Universal Orlando has doubled to tripled its daily tickets for sale to Epic Universe, raising the capacity cap by a significant degree even in the face of rising crowds, higher wait times, and increased complaints. This shares details of the change, plus our commentary about whether it really matters from the perspective of attendance and how it actually might be meaningful.
This follows hot on the heels of this week’s Epic Universe is Not Dead Anymore, which detailed the 10/10 crowd levels and average wait times of over an hour. It also covered breakdowns, weather delays, dumped queues, and reports of long lines for refunds or guest recovery on at least two of those days.
Suffice to say, the last 3-4 days have been quite the contrast to the first 3-5 days of the newest park at Universal Orlando. Epic Universe officially opened on May 22 after months of previews, and its grand opening day was the slowest ever in the park’s brief existence. The trend continued throughout Memorial Day weekend, as covered in Epic Universe is Dead.
Yesterday’s post also discussed park capacity caps, as there was otherwise no way to reconcile the low crowds of the first few days with the high crowds of the last few days. We’re following up with yet another Epic Universe report because these capacity caps are the crux of the whole conversation.
Universal Orlando has still been significantly limiting attendance. Based on leaked ticket data (pulled directly from Universal’s ticket sales engine), Universal Orlando was limiting attendance at roughly one-third of total park capacity. As we shared yesterday, capacity was roughly 12,000 to 15,000 guests through the end of June, depending upon the day.
Hard as it might be to believe given the 60+ minute average wait times and 10/10 crowd levels this past week, but capacity was being capped at a very low level through yesterday (May 30). As we’ve written elsewhere, Epic Universe will have a capacity comparable to Disney’s Hollywood Studios when operating at full tilt (efficiency, reliability, ticket sales, etc.).
This was a source of confusion in the comments to that “Epic Universe is Not Dead Anymore” post. A few different readers pointed to increased demand as a potential explanation for higher crowds. The thinking being that more schools are now out of session than last week, so it stands to reason that more tourists might be heading to Central Florida to visit Epic Universe.
The logic is sound! When it comes to organic demand, the week before Memorial Day is naturally less popular than the week that follows. Crowd levels at Walt Disney World ticked up slightly this week and, spoiler alert, the same will probably happen next week. In a normal year, that would continue through late June, when the first of two peaks of summer occurs (Independence Day is no longer the high point).
However, this is not how Epic Universe works! The capacity caps are the limiting factor, and not organic demand. If tickets are sold out, tickets are sold out. It doesn’t matter if demand has increased. It’s like if Taylor Swift and ZZ Top both sold out the same intimate venue despite one being much more popular than the other. Sure, as the band with more sex appeal, ZZ Top probably could’ve sold out the spot ten times over, whereas Taylor might’ve only been able to sell another one ticket above capacity. Doesn’t matter–the end result is the same. Or more or less the same, when you consider the resale market for tickets–that does make things a little messy. It’s a similarly messy scenario with Epic Universe tickets.
Before we get carried away with that, let’s take a look at the new Epic Universe ticket capacity caps, courtesy of Thrill-Data.com:
This is as of May 30–the change took effect yesterday, around mid-afternoon. I know this because I was looking at the same page right before the change, and refreshed it after getting a heads-up from a reader in the comments to the “Not Dead Anymore” post (thanks Tammy!).
Here’s what capacity looked like previously:
Those numbers might be difficult to discern, but the salient point is that most days went from having next-to-no availability to having 70% or more of their capacity available. This occurred by virtue of increasing the size of the ticket pool–nothing else.
Epic Universe tickets or capacity increased from ~15,000 per day to ~45,000 per day overnight.
Before we dig into whether this matters or will impact crowd levels, we should first address the “next-to-no” availability part of that. Like we said above, Epic Universe ticketing is messy. Even though capacity caps are the primary limiting factor, they’re not the sole variable.
As we previously shared, Epic Universe has had pop-up ticket availability. If you really wanted to visit the new park, being diligent on the ticketing page would’ve eventually yielded results. Just a couple weeks before opening, Universal Orlando ‘restocked’ tickets for most dates that were previously sold out. Those sold out again quickly, but various dates have become available since then on a sporadic basis.
There has also been hotel and vacation package availability, as well as multi-day tickets from time to time. Of course, that would come with the restrictive ticketing policies that are pushing away many tourists in the first place, but the point is that it was still possible for highly motivated fans to visit Epic Universe.
Most interestingly, Universal Orlando has made same-day Epic Universe 1-day tickets available, pretty much every single day since opening (see below). This is something we shared previously over opening weekend, and it’s remained true for whatever reason. The above screenshot is from today.
If you want a regular 1-day ticket, your next available option isn’t until July. Well, until tomorrow rolls around and there are, inevitability, same-day tickets available again. This is downright funny to me, as it’s a sharp contrast to the high-friction sales approach of the Epic Universe rollout that started last summer.
This is worth mentioning because it’s unlikely this same-day availability is making any difference whatsoever. I’m going to go out on a limb and say those same-day sales account for less than 5% of attendance at Epic Universe thus far. It might’ve been higher over Memorial Day weekend as word got out that the park was dead. Now that the opposite is true, there will be far fewer last-minute purchases.
