The Uncertainty of Epic Universe Multi-Day Tickets

After a quiet first few days of operation from Thursday, May 22nd through Memorial Day, wait times at Epic Universe have seen a big increase the past few days. While we attempt to track and build what capacities each for day might be, one piece of the equation is highly uncertain: the number of Multi-Day tickets redeemed each day. We think this is major reason for the increase in recent days and we will use some basic modeling to illustrate how it could impact park attendance.

The Multi-Day tickets, which make up a bulk of all Epic Universe ticket availability & totals, allow guests to choose one day at Epic, without a reservation, within a time window based on the initial start date of their ticket. The total size of the ticket bucket is tied to the first day that it can be redeemed, but the tickets don't have to be redeemed on that date. When they must be redeemed by is according to this schedule:

• 2 Day Ticket - 5 Day Window
• 3 Day Ticket - 6 Day Window
• 4 Day Ticket - 7 Day Window
• 5 Day Ticket - 8 Day Window

Until tickets are redeemed the day of, Universal won't even know the actual number since so many of the ticket windows overlap on a given day. They likely have internal modeling techniques, but those still only have a few data points to consider so far. Naturally, some days will have more guests show up, and others less. Over time, ratios will likely become more consistent/predictable, but the park is too new for that yet.

While not needing a reservation for the one day at Epic with Multi-Day tickets is great for the consumer, it seems like a planning nightmare for Universal at this stage, not knowing how many guests will choose to go on a given day ahead of time. Based on the length of the time windows and the Multi-Day ticket quantities, worst case scenarios could really see 20,000+ Multi-Day tickets redeemed or more, on a given day.

Let's do a little simple modeling, choosing the day with the highest wait times so far, May 28th, to see how Multi-Day tickets redemption rates could impact the number of people in Epic Universe. These are basic models only and are not attendance projections. It is intended to show how Multi-Day redemption rates could potentially impact total attendance, helping to explain some of the higher wait times being observed (outside of ride delays that have also been happening). Because of how the different ticket buckets overlap with different windows, the analysis will use the shortest (5 days) and longest windows (8 days) as the assumptions for the tickets for simplicity since the park has only been open a week.

This first scenario assumes Multi-Day tickets can be redeemed within an 8 day period, meaning all Multi-Day tickets sold since opening day could be redeemed on May 28th. If one-eighth of these ticket holders chose to go on May 28th (meaning an equal number is redeemed each day), the total attendance would land near 17,000.

Using the same 8 day time period, if one-quarter of ticket holders chose to go on May 28th, the attendance would balloon to over 26,000!

If we drop the redemption window down to 5 days, we get rid of the first two days of operation. Using one-fifth of ticket redeemed on May 28th, the total attendance comes out around 13,000.

If the ticket redemption rate is increased to one-quarter, the total attendance jumps up to nearly 20,000.

What actually happened is going to be a blend of all of this. Actual attendance and redemption rates will never be known outside of Universal internally. With a limited number of samples so far, it is more likely that extreme or outlier behavior might be present in the data now that will that fade into the noise over time. One last model increases the fraction of tickets redeemed from each day's allotment from opening day to the 28th. This model pushes attendance on the 28th over 21,000.

So what does this mean for your visits to Epic Universe? Some people are going to get lucky and pick a day where less tickets are redeemed. Others are, unfortunately, going to pick a day where a bunch of others go. Those that visited the first few days got to experience that, and it may never occur again! As the park works out operational kinks and improves efficiencies, wait times will likely not see the big swings we are seeing right now as attendance fluctuates. That will take time, but the park will get there.

What's the near term outlook? From the information we can gather, as of this writing, from now through June, ticket sales are being limited to some degree. July 1st and beyond, the number of tickets for sale increases. Multi-Day tickets account for around 17,000 tickets from that point and beyond. That's a lot of tickets that could be redeemed or not each day. It's important to not try to use capacity data as a crowd calendar. We've heard the backlash from the internet complaining the capacity numbers we track are wrong or unreliable without reading the many limitations associated with it detailed in the table above it. The Multi-Day tickets can cause significant variations in the number guests that actual show up on a given day. Simply picking a date with the lowest number of tickets doesn't account for the whole story, as shown in the example models of this article.

In summary:

• Multi-Day ticket redemption rates are uncertain, will vary by the day, and will impact daily Epic Universe attendance
• This will cause variations in wait times that hopefully will normalize over time as the park becomes more operationally efficient
• The number of tickets for sale increases after June