![]() ![]() It needs to do something to shake up the race and draw attention to itself, beyond simply building a solid track record. USH is like a candidate who's trailing in election polling. Universal's always done cheeky, snarky attitude better than Disney and ought to embrace that difference. Trolling Disney fans with outrageous statements is one, very Universal, way of doing that. So here's the point: Universal Studios Hollywood is going to need to do something - heck, a lot of things - to draw some attention to itself as it remakes its park if it wants to build its audience. But, man, clicks and readership aren't anywhere nearly where they would be for similar news from Disney World, Disneyland, or Universal Orlando. Hey, I'm proud of the coverage we've provided this week, and I think what's happening the park merits that coverage. People really don't seem to care all that much about reading about Universal Studios Hollywood, even factoring its lower annual attendance than at the nations'a other Disney and Universal theme parks. And this week reveals one of those exceptions. Though there's a correlation here, it's not always strong. The more people that go to a park, the more people there are interested in reading about and discussing those parks. For the most part, reader interest in posts and review pages tracks strongly with the TEA/AECOM attendance report. One the fascinating things about running Theme Park Insider is having access to data on which pages of the site get the most traffic, and which links in our weekly news emails get the most clicks. I don't want to get "meta" here, so I promise that this will have a point, if you stick with me for a moment. They're joined here by Tom Williams, Chairman of Universal Parks & Resorts. Granted, those parks will enjoy their own attendance gains between now and then, but Garcetti's words remind that Universal's spending $1.6 billion on expanding and improving its original Hollywood park for a reason - to drive attendance up toward Disney levels.Īfter Garcetti, Lopez welcomed Gru and the voices of his daughters, Miranda Cosgrove (Margo), Dana Gaier (Edith) and Elsie Fisher (Agnes) to the stage to blow up the ribbon and open the ride. That's ahead of California Adventure, both the Universal Orlando parks, and on par with the smaller two Walt Disney World parks. If you do the math, Garcetti's expecting Universal to draw more than 3.5 million new visitors to the LA area by itself, which would push the park's attendance near the 10 million mark. According to the TEA/AECOM attendance report, Universal Studios Hollywood drew 5.9 million visitors in 2012 (the latest year reported). You can follow my progress of this and all my models on Facebook and Twitter.That's a stunning number. I’m currently planning a model of the Mystery Island Banana Train from the long gone Pacific Ocean Park. This is my most detailed model so far and was built in record time. ![]() Universal Creative is still adding in more elements to the water playground and Super Silly Fun Land, which I’ll add in once that area opens to the public. A thick card stock was used to build the removable roof panels. I also built the playground and ride vehicles out of foam blocks. That allowed me to work on my model for a few minutes at a time inside my house. The Creative Director was Universal’s Mike West and the Project Director was Jon Corfino. ![]() The spinner is called Silly Swirly and was built by Zamperla. The ride system was custom built by Intamin. Each theater has 12 cars, 3 in the front, 4 in the middle, and 5 in the back. There are two independent operating sides. The ride is a motion simulator attraction. It replaced the rarely opened Cyber Grill. The ride also has a new restaurant called Gru’s Lab Cafe. There are many statues of the lovable minions around the mini-land. This area contains a spinner ride, playground, a water play area, and carnival games. Around summer of 2013, progress on Super Silly Fun Land began. This became a staging area during the construction phase. The adjacent Coke Soak water play area was also closed. The show building was gutted down to the steel frame and new rooms and walls were constructed to house the attraction. The Hollywood version replaced the fantastic Terminator 2:3D show, this means our version didn’t have an existing ride system. They used the same ride vehicles from 1990. This simulator opened in 2012 at Universal Studios Florida, and was a remodel of the former Jimmy Neutron and Hanna Barbara simulators. I recently finished my model of Despicable Me: Minion Mayhem at Universal Studios Hollywood. ![]()
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