Orlando, Thursday, 30 October 2025.
Universal reported a 19% year‑over‑year revenue increase driven largely by the opening of Epic Universe this past May in Orlando. For retail professionals, the headline is the outsized margin on flagship, IP‑rich investments: Epic boosted attendance and per‑capita spend across the resort while unlocking licensing and museum tie‑ins—most visibly a Jurassic World pop‑up at the Natural History Museum—and sparking demand for distributed experiential formats. Operators saw gains across merchandise, F&B and hotel revenue, and expect further scaling as the new park reaches steady state. Equally notable is the parallel rise of location‑based immersive offers in UK retail centers (Holovis ApolloDomes, seasonal mall activations), showing how off‑site, permissioned experiences can extend IP reach and create new revenue channels. The result is a replicable playbook: pair one high‑impact destination with a network of curated, tech‑led activations to amplify IP value, diversify income streams and drive incremental visitation and optimize long‑term guest loyalty.