Universal's Fast & Furious Upcharge at Halloween Horror Nights

This year, Universal Hollywood opened its brand-new Fast and Furious roller coaster in Hollywood.

While the unique nature of the ride (your car spins as you move through it) makes it a novel attraction on the West Coast, hearing how they are treating admission to it is where my ears perk up.

Like many other theme parks in America, Universal Hollywood offers a nighttime Halloween event with spooky characters and frightful entertainment.

These events include both haunted houses and access to rides, which usually have shorter waits compared to daytime operations. Great if that's your one trip a year to the park.

But guests at Universal were hit with a little bit of a blocker this year.

If you want to ride Fast and Furious during Halloween Horror Nights, you have to cough up an additional $20 to $25 bucks for the pleasure of getting on.

Dang.

Spend all the money on tickets and still can't ride the newest ride?

So why are they doing this?

You got it: 💲💲💲

Universal is betting that an extra $20 a head adds up to real money without pissing off guests…too much.

They have done this before. When Nintendo World opened, its first year saw an upcharge, so there is precedent.

But is it the right move?

No.

Which is easy for me to say since I don't have quarterly targets to hit. But I keep coming back to price-to-value, and that one's a lot harder to put in a spreadsheet.

It feels like one thing. Just one more charge. The guest pays it this time, probably grumbles, and pays the next one too. By the third time they're not paying, and honestly they might just skip the trip. Good luck tracing that back to a $20 coaster add-on from two years ago.

Premium experiences should be at a premium price. But that price still needs to justify what you're delivering, and you don't get there by chipping away at it a few bucks at a time.

I'm always a big fan of giving people the chance to spend more to have a better time. Just don't make them fork up more cash to get the experience they already expected.