🔴 RECOMMENDED VIDEOS/PLAYLISTS
🎥 LIST: UO Fanatic Podcast: LINK
★ TABLE OF CONTENTS ★
- 00:34 Introduction
- 01:27 Resort News
- 12:21 Analysis of data from HHN 34
- 20:30 Predicting trends of HHN 35
- 25:32 House Rankings
- 28:40 Closing
🔥 TOPICS IN THIS PODCAST🔥
- Universal Orlando News
- Halloween Horror Night News
- Analysis of HHN 34 Data
- Applying lessons to HHN 35
- House Rankings
Show Length: 29:57
🔴 *** Follow Along ***
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News
Rock The Universe 2027
Rock The Universe 2027 dates announced: Faith, Fellowship & Fun. Raise Your Hands. Raise Your Voice. Raise Your Spirit. Rock the Universe is an unforgettable weekend of faith and fun. Experience powerful beats from Christian Music’s brightest stars and thrilling rides at Universal Studios Florida. Event Dates Jan 22-23, 2027. Rock the Universe is a separately ticketed event.
Comcast 2nd quarter earnings call
Comcast reaffirmed its plan (announced three weeks ago) to split into two public companies via a tax-free spin-off — separating NBCUniversal (and Sky) from the core Connectivity & Platforms (cable/broadband) business. Co-CEOs Brian Roberts and Mike Cavanagh said internal/partner feedback has been “overwhelmingly positive,” and CFO Jason Armstrong said they’re targeting completion in roughly a year, with a goal of giving both resulting companies investment-grade balance sheets
Peacock hit profitability for the first time , $189M EBITDA, revenue up 54%, subscribers up 2M to 48M, boosted by the FIFA World Cup, NBA playoffs, and “Love Island”
Studios had a big quarter (+25% revenue) on “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” and “Obsession”
Theme Parks were the soft spot: revenue up 3% but Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization down 5%, hurt by weak Osaka attendance (China travel restrictions) and softening Orlando attendance that started in June and continued into Q3. Epic Universe is still performing in line with expectations, and management said this doesn’t change their long-term view of parks.
Multi night tickets
After all the drama surrounding the multi night tickets the prior week, we did get our multi night tickets as of July 21st. $229 for rush of fear tickets, the first 3 weeks of the event. The frequent fear tickets, which are good for all Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday night tickets, and one Tuesday night oddly enough. Basically not Fridays or Saturdays, but you can go on the first Friday of the event with the ticket, those cost 274.99. Next is the frequent fear plus tickets for $324.99 and this ticket includes all days of the event except for Saturdays. However, opening and closing weekend you can also go on those Saturday nights as well. Lastly there is the ultimate frequent fear for $449.99 which is valid for any and all nights of the event.
I did go on and get a couple of frequent fear pluses for myself and my daughter as I mentioned previously we would be attending the event more than once.
Evil Dead Burn
July 21st another house announcement, Evil Dead Burn. We soon learned that Ramon Paradoa is the creator of the house and we got a little more information from a few tweets he fired off:
Honored to be working as the Show Director & Writer of the EVIL DEAD BURN haunted house at #HHN35! The @EvilDead series has always been one of my favorite franchises in horror, and the great Sam Raimi has been one of my heroes since I was a kid. Another dream come true! Collaborating with @warnerbros @ghp_tweets and my good friend @josecanas20, to adapt the visceral world of EVIL DEAD BURN into a haunted house has been a bloody good time. Much like Sébastien Vaniček’s film, this house is mean, gruesome, and unrelenting from start to end. My scenic design partner Manuel Cordero and I swung for the fences on this one! Additionally, we collaborated with our Tech teams to achieve some really cool effects here to fully immerse guests in the hellish chaos of a Deadite possession. Jordan Hill I’m looking at you! For our 35th anniversary, the Book of the Dead has been reopened, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. In the words of Thya…cheers, to your perfect family! #HHN35
Fortnightmares
On July 22nd, we got news about the fortnite scare zone, Here is what the tweet said: Dropping soon: FORTNITEMARES at Universal Orlando Halloween Horror Nights. Trudge through this scare zone and brace for the Storm, because there’s no telling what horrors it’ll bring with it.
