk to make something small enough not to eat into Orlando's family visitor-ship and to a lesser extent Hollywood yet large enough to attract people to visit. From the concept it looks like there's plenty of IPs thrown in there, and from the size of that boat ride and the quoted 97 acre site, it looks to be pretty substantial.

In terms of the Vegas HHN attraction (press release in this article), yes it's very close to Hollywood (in US terms anyway) but I think that's going to do brilliantly. HHN is nothing short of a licence to print money for Universal, so something year round especially somewhere like Vegas would probably do pretty well.

It's going into Area15, an experimental art and entertainment venue which currently has Meow Wolf's Omega Mart as their headline attraction at the moment, with multimedia and VR experiences also being located there. Meow Wolf's attraction is 58,000 foot, with Universal said to be taking 110,000 square foot. I'm glad they're looking at creating seasonal experiences to keep things fresh - with that and Omega Mart (which I've been DYING to do for a while), it's got me fancying another trip over there at some point once it's open.

 

[Benjsh]

Universal definitely seem to be riding the crest of a wave at present, with a lot of their investments paying off and then some, so it wouldn't surprise me if continues with these projects too.

When you throw in the rumours of them possibly taking back control of Port Aventura too it certainly is an exciting time.

Meanwhile at Disney......Blue Sky projects. Hahahaha