The Next IP for Islands of Adventure... Crappy Benches?

Every time I get in the middle of an online discussion of what’s next for Universal Studios Islands of Adventure, I see a lot of suggestions about Pokémon or Zelda or DC Comics or One Piece or SpongeBob or Wicked… And with the Lost Continent section having been bulldozed for a replacement, those all have serious positives and negatives. But I think there may be another idea that at least a small portion of Lost Continent could be used for.

This is largely based on personal experience rather than collected data, not a huge surprise since I don’t work for Universal and have no data collected. But last year in October, I went to all three Universal theme parks (no Volcano Bay). And the experience was great, with immersive lands and fun rides. But there was a noticeable issue in Hogsmeade. My little group of four reached the Harry Potter area, and two of us wanted to ride Hagrid while the other two just wanted to sit and wait. It was the second day of an intense vacation that had included Halloween Horror Nights the night before.

So, while my wife and daughter headed into the queue, my son and I looked for a place to sit. This is where the nightmare began. Hogsmeade was overflowing with people. The line for Three Broomsticks bled out into the street in front, people poured in from the empty Lost Continent area and the Hogwarts Express, filling the walkways. Where there were magic wand activation areas, kids were flailing their arms about, forcing the walking traffic to the center of the walkway. The Butterbeer carts were another source of massive pileups in the movement of the guests. Over by the Owl Post, there was a covered seating area with a small bar that was overflowing with people. There was little ability to reach the bar, and lots of people were milling around under the shade looking for open seats.

My son and I waited there, in a seat we eventually snagged while the others rode the ride. The experience was uncomfortable, but watching the walkway was terrible, as no one had space to move, causing a bottleneck as they moved toward Hogwarts Castle. And this has stuck in my mind since I was there. Maybe this is an anomaly. Maybe I was just there on a particularly busy day. But if this is the norm, there is a big opportunity to utilize a small piece of the Lost Continent for something incredibly useful, but possibly very, very disappointing… A small area of benches… And a restroom.

So that likely sounds lame and boring and absolutely not worth the incredible value of the land. But Hogsmeade, from what I experienced, really needs a pressure-release valve for the guest flow. For those waiting for loved ones to ride any of the Harry Potter attractions or to grab a Butterbeer and have a seat out of the hot Florida sun, there needs to be a designated place that doesn’t jeopardize the ability of guests to flow through the area.

I am envisioning a multipurpose area with a lot of signage directing resting and waiting guests to the area. The area would include shade, water refills, bathrooms, benches, and wand activation squares.

So much of this is important infrastructure that must exist somewhere in the park. But the idea of it is to clear up the bottlenecks of Hogsmeade. So, removing the waiting and resting guests and creating an out-of-the-way spot for a restroom should move a dramatic amount of nonmoving traffic from the streets of Hogsmeade. But the wand activations are the sneaky part of the plan. They not only move some of the interactive spots from the busy walkways, but also give some mild entertainment for guests utilizing the rest space. Creating a small area with wand activations and a humorous variety of environmental occurrences creates a small amount of engagement in the area that mimics the entertainment Disney has been doing in places like Beak and Barrel or Trader Sam’s, allowing both the land and the guests to supply the entertainment as opposed to the cast. The purpose isn’t to create a place to sit as much as it is to make an area more attractive for resting/waiting than the middle of Hogsmeade.

There is another sneaky little benefit here. It may indirectly streamline guests’ non-immersion activities. Instead of squeezing into a small spot in the middle of Hogsmeade, waiting 50 minutes, then after leaving finding water and restrooms and spending another 15 minutes taking care of biology, the singular area promotes taking care of all of that during the wait or immediately afterward without having to search out two separate locations for bathrooms and water.

Now, of course, there will be theming and inclusion in the area… Don’t just put a steel building with toilets and a Freestyle machine; theme it all to Hogsmeade. You know, some kind of hillside training grounds for young magicians with a natural spring water source… I don’t know. That is really something for the design people to tackle.

The bigger elephant here is how can I justify additional Hogsmeade infrastructure over utilizing the area for something that actually makes money? But that is where I think there may be a big distinction as to how dangerous these bottlenecks could be, because the physical space doesn’t have to make money. It needs to increase the experience for guests or help the other areas of the park maximize their sales and attractions just enough to validate the alternate use of the space.

From my personal experience, just waiting for my party was quite exhausting due to the compact area. So, when we left and headed through the Jurassic Park area, we avoided much of the slow exploration pieces of the park. We skipped the Raptor Encounter and the Discovery Center, mostly just wanting to find the River Adventure to get away from the crowds.

That is the data I would want to measure. Of course, we would look at the effect of the extra space on customer satisfaction, immersion, wand usage, and, of course, sales in Hogsmeade. But I would also focus on the effect of the area on nearby lands. Jurassic Park and Seuss may both have a real impact by opening up the flow of Hogsmeade. What do the queues look like? How do the sales change in the nearby lands? Are there changes in restaurant bookings or Express Pass usage or just general flow through the park?

Because there is value to restrooms, there is value to customer sentiment and satisfaction, and there is often unintended value as well. So, if Universal can sacrifice a small parcel of the land to help open up traffic inside one of their most popular lands, I think it is worth at least the discussion or investigation. And, of course, if it turns out to not increase sales anywhere else, increase attraction usage elsewhere, or increase guest satisfaction by a statistically significant amount, then I’m likely wrong, I learn something, and we get the extra 1,500 square feet for another PokéStop.

But if building several benches moves stationary traffic out of Hogsmeade’s economic center and improves spending, utilization, and satisfaction throughout the other areas of Islands of Adventure, then those might be some especially valuable benches.