During the blooloop Festival of Innovation 2025, industry leaders discussed innovation in thrills, or how to excite theme park guests, focusing on experiences like Halloween events and roller coasters.
In the Innovation in Thrills session, Lora Sauls, assistant director, creative development and show direction at Universal Orlando, spoke about how the company keeps Halloween Horror Nights content fresh each year and how important it is to listen to what guests want.
She was joined by John Burton, senior creative lead at Merlin Entertainments, who spoke about Merlin’s Halloween offerings and how challenges with Hyperia – Thorpe Park’s newest coaster – drove innovation.
Innovation in thrills: meet the experts
Lora Sauls
Sauls leads a team through the creative process and execution of all Universal Orlando marquee events, including Halloween Horror Nights, the world’s leading Halloween event.
She joined the Halloween Horror Nights development team at Universal Orlando in 1998, starting out as “a singing and dancing Bride of Frankenstein”, she told blooloop.
“The team here at Universal Orlando, from the scenic and character designers to the show direction team that I get to lead, we just love what we do, and it really shows.”
John Burton
With a background in architecture and a passion for immersive storytelling, Burton creates theme park experiences around the world. He serves as the senior creative lead at Merlin Entertainments‘ resort theme parks division.
Burton’s recent projects include leading the design and implementation of major attractions such as Nemesis Reborn at Alton Towers and Hyperia at Thorpe Park.
Like Sauls, Burton started his career in character, but as a sheep at one of Merlin’s Sea Life aquariums.
Trends for year-round fear and Halloween events
The Festival of Innovation’s thrills session started with a look at the growing trends for year-round fear and exceptional Halloween experiences. Eerie events are no longer stuck screaming in the month of October, and when they are, they are being enhanced and improved.
Universal Destinations & Experiences is a trailblazer in this space, with a whole land dedicated to Universal’s classic monsters opening at Epic Universe this year and a permanent horror attraction coming to Las Vegas, too.
“We just celebrated 33 years of Halloween Horror Nights in Orlando,” Sauls said. “We really try not to duplicate content year over year…we try to create new content every single year, which is why people love to come to our event, specifically because there is new content every single year.”
The team at Universal Orlando listens to the Halloween Horror Nights fan base. “We love to stand at the end of the haunted houses and listen to what [guests are] saying: what they loved [and] what they were the most scared of… we really do look at all of that and build it into what we want to do for the next year.”
At the Innovation in Thrills session, Burton said the Merlin Entertainments team has also noticed a demand for “new, fresh [and] shiny” content, particularly with younger audiences.
Merlin’s Halloween events at theme parks include Scarefest at Alton Towers, Fright Nights at Thorpe Park, Howl’o’ween at Chessington, and Brick or Treat at Legoland parks.
These are created for different audiences, Burton said. Alton Towers is increasingly providing a diversified Halloween experience, or “something for everyone”, he added.
UK’s tallest and fastest coaster
Theme park thrills also come in the shape of roller coasters, and Thorpe Park is now home to the UK’s tallest and fastest.
“We haven’t broken the record for the highest roller coaster in the UK for 30 years. [Hyperia] sits at 72 metres; 236 feet tall. The development of that project has taken nearly four years and so many bits of manpower to make it a reality,” Burton said.
Challenges such as topography and height restrictions, as well as being located next to Heathrow Airport, “actually helped us drive the innovation of the product and develop something that was really quite unique”, he said.
As a result, the coaster offers “totally unique elements”, including “sensational airtime moments on the ride, which was something the UK just didn’t really have in its portfolio of roller coasters”, he said.
For Hyperia, the Merlin Entertainments team looked to America for inspiration “and the trends that were happening with the roller coaster designs across the water there”, Burton said.
“So that’s how Hyperia is now one of the most weightless roller coasters, which creates such a euphoric experience for our guests that we’ve got people who say they’re terrified of roller coasters now saying, ‘I want to go on again’, because they just love the euphoric nature of what we’re now giving to them.”
