To borrow a catchphrase from one of its featured entertainment properties, the new Universal Fan Fest Nights seeks to boldly go where no theme park after-hours event has gone before.
Universal Studios Hollywood debuted its new Fan Fest Nights last weekend. The event invites comparison to Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights — the company’s wildly successful after-hours event in the fall. But Fan Fest Nights is something more than Horror Nights with a different theme. With Fan Fest Nights, Universal is bringing a new type of experience to the theme park industry.
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The event features walk-through attractions themed to Star Trek and Dungeons & Dragons in locations typically used for Halloween Horror Nights houses. Each guides a group of fans through a series of short performances rather than offering a conga line through a maze like Horror Nights.
But the event’s highlight is its Back to the Future: Destination Hill Valley experience. Playing on the Courthouse Square lot where the 1985 movie was filmed, Destination Hill Valley recreates several moments from that movie as a site-specific, immersive theater experience. Fans stand side-by-side and engage with actors performing as characters from the film. That leads to some wild, off-script moments, such as when a fan cosplaying as Marty McFly tried to present Universal’s Marty McFly with a copy of the Sports Almanac that helped bully Biff Tannen transform into a powerful tycoon in the Back to the Future sequel.
But Universal’s performers last weekend showed their improv skills by humoring fans while keeping the story moving. Universal long has promoted itself as a destination where fans can step into movie magic, but Destination Hill Valley comes closest to realizing that promise as anything Universal ever has done.
Its closest local comparison might be Knott’s Berry Farm’s Ghost Town Alive!, but that example of immersive theater is not based on a beloved IP, set on the very ground where it was filmed. By marrying immersive theater with studio IP, Fan Fest Nights has created something special and engaging for dedicated fans.
Universal also provides a film-used set for the finale of its Star Trek: Red Alert attraction. But that walk-through uses an original storyline that lacks the detail of the Hill Valley experience. Many Back to the Future fans know that those movies were filmed on Universal’s Courthouse Square, but it’s not obvious that Red Alert’s USS Enterprise-D bridge is a film-used set.
I knew that, but I still did not find the experience of standing on that set as powerful as standing in Courthouse Square. Perhaps that is because no episode of Star Trek was filmed at Universal — the park simply brought the set over from Paramount. Maybe being in the authentic place means more than just looking at the authentic thing when we try to connect with the past.
However it happens, though, we long to connect more deeply with the stories we love. Theme parks have done that in the past with rides, shows, lands and experiences like Halloween mazes. Now, Universal has added the immersive theater of Fan Fest Nights to that mix.