Universal Great Britain - Speculation & Rumors

[TYX]

One thing I have thought about; if the plan was to eventually expand to the northen parcel of land (e.g. accomodation or second gate), why would city walk be constructed in the way it is planned to? Surely it would make more sense to have the Theme Park swapped direction, with the entrance area facing towards Manor Road?

 

[BBPH]

One thing I have thought about; if the plan was to eventually expand to the norten parcel of land (e.g. accomodation or second gate), why would city walk be constructed in the way it is planned to? Surely it would make more sense to have the Theme Park swapped direction, with the entrance area facing towards Manor Road?

Thought exactly the same, I’ve come to the conclusion it’s a mixture of access to the park from the A421 and the car park adds in a buffer to the houses a little south of the core zone.

Plus you have manor road right in the middle and that’s not going anywhere.

 

[tommyhawkins]

Thought exactly the same, I’ve come to the conclusion it’s a mixture of access to the park from the A421 and the car park adds in a buffer to the houses a little south of the core zone.

Plus you have manor road right in the middle and that’s not going anywhere.

One thing I have thought about; if the plan was to eventually expand to the northen parcel of land (e.g. accomodation or second gate), why would city walk be constructed in the way it is planned to? Surely it would make more sense to have the Theme Park swapped direction, with the entrance area facing towards Manor Road?

A full Second park doesn't fit to the north...but whatever goes there is connected by a road

It's not going to be a city walk like they have in Orlando, at least not that scale. But either way they can shuttle between using the road that crosses manor road

 

[Alicia]

Honestly, I find it hard to believe that Universal chose, for its first park in Europe, a location two hours from London — with cold and rainy weather most of the year, outside the European Union, and in the only territory in Europe where they can’t use Harry Potter. I’m not sure there will be much non-British audience willing to travel to a remote town outside the capital for Paddington Bear, Back to the Future, or 007.

Also, everyone asked Walt why he wanted to build in the swamps in Kissimmee in the middle of nowhere, an hour from the airport. He pointed to plans for where the highways all converged in the center of the state, right there.

 

[KentNelson]

View attachment 26004

Also, everyone asked Walt why he wanted to build in the swamps in Kissimmee in the middle of nowhere, an hour from the airport. He pointed to plans for where the highways all converged in the center of the state, right there.

But Japan was a park focused on the local attendance (Millions of potential visitors) and it became a real international destination once they built HP and Nintendo. As I said it seems an interesting offer for Brits, but I doubt millions of Europeans had a real desire to travel to a bad weather theme.park for Jurassic Park/World, Jaws or Shreck.
Europeans visit Disney DESPITE the bad weather because it's Disney. I really doubt they will change Uni for Disney with the current Uni catalogue of IPs. It seems weird IMO to choose the only place in all the continent where Potter wasn't available. If you don't mind bad weather I had built it close to DLP to take proffit on the visits to the Mouse's park and with no limits with regard to HP and Nintendo.
PortAventura had been a great choice too: Sunny weather, Spain is 1st tourist destination and again no limits for Harry or Mario.

 

[Alicia]

But Japan was a park focused on the local attendance (Millions of potential visitors) and it became a real international destination once they built HP and Nintendo. As I said it seems an interesting offer for Brits, but I doubt millions of Europeans had a real desire to travel to a bad weather theme.park for Jurassic Park/World, Jaws or Shreck.

This was a photo of Beijing.

Sunny weather, Spain is 1st tourist destination and again no limits for Harry or Mario.

Ah I see.

 

[FBarnhill]

Because making a new, fresh attraction is much better and more interesting than just rehashing a 30 Year Old screen simulator, in an entirely new resort no less, just for the sake of people being nostalgic for it

I doubt any new ride could ever capture the spirit of the films better than BTTF:TR. Despite its age, it's still the premiere motion simulator. And this isn't me speaking out of nostalgia.

The closest I've ever been to this ride these days is wearing my VR headset, watching a remastered video of the ride, with full 360 and IMAX ratio, using my DBOX chair to work in sync with the BD playing that special feature, and it's as if it never left.

But I wanna experience it with people.

 

[AustinT]

And this isn't me speaking out of nostalgia.

