HHN and Budget

[pumpkinbot343]

I’m curious about how the budget works at Halloween Horror Nights in about every park. Especially Hollywood’s. Now I don’t know if it’s the case as of current (I don’t really follow Hollywood’s event so), maybe they improved now, but I remember looking at videos and reviews of some of the events at the 2010s, and I was puzzled how Hollywood’s event, the one right next to a actual Hollywood studio and Backlot, somehow looked cheaper than both Orlando and Singapore’s events, Orlando almost always looks very high-budget and actual movie-quality, and Singapore’s event also looked very well-budgeted. Never mind that Singapore is the cheapest of all the Universal parks, and neither it nor Orlando have actual functioning (big) movie studios (Orlando only has a small set of soundstages and smaller “Production Group” not comparable). And I’m not just talking about Hollywood’s black walls. I remember they reused a lot of props over and over at times (Orlando does this too, but I think it’s more of fun Easter eggs as opposed to economics).

 

[Legacy]

Largely, the budget works like everything else at the parks. It’s a give and take between what the creatives want to do and park management over the approved budget. Creative makes a proposal->management counters->creative counters->management counters until a decision on overall budget is made. The approved budget depends on what the park is willing to spend and what they’re prioritizing.

Notice, it’s the individual PARK that decides the budget. Largely, the parks operate independently (especially Singapore). Shared IPs are mutually pitched to corporate (I believe) largely as a way to split cost for each park’s budget (or divert the costs to corporate). The event is a lower priority in Hollywood than Orlando, so it has a lower budget. It also has a much smaller creative team than Orlando which causes a lot more “shorthand” in the design process.

And Orlando recycles the heck out of stuff because it’s economical. Largely, it’s not “intentional.” They generally do not approach their designs in a “where can we reuse this prop” manner; it’s a “how can rework this set of props/set dressing so we don’t have buy more?” process. The easter egg economy is the result of fans simply recognizing things (or designers putting their own signatures into the designs).

 

[Tobias]

Pretty much what Legacy said, in the world of Haunts, costs always add up. So you're definitely gonna' want to recycle whatever you can for as long as possible so you can better focus the funds on whatever new things you might need, or fixing things because oh lordy everything and anything can break throughout the season and then some. This is not a gentle industry!

Scrapping everything and building from scratch every year is just not viable nor recommended, so I second that reusing props is absolutely for economic reasons. Even for a park like Orlando with a bigger budget still needs to get crafty and creative in order to make everything fit within their budget.

 

[Legacy]

Universal creatives can dumpster dive with the best of them, believe it or not…