Universal Studios Fan Fest Nights Will Allow You To Enter The Worlds Of Star Trek, Back To The Future, And More

While Disney is replacing legendary theme park attractions and angering everyone with a pulse, it seems 2025 could be the year of Universal Studios. Universal Studios Orlando is set to open their huge Epic Universe expansion in a couple of months, bringing huge new lands and rides with the latest technology. Now, Universal Studios Hollywood is joining the fray with its own big news for 2025 that promises a new kind of experience at the theme park with Universal Fan Fest Nights.

Created by the same people who gave you Halloween Horror Nights, this new Fan Fest Nights event promises to bring the energy from the park's massively popular Fall event to another time of the year. Fan Fest Nights is an upcoming special ticketed event taking place after-hours and focusing on celebrating different fandoms (with no discernible connection between them). Taking place exclusively at Universal Studios Hollywood (or now, at least), the event promises to immerse attendees into hyper-detailed experiences meant to recreate and celebrate beloved franchises. There are experiences themed to "Star Trek," "Back to the Future," "Dungeons & Dragons" (the board game, not the excellent and under-seen movie), "One Piece," and "Jujutsu Kaisen," as well as a light projection show at the "Harry Potter" theme land, and the debut of Yoshi as a meet and greet character at "Super Nintendo World."

It's not quite the same as the immersion Japanese theme parks do in celebrating the artistry behind the media, but it does promise to be a cool experience for fans who want the same level of immersion the mazes at Halloween Horror Nights offer, but without the horror and scares.

Tickets are now on sale for the Fan Fest Nights, which takes place April 25-27, May 2-4, May 9-11, and May 16-28, 2025 at the Universal Studios Hollywood website. Get more details below!

Let's break down the event. First up, there's "Star Trek: Red Alert," which a press release describes as a "walk-through experience" that takes you on board the Enterprise-D during an attack by outside forces. Guests will be able to step into the ship's bridge, which is the actual set featured in the third season of "Star Trek: Picard" and see a show with special effects and even themed performers. This sounds a bit like the rather stunning "Biohazard: Night of Heroes" maze at Universal Studios Japan in 2024, which combined the walk-through format of a maze with a stunt show, as you walk through a set before standing and watching a show featuring all the fan-favorite characters from the "Resident Evil" franchise. What makes this more intriguing is the promise of a set actually used in the show, which raises the question of whether future film and TV sets could be preserved for use at future events like this.

There will also be a "Back to the Future" experience where fans will be able to take the Studio Tour tram to the actual backlot set used in the film and step right into Hill Valley, complete with a recreation of the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance and the Clock Tower lightning strike from the film.

Perhaps most intriguing is the "Dungeons & Dragons: Secrets of Waterdeep" attraction, "a one-of-a-kind adventure" wherein fans can join the Harpers to foil a plot by Xanathar the Beholder and save Waterdeep. It seems this will not be a board game experience but something even more immersive, as Universal has teamed up with Jim Henson's Creature Shop to bring Xanathar to life. (It's ironic that Universal is teaming up with the Creature Shop for a new creature right as Disney closes the very last project Jim Henson worked on before his death.)

For anime fans, there will be a zone full of visuals and characters from "One Piece," as well as a new 4-D ride at the DreamWorks Theater based on the anime "Jujutsu Kaisen."

Fan Fest Nights seems like Universal taking a page out of the Japan park, where they regularly have pop-up events that bring new shows, attractions, and areas devoted to franchises that don't already have a theme ride presence at the studio, like "One Piece" taking over the "Waterworld" stunt show. Hopefully this is the first of many such events.