Come on man, this is 100% you speaking out of nostalgia. They will never resurrect an ancient ride system like that and it's absolutely foolish to even think there's the slightest chance of that happening. They've got cutting edge tech and much more advanced ride systems these days. They will and absolutely should shoot for the stars rather than go back in time to a super outdated ride system.

 

[rob@rar]

I doubt any new ride could ever capture the spirit of the films better than BTTF:TR. Despite its age, it's still the premiere motion simulator. And this isn't me speaking out of nostalgia.

I think those are definitely nostalgia-tinted sunglasses you're looking through right now. I rode the BTTF simulator once, thought it was too long and was beginning to get boring towards the end, and I was glad when it finished. I never get motion sickness of any kind, yet started to feel queasy on BTTF. As for that being the premier motion simulator, I'd say that the Millennium Falcon attraction in Disneyland and Disney World is a waaayyy better experience. More engaging, more interactive, a more coherent storyline, based on an IP which is a cultural reference point for more generations of visitors. My teenage nieces who were as enthused as I was to be entering the Millennium Falcon ride in Orlando really wouldn't have much of a clue about BTTF, wouldn't understand the 88mph reference, wouldn't have any affinity to the DeLorean, and sadly they would be more likely to associate Michael J Fox with the terrible Parkinson's Disease than with any of his box-office topping movies from the 1980s.

If Universal build a nostalgia park it will not succeed. If Universal resurrect attractions like BTTF and Jaws which they've previously dumped from Orlando, theme park fans in the UK will know that the company has cheaped-out. We'll notice the difference between Universal GB and other Universal parks, and we'll be less than delighted. I don't think for one minute that's what Universal is planning to do, I'm sure they are looking forwards not backwards.

 

[EllieB]

I remember the BTTF simulator ride from my childhood. It was a fabulous experience, and a highlight of our trips. But I suspect if I rode it again now I'd think it was lacking compared to modern ride experiences.

I am not a big coaster person, but I think a 88mph coaster sounds like the perfect fit for the BTTF story. I hope there will be a second attraction of some kind that I can enjoy in this area that will allow non-coaster people to engage with the story somehow, though I agree that the current artwork doesn't show signs of it.

The more I think about it, the more I think I want to "fix the timeline" somehow. An interactive experience maybe? A stage show? A walkthrough of Doc's workshop that shows off his wacky autonomous inventions? I look forward to seeing what's coming!

 

[Steeb]

Honestly, I find it hard to believe that Universal chose, for its first park in Europe, a location two hours from London — with cold and rainy weather most of the year, outside the European Union, and in the only territory in Europe where they can’t use Harry Potter. I’m not sure there will be much non-British audience willing to travel to a remote town outside the capital for Paddington Bear, Back to the Future, or 007.

I wish I had placed a bet on this account being so active in the PortAventura thread

 

[DanM]

But Japan was a park focused on the local attendance (Millions of potential visitors) and it became a real international destination once they built HP and Nintendo. As I said it seems an interesting offer for Brits, but I doubt millions of Europeans had a real desire to travel to a bad weather theme.park for Jurassic Park/World, Jaws or Shreck.
Europeans visit Disney DESPITE the bad weather because it's Disney. I really doubt they will change Uni for Disney with the current Uni catalogue of IPs. It seems weird IMO to choose the only place in all the continent where Potter wasn't available. If you don't mind bad weather I had built it close to DLP to take proffit on the visits to the Mouse's park and with no limits with regard to HP and Nintendo.
PortAventura had been a great choice too: Sunny weather, Spain is 1st tourist destination and again no limits for Harry or Mario.

London is a huge tourist destination and it will feed the park very well from an international visitor perspective even if Europeans don’t plan a trip just for the park. Whereas the tourism in Spain is spread across the country and mainly consists of beach goers that likely would only be interested in a water park. You’re also ignoring the posts above explaining why the location is ideal for universal.

Outside of winter the weather is not bad at all if not very hot during autumn and spring. Some may even prefer that to the sweltering heat of Spain or Orlando in the prime summer months.

Reports say that potter is not ruled out in the future, when commercial agreements expire.

 

[rob@rar]

Outside of winter the weather is not bad at all if not very hot during autumn and spring. Some may even prefer that to the sweltering heat of Spain or Orlando in the prime summer months.

Exactly.