Total immersion at Halloween events
Trends to watch in the scary space include theme park-wide immersion and enhanced merchandise and F&B, Sauls said at the Innovation in Thrills forum.
“We’re constantly trying to get more immersive and get richer storylines. There’s so much more that we can do to evolve [our] scare zone programme. We all know that the scare zone programme, on the streets of Universal Orlando, everyone experiences. Anyone that walks through the gates of Halloween Horror Nights will experience what they’re seeing in the streets. So that is one place that we really want to evolve,” she said.
“We are finding that our food and merchandise partners are getting very involved… and so we’re collaborating with those partners to try to do unique and different things with our scare zone programme [and] do experiences throughout the streets. We’re really trying to evolve and engage people in the streets in uniquely different ways.”
When it comes to intellectual properties (IPs) and original content for the event, Sauls said the team in Orlando aims for a 50/50 split.
“We want to make sure that even with our intellectual properties we don’t have five slashers, that we have unique and diverse characters,” she said.
“With our original content, we then can craft and really diversify the content once we solidify our IPs.”
Selecting IPs for spooky season
On selecting IPs, Sauls told viewers of the Innovation in Thrills session: “We really look across all horror… from music to films to [TV] series. We try to look at it all, because if we look at it all, it really does diversify our content and brings a new audience into our event.
“Once a new group of audience comes into the event, they are bitten by that bug, and they will keep coming back.”
Burton said: “Within Merlin we don’t have as much access to the IPs that Universal has access to. Some of the IPS we have brought in [include] people like Daz Games, who’s a YouTuber [with] millions of viewers. You’d never think there would be too much of a link, but he plays lots of horror games.
“What we’ve found is that attraction alone is actually one of the most successful attractions, and has brought in such a new audience who are getting that bug for Halloween-type experiences.”
“We’re building a lot of our attractions based on our own IPs,” he added. For example, with last year’s launch of Nemesis Reborn, Alton Towers’ transformed coaster, Merlin offered a Halloween maze based on the next chapter of the Nemesis story “but with a darker side and darker twist”, Burton said.
As for coaster trends, Burton said he’s noticing a “very clear focus on hardware”, like the world’s tallest or fastest rides. Hyperia at Thorpe Park, for example, is the tallest and fastest coaster in the UK.
Another trend, Burton said, is immersive attractions, or providing an “entire combined experience through dark ride scenes, through maybe some of the trick track elements that might be hidden within that experience”.
“I see the industry going in those two directions,” he said.
Innovation blending storytelling and thrills
Sauls is a fan of the Jurassic World VelociCoaster at Universal Islands of Adventure because it combines storytelling and a thrilling ride experience.
“I love the blend of storytelling and thrills,” she said. “That’s exactly what we do at Halloween Horror Nights. We tell stories. We try to thrill you and scare you and put you in uncomfortable situations, but always with that storyline.”
Like Merlin’s eerie expansion of the Nemesis story, Universal Orlando built on the lore of Jack the Clown, “our most popular icon for Halloween”, said Sauls.
“His story was always about Dr. Oddfellow, but we never met Dr Oddfellow,” she added. “[Last year] we decided to bring Dr. Oddfellow out of the shadows and into the light and really build upon the lore of Jack and really dig into linking a lot of our history of Halloween Horror Nights into that lore.”
Burton has also noticed a trend for “homegrown IP” like the Nemesis story or Danse Macabre at Efteling, he revealed during the Innovation in Thrills session.
Homegrown IP
“How are we taking the bits of hardware and building on that? For Nemesis, I remember the steer that we were giving and trying to drive was: how do we make it feel alive? In 1994, the technology wasn’t there, but with the innovation of new technology, through curved screens and animatronics, we were able to make [Nemesis] feel like a living, breathing creature, and tell that lore,” he said.
“Now we’ve got people coming to the park [and] cosplaying the characters that we’ve built in, which is fantastic to see, because we’ve then made that connection [with] the audience.”
