Any activity that involved large numbers of people being in one place was nearly destroyed thanks to the global pandemic. Theme parks were certainly among them. Every park in the country was closed down, for at least a little while. And when they started to reopen, they were forced to do so slowly, causing that lost revenue to only begin trickling back in. However, it certainly looks like the worst is over as Universal Parks & Resorts just posted a monster quarter.
Comcast held its first quarter earnings report today and it was announced (via Spectrum News) That the theme park division saw a 152% increase in revenue over the same quarter last year, a total of $1.6 billion. A year ago, the Universal theme parks were largely open (Universal Studios Hollywood was closed until April of 2022) they were still dealing with significantly limited capacity. For Universal Orlando Resort specifically this was the best Q1 ever. It’s especially good news as Universal Orlando had to perform layoffs in 2020 due to the lack of revenue.
And while Universal Parks is certainly happy with the current results, they are setting expectations high. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said the pandemic recovery “no signs of slowing down,” indicating that the expectation is that the increase in revenue is only expected to continue for the foreseeable future. Attendance in both Florida and California is reportedly back to pre-pandemic levels.
And there certainly is every reason for Universal Parks to be excited about the future. While attendance may already be “back to normal” Universal Studios Hollywood will still be showing major growth compared to the same time last year, as we’re only now hitting the one year anniversary of the park reopening. Attendance now will dwarf what the attendance was a year ago because it was being kept artificially low to allow for social distancing and other pandemic restrictions.
On top of that, we have the fact that demand at Universal Parks is only going to increase. The first North American Super Nintendo World is set to open at Universal Studios Hollywood in 2023, and then we have the entirely new theme park, Epic Universe, expected to open at Universal Orlando Resort in 2025. The new theme park will also include its own, much larger version of Super Nintendo World.
And then you have the fact that, in the shorter term, Halloween Horror Nights are going to be here before we know it. The Halloween themed events are the most popular at the Universal parks and with the Universal Orlando edition of HHN set to begin in early September and run for more nights than ever before, we can be pretty confident it will be a massive financial success.
Universal Parks and Resorts are in a great place right now, but the future is only looking brighter. With three parks in Orlando the competition with Disney is only going to get stronger and with one of the biggest brands in the world in Nintendo coming to Hollywood soon, these financial reports are only going to get better.
