Everybody knows that the Halloween season is the time to visit Universal’s theme parks thanks to the iconic Halloween Horror Nights event. Last year, however, Universal Studios Hollywood began offering an equally good reason to visit in the spring with the inaugural Fan Fest Nights.
Last year’s Fan Fest Nights event was one of my favorite new theme park additions of 2025, in large part due to one particular attraction: the Back to the Future experience that let guests actually walk through the backlot sets from the film. When I found out it wouldn’t be back for this year’s event, I couldn’t imagine how it could be topped, but a new piece of information on the new backlot experience, Scooby-Doo Meets Universal Monsters, tells me that it might just do that.
Scooby Doo-Meets Universal Monsters Is Offering Even More Guest Interactivity
Like Back to the Future: Destination Hill Valley, guests will arrive at Scooby-Doo Meets Universal Monsters by taking the traditional Studio Tour tram down into the backlot. The experience will be set in the Little Europe area of the lot, where many of Universal’s classic monster movies were actually filmed.
Article continues belowThat alone makes me, a classic film nerd, excited. Fan Fest Nights executive producer Stephen Siercks also recently spoke to SFX Magazine on CinemaBlend and explained a bit more about what the story and experience of it will be like. It sounds like guests will be taking a somewhat more active role in the experience. He explained…
A movie production has gone wrong and the Universal Monsters have been unleashed. Scooby and the gang have enlisted us to help solve the mystery. It’s part exploration, part adventure, part interactivity. You’re solving clues to see if you can find out who is the culprit. At the very end, just like every Scooby-Doo episode, there’s that moment where there’s the unmasking of the villain.
While the setup is pure Scooby-Doo fun, the part that caught my attention is the “solving clues” that will apparently see guests trying to figure out who the culprit is, ahead of a classic Scooby-Doo unmasking moment. While it’s not entirely clear how this interactivity will work, I am very excited for it.
I can’t imagine the interactivity elements will be too complex. There will be dozens of people walking through this experience every minute. It’s not likely to be like an escape room with puzzles to solve. Still, the fact that there is any sort of interactive element to this at all is fantastic, and the fact that whatever it is will be implemented on such a large scale is potentially fascinating. I can’t wait to see how it works.
The Rest Of Fan Fest Nights Is Looking Equally Fun
While the Back to the Future part of Fan Fest Nights isn’t coming back, one piece of last year’s event is returning in Dungeons & Dragons: Secrets of Waterdeep. The experience includes a massive animated figure of D&D’s famous beholder creature, designed by the Henson Creature Shop, that must be seen to be believed.
Other announced experiences include One Piece: The Grand Pirate Show, which will take over the Waterworld stunt show stage; the Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon the Miracle: Moon Palace Chapter Deluxe, which previously had only been available at Universal Studios Japan; a selection of colorful Yoshi characters in Super Nintendo World; and a new walkthrough experience in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Forbidden Forest: A Search for the Hippogriff.
We’re also expecting to see Jurassic World: Journey Through the Eras. The walk-through experience recently opened at Universal Studios Hollywood to little fanfare, which is believed to be a technical rehearsal for Fan Fest Nights, though it hasn’t been officially confirmed yet.
Expect even more announcements for this year’s event. Tickets for Fan Fest Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood are currently on sale, and the event runs on select nights from April 23 to May 16.
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