Universal Fan Fest Nights debuted Friday at Universal Studios Hollywood. Running for 13 nights, this first-ever event seems at first glance to be a Halloween Horror Nights-type experience with Comic-Con IP. But Fan Fest Nights offers a very different vibe than HHN. Whether that’s a positive or negative may depend upon whether you are a fan of one of the franchises featured at this inaugural event.
Let’s start with the familiar – for many theme park fans, at least. Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights may be the most popular after-hours theme park event in the world. Thousands of fans each night pack Universal’s theme parks to snake their way through houses devoted to some of the world’s most popular horror and supernatural IP from movies and television.
Fan Fest Nights offers a couple of its own, unique walk-through experiences. But these are not HHN-style conga lines. Instead, Universal is pulsing groups of fans through these attractions, allowing them to experience together each scene in the walk-through. That helps make Fan Fest Nights a more theatrical experience than HHN. Heck, you would not be wrong to call Universal Fan Fest Nights, “Universal’s Gen X and Elder Millennial Theater Nerd Nights” instead.
The highlight? Fan Fest Night’s Back to the Future fan zone, Destination Hill Valley. Staged in the same Courthouse Square backlot location where the 1985 Universal movie was filmed, Fan Fest Nights recreates select 1955-set scenes from “Back to the Future” as a site-specific, interactive theater experience.
Universal’s Studio Tour trams deliver us to the backlot set, which is dressed much as it appeared in the film. Photo ops abound here, but “Destination Hill Valley” offers much more than that, Running on about a 30-minute loop, we see Marty McFly stumbling into 1955 Hill Valley, meeting characters such as Biff, Mr. Strickland, Goldie, and more – whom we get to meet, too.
On the tram ride down to the backlot, our tour guide provides a quick course in 1950s slang, admonishing us that the people of 1955 will not recognize our use of words such as “slay” and “fire.” Doc Brown also warns us not to cause any anomalies by talking to our past selves, should any of us been around in California in the 1950s.
But that did not stop a group of fans cosplaying as Marty McFly from offering Universal’s Marty McFly character a copy of the “Sports Almanac” that drives the plot in “Back to the Future II.” At least a dozen other fans on the Square encouraged Goldie to run for Hill Valley mayor someday, a suggestion that the diner busboy embraced – just as he did in the film. Many fans queued for photos with Einstein or Copernicus in Doc Brown’s DeLorean time machine. Others gathered around a stage at one edge of the Square for the Hill Valley High “Enchantment Under the Sea” dance, complete with Marvin and The Starlighters.
Eventually, Marty finds his way to that stage, fumbling his guitar as one of Biff’s bullies cuts in on George, dancing with Lorraine. But when George finds his courage, cheered on by the crowd this time, and pushes that bully away, Marty comes back to life, leading the band in a rousing encore.
Of course, the storm hits, the lightning strikes, and Doc Brown helps send Marty “Back to the Future.” With trams dropping fans off continuously, you can stay as long as you wish in Courthouse Square, and many cosplaying BTTF fans looked like they were here for the evening. But I stuck around for one full cycle of the show before heading back to the trams to experience the rest of Universal Fan Fest Nights.
There’s plenty to recommend about the rest of the event, along with elements that need refining – understandably at a first-time event such as this. But nothing matched the experience of Destination Hill Valley. If you love those films, being on very site where it was filmed, seeing it replayed to life in this way is nothing short of astonishing. This is themed entertainment at its finest, and one of the most emotionally engaging experiences I have seen from Universal. (I will have a video of the experience up later today.)
Fan Fest Night’s two walk-through experiences are Dungeons & Dragons: Secrets of Waterdeep and Star Trek: Red Alert.
The D&D walk-through plays on the Lower Lot, in the same location as The Weeknd at last year’s HHN. But D&D takes up the entirety of that soundstage, with a 10-minute-plus experience that’s much grander than anything seen before at Horror Nights. Prior knowledge of D&D is not necessary – it’s a quest. You seek a thing, and then you find the thing, while enduring a twist or two along the way. Devoted fans will appreciate the references and Easter eggs throughout the show, however.
The production design here impresses, especially with the puppetry from the Jim Henson Company. My only opening-night quibble would be with the sound design. The sound from the louder scenes at the of the experience bled into the earlier scenes, making the characters at times difficult to hear and understand. Some adjustments could help elevate this to something closer to Hill Valley’s level.
Much more needs to be done to launch the Star Trek experience into orbit, however. Set upon the Enterprise-D from “The Next Generation,” Star Trek: Red Alert suffered tech glitches throughout the early evening that left performers trying to improv to carry the show. The plot’s thinner here than it is in the D&D walk-through. A thing comes to the ship, there’s a red alert, and we all have to deal with that. That conflict is supposed to provide some emotional stakes to our tour of the Enterprise, but the cast could use some additional script support to cover if the show’s tech does not trigger as planned.
Ultimately, just being on the Enterprise is a treat for any Star Trek fan, but others need that something extra to make this experience feel special. Universal has obtained a film-used bridge set of the Enterprise-D for this walk-through, but there’s nothing in this experience that tells fans that. Okay, I am telling you now. But even knowing that, I did not feel the same pull on the Enterprise bridge as I did in Courthouse Square.
Perhaps that is because while this is a real set from Star Trek, none of that show was filmed here at Universal. (The Enterprise-D scenes from the recent “Picard” show were filmed in Santa Clarita.) “Back to the Future” was filmed here, even though the sets we see now are not the original ones from 1985. (Courthouse Square burned in 2008, along with much of Universal’s backlot, including the old King Kong encounter.)
Ultimately, though, what makes the experience at this event is – as its title so hopefully suggested – the fans. Universal Fan Fest Nights calls fans of its featured IP to get together to celebrate that fandom and enjoy the vibe of being with other fans, as Universal provides opportunities to experience these IP in person. Again, the Back to the Future crowd led the way here, but I saw plenty of Star Trek cosplay, too, along with some D&D and the two manga franchise featured: One Piece and Jujutsu Kaisen.
Universal also is featuring its Super Nintendo World and The Wizarding World of Harry Potter lands at FFN, the latter hosting the west coast premiere of the Hogwarts Always show from Universal Orlando.
I’ve not once thought about going on a “regular” theme park ride during Halloween Horror Nights, but the low-to-nonexistent wait times tempted me onto several rides at FFN. The longest wait I encountered all night was 40 minutes for my food at Mel’s, after ordering at the counter. Note to all: Don’t bother eating at Fan Fest Nights. Long wait times and short supplies plagued most food service locations all night. Hit the rides and special experiences you already paid for with your admission, instead.
If you need those tickets, our partner has the best prices I have seen for FFN, starting at just $71: Universal Studios Hollywood tickets. Universal invited media tonight, but based on this experience, I am ready to pay that price for another go at Fan Fest Nights. The Courthouse Square experience is amazing. I’d like to see if Star Trek can improve. I also want to see the Jujutsu Kaisen show that I missed because I was waiting forever for a mediocre chicken pot pie at Mel’s.
And who knows when else I will be able to walk on to Mario Kart? Universal rides with no wait? Of that, I am the biggest fan.
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