revenue growth

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.

Orlando, Wednesday, 1 October 2025.
Universal Parks posted a 19% year‑on‑year revenue jump after Epic Universe opened in Orlando in May, driven by higher attendance and notable per‑capita spending across admissions, F&B and retail — the most intriguing fact being that a single greenfield, IP‑led park delivered material short‑term payback for the parks division. For retail leaders this signals renewed investor appetite for large destination projects, pressure to accelerate capacity and branded experiences, and the need to align licensing and global marketing to capture franchise uplift. Low‑capex activations such as museum pop‑ups show how IP collaborations can extend reach without heavy capital. Operational lessons include planning for concentrated demand spikes, elevated launch‑period costs, and revising forecasting models to allow for marquee‑opening concentration effects. Finally, recent safety events at Epic’s new coaster, reported last Wednesday, underline reputational and regulatory risks that must be built into scenario planning and contingency budgets and strengthened guest‑safety monitoring systems now.