Mike Aiello added a bit more on twitter: Our partnership with @EpicGames has been fantastic in not only bringing Fortnitemares to HHN within the zone…but collectively making sure how it’s adapted can insure it’s Scarezone status! Creative, design, costuming and technical teams have truly brought something unique… …and fun to the table while still achieving scares that satisfies the chaos of Fortnitemares and the Halloween horrors of HHN! #HHN35
This definitely feels like damage control because the community outrage is pretty intense. As I have said in the past, I am not sure why people are this angry about such a small part of the event.
Infernal Carnival of Nightmares
On July 24th we got some clarification and additional information on what a previous announcement was hinting at, with the Attack of the Killer Clownz. Ramon Paradoa provided some great context as well.
When the Infernal Carnival of Nightmares rolls into the streets of New York, a maniacal troupe of clowns take over the city & convert it into Downtown Clowntown. As you traverse through each distinct borough, you will face clowns of different origin as chaos fills the air. The inner Horror Nights fan in me is beaming to finally share this project with the world. Truly honored and grateful to be working as the Show Director & Writer of this groundbreaking Scare Zone for HHN 35! Manuel and I have poured so much passion into this! This has undoubtedly been one of the most ambitious & creatively challenging projects I’ve ever worked on. Creating this expanded zone was no easy task for our teams, but everyone involved has worked tirelessly to help make it a reality. Grateful for their partnership! Familiar clowns from our past. Entirely new clowns.
Art the Clown. The Killer Klowns from Outer Space. And clowns yet to revealed… Their goal? To fill the streets of their city with laughter and the screams of unwelcome visitors. Jokes on you.
Ozzy Osbourne prince of darkness
On July 29th, Horror Nights Orlando tweeted out the final house announcement and it was what we thought it would be, Ozzy Osbourne: Prince of darkness.
Let the madness begin! A haunted house inspired by the twisted mind of Ozzy Osbourne is coming to Universal Orlando Halloween Horror Nights. Scream through a decaying world where music and mayhem collide.
Now why this wasn’t announced on National Ozzy day, I have no idea, but im just glad we did indeed get this property. I think this is my most hyped house for this year. We can tell some of the creative minds at the event are excited as well as we got some tweets from some of those personalities, starting with Mike Aiello with “Truly ecstatic this has happened!!!. Sure its short, but he used 3 exclamation points! I’m telling you Mike is excited.
Ramon Paradoa added: This house y’all…I hope you’re ready. @LURKINGGRAY and Nick Collins have poured so much passion, love, and respect into this experience. It’s going to be truly special
Jordan Hill tweeted “This house is so badass. With IPs, we’re often recreating scenes to visual source material, which I’m always proud of. But this has been refreshing, getting to work with the team to create unique visuals representing Ozzy’s vast discography. Be stoked for this one. It ruuuuules.
Additionally, Lora Sauls, was interviewed by Louder magazine and we got some good nuggets of information:
The house is built around Ozzy’s album covers, walking guests through a Gothic church/temple structure with the Ozzy Osbourne symbol overhead, Ozzy surrounded by cloaked followers, and “vision pools” showing concert footage. Guests then move into a dungeon sequence styled after Patient Number 9, a scene where an oversized bat “eats the head off of a human” as a fun role-reversal, a cemetery sequence with Ozzy as a werewolf, and a Crazy Train sequence where guests board the train with Ozzy as conductor. It closes with Ozzy on his actual throne from his final concert — Universal got the real asset — flanked by a dragon and 80s-styled dancing demons, building to “a very special final scare.”
On how the project came together: It started after Ozzy’s death, during last year’s HHN in Hollywood (October 2025), when Jack Osbourne told John Murdy (Creative Director of HHN Hollywood) he wanted to do something with HHN again — echoing Murdy’s own history with the franchise (he did a Black Sabbath house, “13-3D,” back in 2013). The Hollywood and Orlando teams got on a call with Jack, who pushed for each coast to build a genuinely different house rather than a shared design — making this the most divergent dual-coast IP house Universal has done. Sauls notes Jack even joked about repurposing Hollywood’s Hogwarts Express train into the Crazy Train (they couldn’t, for licensing reasons). Sharon Osbourne is personally approving elements weekly via Teams calls.