Most of our trips to Orlando have been in August and at that time of year I think the weather is unpleasant, something to be endured rather than enjoyed. Too hot, way too humid. Then a high possibility of torrential rain and lightening in the late afternoon/early evening, but can happen earlier in the day. Doesn't stop people from flocking in their tens of millions to Central Florida each year.

Bedford and Paris have a very similar climate. I've visited DLP in all four seasons and never had an issue with the weather. Occasionally you'll have a day when it rains throughout, so you wear a rain jacket and keep a close eye on errant umbrellas as you walk around. Many of the attractions are indoors so a large chunk of the day you're out of the elements regardless. I once had a day in DLP in the snow and it was quite magical. I think people are getting unnecessarily concerned about the weather for the new Universal park. I'm sure that with a bit of thought they can make it work without any problems, hopefully without thinking everything needs to be indoors, even the outdoors.

 

[bedfordmassive]

Agree with @DanM - it's not like the UK is a tourist wasteland. From wikipedia article "World Tourism Rankings", UK is number 7!


Distribution of that visiting within the country is also important - while France ranks top, Paris itself attracts substantially fewer tourists than London (much of the rest of French tourism will be a significant distance from Paris).


So, to put a different spin on it, they've chosen to base it in a location that is very easily reached for one of the world's major tourism hubs, larger than Paris.

 

[Altonsky]

But Japan was a park focused on the local attendance (Millions of potential visitors) and it became a real international destination once they built HP and Nintendo. As I said it seems an interesting offer for Brits, but I doubt millions of Europeans had a real desire to travel to a bad weather theme.park for Jurassic Park/World, Jaws or Shreck.
Europeans visit Disney DESPITE the bad weather because it's Disney. I really doubt they will change Uni for Disney with the current Uni catalogue of IPs. It seems weird IMO to choose the only place in all the continent where Potter wasn't available. If you don't mind bad weather I had built it close to DLP to take proffit on the visits to the Mouse's park and with no limits with regard to HP and Nintendo.
PortAventura had been a great choice too: Sunny weather, Spain is 1st tourist destination and again no limits for Harry or Mario.

Do we even know if the HP rights are just UK related or do they expand to Europe as a whole and WB wants to keep the rights for Europe.
Which if that’s the case it wouldn’t have made a difference.

The UK is a huge economy, it’s one of Europes biggest tourist destinations and for a country that doesn’t have ‘the weather’ or is a ‘typical beach’ destination that’s impressive when it’s mostly city breaks. Even France has their south coast and all that goes along with that.

Spain and Turkey are above the UK for tourist numbers but they’re beach holidays, also 34 million Brits went to Spain last year and 4.4 million went to Turkey. Brits are the second biggest cohort to go to DLP.

I can only imagine universal looked at those figures (which are huge) and see huge potential to eat into those even if it’s a tiny amount, no it won’t replace a typical cheap beach holiday but it’ll be another option for Brits domestically.

I’d also say Brits are far more open to tourists, you only have to look at recent protests against tourists in certain countries. Would their populace be open to a universal park that could and would make that problem worse. Some people mention us not being in Schengen or the EU as being an issue but nearly 25 million European tourists visited the UK in 2023.

English is also our main language which to be honest is more appealing to a wider audience, France also weren’t exactly receptive to DLP when that opened. The UK is arguably my the US’s biggest audience in Europe and is more receptive to American media.

Comcast and Universal has a huge presence in the UK already whether it’s their music group, Sky, movie production. This means they already have extremely good relationships with multiple different government departments, the tax breaks they receive for movie production (they film JW here) would also have been enticing, it tells them negotiations are possible. They have a far bigger presence here as a group than any other European country.

In my mind the UK makes complete sense.

 

[rob@rar]

In my mind the UK makes complete sense.

For obvious and very sensible reasons.

More importantly, and with respect to you, it also seems to make complete sense to Universal, and that's what really counts. They will have spent years looking at different European countries and different specific locations, not least because they will invest billions of dollars in this enterprise so they aren't going to decide on location on a whim.

I think some people are having trouble letting go of the certainty that Port Adventura was the best starting point for Universal's European base.

 

[Altonsky]

For obvious and very sensible reasons.

More importantly, and with respect to you, it also seems to make complete sense to Universal, and that's what really counts. They will have spent years looking at different European countries and different specific locations, not least because they will invest billions of dollars in this enterprise so they aren't going to decide on location on a whim.

