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- Fan Fest Nights, a separately ticketed evening event at Universal Studios, focuses on theme park theatrics and sci-fi, gaming and anime rather than horror.
- Experiences based on “Star Trek,” “Dungeons & Dragons” and “Back to the Future” will border on immersive theater, with guests following actors from location to location to advance the story.
“Star Trek” is a franchise that’s always seemed ripe for exploration in a theme park. Space travel, aliens, magic-like technology and, perhaps most importantly, an underlying belief in human-centered optimism.
Encounter someone who saw “Star Trek: The Experience” in Las Vegas, which opened in the late ’90s and ran for about a decade, and expect nostalgic reflections of running aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise and taking part in transporter illusions. But since the latter shuttered, “Star Trek” has essentially lacked a major theme park-like attraction in the U.S.
Until today. Universal Studios Hollywood has made “Star Trek” one of the centerpiece attractions of its new after-hours event, complete with a ship bridge that was recently used as a set piece on “Star Trek: Picard” and a promise to employ some clever stagecraft to simulate that transporter feel. The springtime complement to Halloween Horror Nights, Fan Fest Nights focuses on theme park theatrics and sci-fi, gaming and anime rather than horror.
Separately ticketed evening events have become a way to wring more dollars out of theme parks, with the Disneyland Resort essentially offering them year-round, and now Universal expanding its offerings beyond the fall season. Single evening tickets start at $74, and there are packages and add-ons that can stretch the price all the way to $373. Guests are encouraged to come in costume, and Universal’s rides will be operational throughout the evening.
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Fan Fest Nights will follow the Horror Nights formula, that is it will feature original, pop-up attractions themed to “Star Trek,” “Dungeons & Dragons” and “Back to the Future,” with other installations centered on anime hits “One Piece” and “Jujutsu Kaisen” and limited-time experiences peppered in throughout its theme park lands. There will be character interactions — “Wicked’s” Elphaba and Glinda, for instance — but Fan Fest Nights, which launches April 25 and runs on select nights through May 18, places a premium on immersive theater-like offerings that feature guests following and interacting with actors.
“One of the things that makes these experiences really special is the exploratory nature of them,” says Stephen Siercks, senior director of entertainment at Universal Studios Hollywood and executive producer of Fan Fest Nights. “It’s a bit of a choose-your-own adventure along the way.”
“Star Trek: Red Alert” is set in the era of the series “Star Trek: Picard” and the walk-through attraction will ferry guests onto the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D, the story that the ship is docked in a museum. Things, of course, go wrong. “Dungeons & Dragons: Secrets of Waterdeep” will take participants on a mini-quest centered around a dragon staff and a mid-show group puzzle. “Back to the Future: Destination Hill Valley” will utilize Universal’s filming locations to create a festive feel, one that will feature a dance party and multiple actors for attendees to follow through branching storylines.
In a departure from Halloween Horror Nights, the “Star Trek” and “Dungeons & Dragons” areas are expected to last around 12 minutes, each featuring multiple rooms where actors will perform and interact with the guests. Participants will traverse them in small groups, which Universal describes as “pulsing” visitors from space to space. By contrast, a Halloween maze lasts just a couple minutes and features recorded dialogue. The idea is to create a more interactive, theater-inspired feel that provides participants greater time to not only live in the worlds of the properties but also allow each show to feel slightly different.
In the ride’s trademark attic scene, there’s still a tortured bride, but she’s never quite looked or acted like this.
“It was important to us to be able to develop the stories and really develop the characters and the environments,” Siercks says.
Siercks says Fan Fest has been in development for about three years. While Universal has no shortage of historic sci-fi franchises — “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” springs to mind, especially because it once boasted its own ride at the theme park — the studio for Fan Fest partnered with the likes of Paramount and Hasbro to bring in franchises that have more recently been active on streaming or in theaters. Only with “Back to the Future” did Universal tap into its catalog to bank on audience sentimentality.
“Hill Valley,” says Siercks, referring to the fictional town of “Back to the Future,” will allow guests to step off a tram and hang out in a working backlot. “They’ll experience Courthouse Square as it was in the ‘Back to the Future’ film. That’s very special to us, and one of the pillars of Fan Fest Nights. We’ve created new types of character experiences. You get to follow your chosen character to allow the story to unfold.”
“Star Trek” will usher guests from multiple rooms aboard the ship, including a shuttle bay outfitted with a large LED screen, a sick bay and, of course, the bridge. After being corralled into a makeshift shuttle, one that will include some rumble effects in the floor to simulate the sensation of movement, we’ll enter the shuttle bay and witness a mysterious space entity appear to take control of the ship. This will lead to panic among our tour guides, and an assortment of practical effects. Don’t miss, for instance, a food replicator on the fritz, where holographic tea will consistently fail to properly materialize.
Further along, we’ll see a warp core start to destabilize, and our groups will appear to separated. The Enterprise will continue to be disrupted by the entity, and about 10 actors will aim to keep visitors calm while getting to the bottom of what’s happening. The story will climax in a bridge scene, one in which contact is made with the entity. We won’t spoil the resolution, but the final scene will be a transporter back down to earth. “We think it’s going to be a perfect moment,” Siercks says.
Fan Fest Nights at Universal Studios
“Dungeons & Dragons” is similarly complex, and it’s centered around a tale of a monster known as a “beholder,” a floating eye socket of a creature with a large center orb surrounded by smaller tentacle-like stalks, who has stolen a much-desired dragon staff. The latter here is represented via a large puppet created by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, and the walk-through experience will take us from taverns to the back alley of a marketplace to the beholder’s lair.
Actors will stick with participants from room to room, joining the guests on their quest. Siercks says the team looked for ways to inject interactivity, as certain story points may be triggered by, say, a crystal ball on a shelf, and the entrance to the beholder’s sanctuary requires the solving of a room-size puzzle. Creatures abound, such as a shape-shifting mimic disguised as a chest, and yes, of course there will be a dragon, here seen as a projection.
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Siercks has been with Universal about 20 years, and says Fan Fest allows him to explore his love of theater. “I have a background in theater design and production, so I came from theater and very early on I got to experience themed entertainment and I haven’t looked back since,” he says. “To be able to develop experiences on this scale, and to create experiences that drop our guests into the middle of the action, is the best of both worlds. It’s a very theatrical experience.”
Elsewhere at Fan Fest, “One Piece” will be celebrated with character meet-and-greets, photo opportunities and some light games, while a short “Jujutsu Kaisen” film, “Hunger of the Cursed,” will be shown in the DreamWorks Theatre. The latter was originally developed for Universal Studios Japan. The park’s Super Nintendo World will welcome the arrival of Yoshi as a character meet-up, and its “Harry Potter” section will feature new creatures — be on the lookout for a baby dragon — and a projection show on Hogwart’s Castle.
Yet the underlying core of Fan Fest will transform Universal Studios Hollywood, a park initially built on cinematic properties around a working studio, into a stage. And in the case of “Star Trek,” “Dungeons & Dragons” and “Back to the Future,” we’re invited to have a starring role.
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