The Wizarding World Of Harry Potter Opened At Universal Studios Today

Today, Universal Studios in Hollywood officially opened The Wizarding World of Harry Potter to the public. The opening of the park comes 15 years after the first Harry Potter film made its way to the big screen, much to the delight of millions of muggles. The attraction is set to be a major draw-card for Universal Studios.

Thousands of Harry Potter fans lined up during the night, many wearing Hogwarts robes and wielding wands, awaiting the grand opening this morning and the park did not disappoint. Today the hashtag #wizardingworldhollywood is quickly growing on Instagram and Twitter allowing people all over the world to look into The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

The Harry Potter-themed park is similar to the ventures already opened in Japan, Florida, and London, but is the most advanced park to date. The Universal Studios park boasts a 360-degree 3D roller coaster, the Hogwarts castle, and Hogsmeade town complete with cobblestones and the chatter of merchants.

Thierry Coup, a senior vice-president of Universal Creative, the company’s research and development division, thinks this park will be the most popular Harry Potter park created because of the location.

“When you think about the property of Harry Potter — all seven books and eight movies — there’s no better place than the filmmaking capital of the world to have this ultimate experience,” he said.

The fictional town of Hogsmeade is one of the most detailed parts of the park. Hogsmeade was designed to make people feel like they are in the world of Harry Potter and goes way beyond the cheap thrill of a roller coaster. Hogsmeade features kiosks selling butterbeers and shops selling wands that interact with the windows of the fictional town. According to CNBC, the wands, at $50 a pop, “cast spells” on 11 storefront windows.

“Even though I’ve experienced much like this, having worked on the films, for me coming to Wizarding World is a more magical experience,” said Harry Potter actor Warwick Davis, who attended the opening ceremony.

“These environments are more immersive because you can walk into somewhere like the Three Broomsticks from Hogsmeade and it exists in reality, whereas when you make the movies these locations and sets are quite separate.”

Theme parks are seeing a bigger global demand for less high-speed thrills and more immersive experiences. Disney is also doubling its immersive experiences and has created an Avatar land, called Pandora, which is set to be open to the public in 2017. Disney has also designed two Star Wars lands, each 14 acres, for Disneyland in Anaheim, California, and Disney’s Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World in Orlando. Last month a Dubai park also announced that it is building 27 rides based on movies as straightforward roller coasters are not enough to thrill consumers any more.

Tickets to the Harry Potter-themed park opening sold out online days ahead of the opening event on Thursday morning, forcing Universal Studios to halt all online sales for the first time ever. The high demand for Harry Potter, years after the books and films were released, is not easing, which is why Universal Studios Hollywood spent four years and remade 75 percent of the park’s footprint to incorporate more Harry Potter-themed areas into the park.

According to CNBC, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is projected to help boost attendance by 20 percent this year, a similar increase that Universal Orlando in Florida saw from its Harry Potter attraction in 2010.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter has original props from the films scattered around the park, adding to the immersive experience. Props include the luggage racks from the Hogwarts Express train, Hagrid’s motorbike, and a costume from the Yule ball, according to Gilmore, an architect who worked on the park.

“Here, we don’t have actors, we have real people. So it was very important that we at least realized the set design perfectly so that when you step into this world you feel you’re in the film.”

Despite the park not featuring the stars of the film, a lot of the Harry Potter actors were at the official opening ceremony for The Wizarding World of Harry Potter on Tuesday night, including Tom Felton, who played Draco Malfoy; Warwick Davis, who played Professor Flitwick; and James Andrew Eric Phelps and Oliver Martyn John Phelps who played the Weasley twins.

[Photo by AFP/Getty Images]