Neither Jack nor Sharon has walked the Orlando build yet, though Sauls hopes one or both attend Orlando’s opening (which is a week ahead of Hollywood’s). She also mentions Universal is placing a Prince of Darkness billboard near the Osbournes’ Hollywood home — reportedly just two streets away — which delighted Sharon.
Yes! I am so excited and at ease. Despite the strong rumors, the ad leaks, I was still nervous since they took so long to announce it.
What we can learn from HHN 34
All of this data I have reviewed in preparation for this topic came from thrill-data.com. They provided me with the data, and the analysis good or bad, is mine. Just wanted to give them their credit because it’s a wonderful resource they make available to us and that functionality is free.
So lets dive in and see what the Numbers Tell Us About Surviving Halloween Horror Nights.
Every year, Halloween Horror Nights veterans debate the same questions: Which houses are worth the wait? What’s the best night to go? Can you really do every house in a single evening? For HHN 34, we finally have the data to answer all of them — 49 event nights worth of wait time tracking across all 10 haunted houses.
The IP gap is real, and its enormous.
The most striking finding in the HHN 34 data is the chasm between licensed IP houses and original content. Five Nights at Freddy’s averaged 109 minutes, across the season. Terrifier came in at 92 minutes, and Jason Universe at 94 minutes. Now compare that to the bottom of the list:, Hatchet & Chains: Demon Bounty Hunters at 43 minutes, and Grave of Flesh at 45 minutes. The one outlier IP, WWE: Horrors of the Wyatt Sicks averaged just 40 minutes. I hope you realize how much I’m trying to remain calm because Wyatt Sicks was my favorite house last year.
That’s not a small gap, it’s a nearly 3x difference between the most and least popular houses. What drives it? Recognition. Five Nights At Freddy’s arrived with one of the most passionate gaming fan bases on the planet. Terrifier had just come off back-to-back breakout horror films. Jason Universe was trading on decades of franchise nostalgia. The moment these houses were announced, they were going to have long lines regardless of what night you attended or what time you showed up. On peak nights in late October, Five Nights average wait climbed as high as 129 minutes, with individual readings touching 295 minutes, nearly five hours. The lesson for HHN 35 is obvious: whatever major IP Universal announces, treat it the same way. Those houses will be your top priority from the moment gates open.
September is a cheat code
One of the clearest patterns in the data is how dramatically waits differ between early and late in the season. Since opening weekend is a little bit different because so many people want to be first, lets jump to week 2 of the event and dig into the data. On that Friday evening Five Nights At Freddy’s average wait was just 97 minutes compared to its season average of 109. Terrifier was at 73 minutes with a season average of 93 minutes. Jason Universe was at 83 minutes opposed to its season average of 94 minutes. Most houses on that 2nd week of the event ran at roughly one-fifth to one-quarter of what it would become by October.
The reason is straightforward: opening week crowds are drawn from local annual pass holders and the most die-hard fans, who spread themselves across all 10 houses efficiently. The general public hasn’t fully arrived yet. By the time October rolls around and Halloween hype is peaking, the park fills with first-time visitors who funnel directly into the most recognizable names, and those lines don’t move.
The data shows that the first 10 event nights of HHN 34 offered the best conditions of the entire season.
Go on a Wednesday. Seriously.
The weekday effect in this data is not subtle. Wednesday and Thursday event nights ran approximately 15 to 25 minutes shorter per house compared to Saturdays. Multiply that across 10 houses and you’re looking at potentially two to four hours of saved queue time over the course of a single evening.
For FNAF specifically, the Wednesday average was around 102 minutes versus 119 minutes on Saturdays. That’s nearly 20 minutes per visit, which, compounded across the top three high-demand houses alone, adds up to nearly an hour. For the lower-demand houses, the weekday effect is smaller in absolute terms but means the difference between a 30-minute wait and a 25 minute wait. This event is huge and even those 5 minute differences are adding up.