“We can see that with Danse Macabre, as well… [Efteling has] taken a classic, but through the tech that Intamin has created with that room and the show, that’s really getting people to buy into… the nostalgic [experience], but also the future-facing innovation of it as well.”
Innovating for the future of fear
Universal Orlando, Sauls said, is “trying to innovate what we do every year and make it uniquely different, but yet still give [guests] the formula that they love”.
“They love a haunted house. The guests come to our event to experience these amazing haunted houses, to really dig into the storytelling that we’re doing in these haunted houses. But every year, we’re trying to be more immersive, more innovative, and we’re doing that in uniquely different ways,” she said.
“I can’t talk about what we’re doing for 2025, but we are doing some really cool things in some of our haunted houses for 2025, [and] trying to push those limits of what we have done before, and to make it a different experience for the guests, but with that classic haunted house experience that they love.”
Turning to new technologies in the Innovation in Thrills session, Sauls said: “We’re always looking for new technology to engage our guests, but still giving them that human experience. We say our characters are the backbone of our experience, and it’s because it’s that human interaction that people get when someone scares you. We know that works better.
New tech to terrorise guests
“We’ve had some of our intellectual properties in the past use more of that technical, mechanical type of scare, and it was beautiful to look at and beautiful to watch, and it really did pay homage to the intellectual property that we were working with. But really it’s ultimately that human scare; that’s why people come to Halloween Horror Nights.
“There are always ways that we’re trying to engage and immerse the guests in new and inventive ways. We’re trying to push that envelope every year.”
Burton said: “People want to come and experience these attractions in person. They can do so much at home now, and that’s what we’ve got to battle against. How do we draw them out of their homes? How do we draw a 15-year-old boy away from his PlayStation and get him into our attractions to actually experience… the IPs that they might be experiencing in their home that we’re now making a physical reality.
“[Guests] should never walk into an attraction [and] be able to [say], That’s how they made that work. The magic… should be hidden in a way. The technology should make you feel stuff and make you experience attractions in a way that [raises] the bar each time, but you don’t know how that magic is done.
“That’s how I would hope that future attractions would be, whether that’s through haptics or digital environments that are so seamlessly integrated within the physical space. That would be the future dream.”
Challenges in the thrill industry
The biggest challenge in the business at the moment, Burton said, is “people are expecting more and more”.
In response, the Merlin Entertainments creative team has to “think broader, be more innovative with our attractions, and always try and be a step ahead above the competition”.
He added: “As a fan myself, it means we are getting so many amazing attractions and experiences worldwide that really, the real winners are our guests.”
Sauls said at the Innovation in Thrills discussion: “I like to say we don’t have any challenges. We can work through anything. But one of the biggest things is that there are so many haunt events now, all over, especially in the United States, that it’s trying to get us to that next level, but giving the guests exactly what they expect. It’s pushing that envelope but still giving them that Halloween comfort food that Halloween Horror Nights is for so many people.
“One of our biggest challenges, if I had to say one, is time. [Halloween Horror Nights] is an 18-month development time, and we’re getting earlier and earlier every year so that we can have these new, innovative products, but giving people exactly what they love.
“It is [also] getting people out of their houses into our events. Once they’re there, they’ll keep coming back, as we’ve seen.”
Innovation in thrills: Universal Horror Unleashed
Towards the end of the Innovation in Thrills session, Sauls spoke about Universal Horror Unleashed – a unique, year-round horror experience created by Universal Destinations & Experiences. The new attraction opens at Area15 in Las Vegas on 14 August.
It will house four immersive areas and four haunted houses. There will also be several themed F&B locations, and a retail outlet selling collectible merchandise.
“Horror Unleashed is going to be amazing for us, and the houses that are going to be a part of that Vegas attraction,” Sauls said.
“We’re just really hoping people will want that all year round. In Orlando, we’re opening earlier and earlier every single year, because the fan base is there and they want it. We’re very excited about Horror Unleashed in Vegas.”
Images courtesy of Merlin and Universal