I think some people are having trouble letting go of the certainty that Port Adventura was the best starting point for Universal's European base.

I don’t get the PA thing. The Universal that had shares in it (they didn’t own it) is a completely different company to the one that currently exists. The products whilst have crossover are not the same in any way shape or form.

Taking over a park, causing disruption whilst reworking the park would be far more difficult than building a park from the ground up.

Then you also get into the other reasons that have been listed about why they chose the UK and Bedford that don’t apply to PA.

 

[tommyhawkins]

20million people visit London every year and 10% of them are going to Harry Potter tour. Of course they will go to a theme park too, especially that's easier to get to. 120milion people live inside a 300mile radius of the park, they only want 8.5m of them. This notion that there no market there is in your head. As is it being a "Bad weather park" is simply your opinion. As planning will be made for how much is inside/covered for the few months of the year it's not great, just like they had to do with Beijing.

You're talking like you're someone that's very active in the Porta Ventura forum and probably wants the park built there instead

But Japan was a park focused on the local attendance (Millions of potential visitors) and it became a real international destination once they built HP and Nintendo. As I said it seems an interesting offer for Brits, but I doubt millions of Europeans had a real desire to travel to a bad weather theme.park for Jurassic Park/World, Jaws or Shreck.
Europeans visit Disney DESPITE the bad weather because it's Disney. I really doubt they will change Uni for Disney with the current Uni catalogue of IPs. It seems weird IMO to choose the only place in all the continent where Potter wasn't available. If you don't mind bad weather I had built it close to DLP to take proffit on the visits to the Mouse's park and with no limits with regard to HP and Nintendo.
PortAventura had been a great choice too: Sunny weather, Spain is 1st tourist destination and again no limits for Harry or Mario.

 

[rob@rar]

Taking over a park, causing disruption whilst reworking the park would be far more difficult than building a park from the ground up.

Then you also get into the other reasons that have been listed about why they chose the UK and Bedford that don’t apply to PA.

I've never built a theme park, but I'd guess that building something from scratch has far fewer compromises than buying an existing park, re-badging it and then trying to work within the existing structure which might not be exactly what you would want to develop.

There's no doubt that Bedford (when they invest in the transport infrastructure) could be easily reached by a simply massive potential audience. Whether they bother to travel to Bedford will be largely determined by the quality of the theme park that Universal create. Can't say I'm massively enthused by the one piece of artwork that they've published so far, but I'm not treating that image as gospel just yet, so will wait for actual details to emerge before getting excited or disappointed.

 

[dertevil]

Hello and greetings from Munich, Germany!

I thought I would share my thoughts from the perspective of a European or German. The announcement that Universal is coming to Europe has also caused a lot of joy and discussion in europe forums/communities. There is a very large theme park community here in Europe, we also have a lot of large parks and many many more (very) smaller ones.

I think the choice of Great Britain was a very good one. No matter which country in Europe, most people would probably have come by plane anyway. The flight network in Europe is far too well developed for that and cheaper than travveling with the train or even car. Traveling by train from all over Europe through the Eurotunnel is still possible and well connected.

Other points: Great Britain is much further along with cashless payments. Germany for example, is very backward when it comes to cashless payments. And there are way too many regulations for such big projects The UK never had the EURO as a means of payment, which is definitely a disadvantage, but as I said, cashless payment rules here.

Secondly, in my opinion, it's the language. English is simply so widespread that most people in europe can at least understand it to some extent. It is THE common communication option between countries and languages. Or at least know someone in their immediate environment who can speak it well. Anyone who has been to Disneyland Paris knows what I'm talking about. You simply don't understand anything here (even the staff don't speak English well enough) and in the attractions you're more likely to be confused about what's going on. So only French people understand here. It would be the same for parks in Italy, Spain or Germany. You can clearly see that at EuropaPark. They try to combine German, English and French. Sometimes even more languages. But this might be also hard for people from outside germany. Also I think you do not have to translate everything to a specific language (BTTF, or any other IP) because you can already take what you have.

I'm really pleased that I no longer have to fly all the way to Orlando for the Universal Parks. And that's how a lot of theme park fans in europe see it. It remains to be seen whether the annual millions will be realized (also how the economic or political situation develops in europe). In general, however, I see the project as very positive.