The worst nights were unambiguously Saturday evenings in late October. The closing night of HHN 34 (November 2, a Sunday) posted the highest overall averages of the entire season, with FNAF at 127, Terrifier at 135, and Jason Universe at 127. Closing night brings out the die hard fans, the locals and the people who really connected to a house or one of the experiences. Everyone wants to say goodbye, and the majority are going to go to their favorite house, or street experience at 2am to send HHN off with what is important to each own.
The previous Strategy for Doing All 10 Houses in One Night
A 7.5-hour event sounds like plenty of time for 10 houses, but the math gets tight fast if you’re visiting on a busy night. The data points to a clear optimal order. Remember, we are still talking about last year at this point. So using this data, we can predict a pretty reliable method to the madness.
Sprint to FNAF the moment gates open at 6:30 PM. In the first 30 to 45 minutes, waits are at their lowest point of the entire night. Guests are still parking, still buying merchandise, still orienting themselves. This window is your only shot at FNAF in under 60 minutes on a non-opening-week night.
Hit Terrifier and Jason Universe next, between roughly 7:30 and 9:30 PM. Both houses follow FNAF’s demand curve, they build quickly through the evening and hit their worst waits around 9 to 11 PM. Getting them done before that window is the difference between a 75-minute wait and a 130-minute one.
Fallout, El Artista, Galkn, and Dolls are your mid-event houses. They averaged 49 to 53 minutes across the season, which is manageable throughout the night. Use them as breathers between the high-demand sprints.
Save Grave of Flesh, Hatchet & Chains, and WWE: Wyatt Sicks for after midnight. These three consistently posted the lowest waits of any house, and after midnight, those waits dropped even further. Grave of Flesh regularly hit its minimum readings between midnight and 2 AM. On a mid-season Wednesday, these three houses were essentially walk-ons in the final hour.
On the best night of HHN 34, September 16, a Tuesday, the overall average across all houses was just 54 minutes. On that kind of night, a motivated group can complete all 10 houses with time to spare. On closing night? The same task would require skipping lines entirely or buying Express Pass.
Now remember, that was the worst case scenario. That assumed you had no express and were not in the park for stay & scream. You could definitely do it faster if you did.
What HHN 35 Should Look Like
The HHN 34 data gives us a solid baseline for predicting 2026. The IP-versus-original gap will persist, it’s not a quirk of FNAF’s popularity, it’s a structural feature of how guests prioritize their time. Whichever licensed property anchors HHN 35 will dominate wait times from opening night.
The crowd curve will likely look similar: softer in August and early September, building through mid-October, peaking at closing weekend. The weekday advantage should hold. And the late-night window after midnight will remain the most underutilized time slot in the park.
If there’s one number to take into HHN 35, it’s this: attending on a September weekday in the first two weeks of the event offers waits that are, on average, 40 to 50% shorter than a Saturday in late October. That’s not a marginal improvement. For most guests, it’s the difference between completing the full event and spending half the night in a single queue.
At this point, I can give you some predictions of what houses this year will mimic last years houses, but remember it is a prediction. I almost guarantee we can nail it down tight after the second weekend of the event. But anywhere, I’m taking my shot.
For the most popular IP houses, I think you can safely bet that Stranger Things is going to reign supreme for the entire event. It will be the hardest house to hit.
The next top IP’s I would expect will probably be Sinners, then maybe Evil Dead Burn. I think Hellraiser may fall off a little bit from there because of the smaller fan base. I feel like Ozzy might be this years Wyatt Sicks. I’m not sure, I don’t know if these younger generations care like someone from my generation will.
When it comes to the originals, this is a bit more of a wild guess, but I can give you some theories but obviously some houses really hit and some usually don’t and until we see them, well, yeah I’m just guessing.
I’d expect Jack & Oddfellow Chaos & Control to be the top original. It has the entry zone that will introduce people who are first timers to the characters and the real fan base absolutely love this duo.
