Universal planning park for the UK

If they do Harry Potter there they will get tons of locals. Wonder what else they will conjur up?

initial artwork would indicate no Harry Potter. minions, Jurassic and Waterworld plainly visible in the artwork. two sections that are undefined look intriguing, but they’re not obvious as to theme. One site mentions 007 and Doctor Who but not obvious that that’s what’s going on.

The prime minister said the theme park would create jobs across construction, artificial intelligence and tourism

We’re just at the point where we stick AI into every marketing opportunity, aren't we. Cap’n Crunch with Crunchberries and AI.

Suspect no Harry Potter because of the Warner Studios attraction a short trip down the road.

I am curious to see how this pans out, Universal have obviously done their sums and figured it makes sense - but I do think that there are some challenges, chiefly that Merlin (who own the four largest parks in the UK, all within 2 hours drive of each other) have made them complete bargain basement operations - it's devalued theme parks to the point where I think a lot of people will have a hard time paying a big number - irrespective of the quality of the product.

They noted that they think that they could see 8 million visitors in the first year, that seems pretty ambitious on an island with 66 million people - I think foreign tourists would have to make up a good chunk of that.

I am also curious to see what happens to our current parks, I guess this could create some (coaster)buzz, but also wonder if some of the parks that aren't thriving will struggle to compete - we've lost so many parks over the past couple of decades and we have a few just about hanging on. The UK market has never had a big international player in it, so it's hard to determine exactly what that looks like in practice.

When you have parks like Alton Towers closing at 4:00pm I think there's definitely opportunity for a major operator to shake up the market. I'm hoping Merlin will up their game to compete – time will tell on that front.

Interesting.

what’s the latest with their north Texas park? Is that still a thing?

Under construction and set to open next year.

hambone:

We’re just at the point where we stick AI into every marketing opportunity, aren't we.

My rice cooker claims to have AI......

Rick_UK:
They noted that they think that they could see 8 million visitors in the first year, that seems pretty ambitious on an island with 66 million people - I think foreign tourists would have to make up a good chunk of that.

Super easy to travel from Ireland, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands into the UK. Germany isn't all that far either.

Richard Bannister:
When you have parks like Alton Towers closing at 4:00pm I think there's definitely opportunity for a major operator to shake up the market.

Are the 4PM closures the cause, or the outcome of the low crowds? I was there on 4PM days and it was rather peaceful in the park.

Some of the Merlin madness is definitely them trying to reign costs in, their passes are bargain basement prices and are a significant component of their attendance that they are nervous about marginalising.

It's not just Merlin either, in 2005 my season pass for my local park was £99, in 2025 it's .... £99. The maths just doesn't make sense. Consider the minimum wage alone, in that period it's jumped from £4.50 per hour to £12.21 per hour.

I think it's possible that Universal could shake the market up, but curious to see if they can secure the volume they expect/need at a price point that folks don't balk at.

At risk of being accused of thread drift, “maths doesn’t”? “Maths” is singular?

Ah, in the UK we say maths where you folks would say math. I guess we keep the plural from "mathematics".

To bring it back, I haven't been to a Universal park outside of the US, I wonder how they're thinking that they need to adapt the product for a European audience, Disney is still struggling with that 30 years on, but it's maybe easier with a shared language.

Rick_UK:

Disney is still struggling with that 30 years on

Disney partnered with a company that wanted to half-ass it. That's why they finally took back control in 2017, and we're now seeing major expansions and revamps.

TheMillenniumRider:
Super easy to travel from Ireland, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands into the UK. Germany isn't all that far either.

Yep. Apart from the extra border control at the airport, most of europe is in a shorter flight distance than lots of places in the US from either coast. Those that arrive into London by Eurostar will be able to get trains up to the park - by the time it opens they'll have direct trains from London, and Network Rail (who look after the rail infrastructure) have already said they have paused construction of the closest station pending this announcement, and will now be working with Universal to bigger with the plans to support the anticipated additional rail passengers.

The “AI” is the program Universal uses to decide how much Express is going to cost every day.

seems to be official announcement now:

Back to the Future (coaster lower left), Jurassic as expected including a coaster, The show assumed to be Waterworld, will actually be 007, Minions and then “Paddington” somehwere

Article mentions Lord of The Rings in the fluff parts, but that may aspirational or just sloppy reporting. It does not seem that there is a LOTR land, unless it’s all indoors.

I overlooked one small area north of the Minions area that could be a castle-y type thing that might be LOTR.

BBC posted a more detailed follow-up here: https://www.bbc.com/news/ar...yrg95rp5wo