The die was cast months ago with restrictive ticketing policies followed by months of previews. Very few locals are going to buy last-minute given the previews plus prohibitive pricing, and tourists mostly do not change or make plans on such short notice.
That brings us to the operative question: does Universal Orlando increasing the capacity cap for Epic Universe actually matter?! Will it move the needle on crowd levels or wait times?
Probably not. At least, not yet. Further complicating this is that there are multiple ‘buckets’ of tickets for Epic Universe. The one discussed above that’s being refilled same-day is the 1-day tickets. This is the most desirable bucket, especially for impulse buys. It’s our perspective that very few people are spontaneously purchasing 1-day Epic Universe tickets at the last minute. Even fewer are going to buy multi-day tickets on no notice!
And guess what? All of the tickets added to the capacity are multi-day. The ‘all ticket types’ inventory skyrocketed, but that’s a result of the multi-day ticket inventory increasing. Single day tickets have not budged.
Approximately zero locals are going to buy multi-day Universal Orlando tickets that offer a single visit to Epic Universe. They’ve all already been during previews, opening weekend, or are waiting for Annual Passes or Florida resident ticket deals. That’s precisely why they largely are not purchasing the limited number of 1-day tickets made available same-day (those also are not selling–we can see that from the real-time data).
Tourists would normally be more inclined to purchase these multi-day tickets, especially since the inventory was increased across the board for more distant dates in June and July. But even then, how many out-of-state visitors are going to change their vacation plans to do 3+ days at Universal Orlando?
With the way hotel and other reservations work, people are largely locked into what they’ve already booked. Upending a vacation on one month’s notice is still pretty last-minute for an out of state tourist!
It is feasible that, after reading positive reviews or hearing reports of low crowds, a tourist would spontaneously switch their plans to do a single day at Epic Universe. But 3+ days? No way. It just isn’t happening in any meaningful numbers. The cap could’ve been increased by a few hundred or a few hundred thousand, and the end result is still pretty much the same.
Ironically enough, the limiting factor in this case would be organic demand (or a lack thereof) as opposed to the capacity cap. To extend the above example, it would be like moving Taylor Swift to the biggest stadium in the United States, but pricing tickets at $999,999. Someone would bite at that price, but there’s a new limiting factor that wouldn’t exist in a normal scenario. In terms of ticket sales, the end result would be more or less the same as playing in the intimate venue.
In the Epic Universe scenario, what would meaningfully move the needle is increasing the ticket inventory to match the total park capacity, and eliminating the buckets of tickets. If the capacity exists, selling it in advance as any admission type instead of playing games. Disabling the friction, as opposed to adjusting different dials.
Ultimately, my big “concern” is that precisely this will happen. The new numbers to which the total ticket inventory has increased are not arbitrary; as I’ve written repeatedly, the theoretical capacity of Epic Universe is in that ballpark. Or at least, it was my understanding up until recently. After seeing the wait times and meltdowns of the last week, I would’ve said that Universal needs to adjust the theoretical capacity of Epic Universe downward.
Universal Orlando presumably knows all of the above; nothing I’ve written here would come as a surprise to their accountants, industrial engineers, or data analysts. Which also presumably means that they wouldn’t have made a meaningless capacity change for no reason–unless it were laying the groundwork for future changes and easier reallocations of capacity among the various buckets of park tickets.
It makes sense that Universal would prefer to sell the higher-dollar multi-day tickets, but once that doesn’t happen, it would be logical shift inventory to the single day tickets. Of course, they’ve already been doing that and it hasn’t made that much of a difference. But if they made the reallocation with a bit more lead-time than same-day, I’m betting many more tourists would bite. (If 45,000 single-day Epic Universe tickets were suddenly made available for each day with a week or two notice, our analysis of the impact on crowd levels would be very different.)
After how the last few days have played out, I would hope that those same teams within Universal Orlando realize increasing ticket allocations in such a way that increases attendance is a very bad idea. That the ramifications, both near and longer-term, would outweigh the immediate revenue captured by selling more single-day tickets. And they probably do.
However, the wildcard here is that Universal Orlando is just one business unit in the Comcast empire. The corporate overlords may be demanding higher numbers and faster ROI on their $7 billion investment without fully understanding or appreciating those ramifications. (Not that it’ll be fully revealing or transparent, but I’m looking forward to hearing commentary on the next Comcast earnings call.)
I truly do not know what’s happening here. What I am increasingly confident of is that the next few months will continue to be a veritable roller coaster of attendance at Epic Universe. I strongly suspect the park has not seen its peak wait times, and the current 73 average will be shattered with a triple-digit average wait time before the end of 2025–a prediction that has absolutely nothing to do with this capacity cap increase.
For that matter, I don’t think we’ve seen the last of the incredibly low-lows, unless Universal pulls the AP lever too soon–a move that would cement the 100+ minute average wait time prediction. The only thing that’s predictable is unpredictability, which was one of the big reasons Why You Should Skip Epic Universe and wait until 2026 to visit.
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YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think of Universal Orlando more than doubling the capacity caps for Epic Universe? Do you think this will make a difference on attendance, or will it not matter unless those are reallocated to the 1-day ticket bucket with a bit of advance notice? Do you expect this roller coaster attendance to continue throughout the summer? Agree or disagree with our analysis? Any questions? We love hearing from readers, so please share any other thoughts or questions you have in the comments below!