I’d expect H.R. Bloodengutz next. Not the the new guests will be familiar with it or anything, but the rabid fan base will probably have a strong word of mouth on this one. Also the Sci Fi angle on Cybergoria and Invasion is pretty new. Not sure how the fans are going to react to these just yet. I do expect Madlands to be the lowest wait times of the event, and that is absolutely because I just have this weird feeling this is going to be the one, if there is one, that doesn’t quite land. Im just guessing obviously, happy to be wrong!
We have new tools
There is some great news, we have new tools that are definitely going to have a huge impact for anyone with a day ticket or purchases the $70 stay and scream ticket, assuming of course you also have admission to HHN on that same day.
Here is what we know about how it works. You will need a wrist band in order to take advantage of stay and scream. You can pick one up in the morning, over by guest relations by the entrance.
2 additional locations for wristbands will open up at 2:00pm, Kings Cross Station and by Villain Con Minion Blast.
Additionally at 2:00pm, Stranger Things 5, Hellraiser, and Jack & Oddfellow: Chaos & Control will open to guests with wristbands.
4:00pm, another group of houses will be open for queuing, not necessarily be open yet, but you will be able to queue and sometime thereafter they will open.
5:15pm Another group of houses will begin opening.
And Of course at 6:30pm, the gates open, and the event officially begins and all houses are open.
Now we don’t know which houses will open each time slot, or will they vary day by day even, we don’t know. But realistically, you should be able to do 5 or 6 houses probably before those gates open if not even more.
This plan clearly was put in place to appease the locals they upset with the changes to the frequent fear passes this year. They are providing those annual pass holders with a way to complete everything in one night without express. Of course if you have express, you can skip a lot of this, or if your even crazier, buy express for the night and then hold it until the event gets really packed around 7 or 8pm finishing as many houses as you can and then starting to use your express and repeat your favorites, or all of them for that matter. I am sure it can be done with the new operational system.
I have a feeling in our second trip, my daughter will be easy to talk into using this system to see just how much can be done in one evening. We always enjoy doing challenges together.
Anyway, as any experienced HHN fan knows, a pre visit hype list is mandatory. So here is mine.
| 10 Madland: caged cannibals. As I said when it was announced, this one just feels weird to me. If there is a house I am not in love with this year, this is the one. |
| 9 Evil Dead Burn. I heard such terrible things about the movie, so I’m just not feeling this one yet. Nothing concrete here, just how I am feeling at this time about it |
| 8 Invasion: Alien Abduction. I want to love this one, I am interested in the topic, but I just struggle to think of how its going to work. |
| 7 Hellraiser. I would put this higher but after quite a bit of thought about the property itself, I’m not sure Universal is going to be able stay true to it. It is so focused on sexuality, pain and pleasure and so forth, they cant possibly portray that as Universal. I’m sure they have an alternative plan, but to me that no longer will feel like hellraiser. |
| 6 Cybergoria. I really am excited for this one, the idea is so great, love the idea that these machines are going to keep us alive even if it kills us. |
| 5 Jack & Oddfellow: chaos and control. What is not to love about a Jack house! Truth be told, I’m lukewarm on Oddfellow, but I loves me some jack. Please have some chance representation, I said please. |
| 4 stranger things 5. I’m kind of a superfan honestly and this house would be higher, but they had struggled in the past couple of houses so given that possibility I just couldn’t move it higher up the list. |
| 3 Sinners. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this movie. It doesn’t fit with things I normally liked, but none the less I loved it. I still wonder how they will do it, considering the lack of locations in the movie that seem horror related, but Im here for it anyway |
| 2 H.R. Bloodengutz Presents: a Halloween Fright-tacular! The previous house was one of my favorites, so naturally I am using nostalgia to will this one to the top of my list. |
| 1 Ozzy Osbourne prince of darkness. Ozzy is a huge part of my life through his music. He has been with me all along as a teenager when I first started getting into music. This will hit me with feelings I wont have for the other houses as a result. |
OK, that’s my initial hype list, but Before we wrap up, just another thank you to thrill-data.com, what a great resource, make sure you pay them a visit.
