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Universal Studios underestimated Happy Valley

On Beijing Metro Line 7, the train bound for Global Resort will pass through two amusement parks. However, you will soon find the difference between them: wizards with big bags and magic robes will sit at the terminal, while those who travel lightly choose to get off at Happy Valley Scenic Spot Station.

What impact does the grand opening of Universal Studios have on Happy Valley, which has dominated Beijing for many years? At present, it seems that the positioning of the two parks is different, and there are some differences in customer groups. At least during the Mid-Autumn Festival when Universal Studios opened, beijing happy valley was also exposed. On the third day of the holiday, the number of visitors increased by 80% compared with 20 19, and the business income increased by 260%, breaking the previous single-day record.

Who put Universal Studios aside and chose to play in Happy Valley is not only an interesting question, but also related to the rise and fall of Happy Valley since then.

Text | Li Xiaoqu

Edit | Zhao Lei

Figure | Li Xiaoqu (except signature)

Happy Muggles in 399

The day before the long holiday is often when there are relatively few people in major scenic spots, but on September 30, Happy Valley is still noisy.

In the official introduction, Happy Valley is divided into dessert kingdom, Aegean port, Shangri-La, lost Maya Atlantis and other regions. In fact, these themes only represent a kind of decoration style, which is not as big a difference between Transformers and Minions, and there are no representative symbols. In the official recommended strategy, the route is divided into challenge category, parent-child category and network celebrity punching category. Projects are divided according to landing, interaction, swing, speed and rotation, and the theme is not important.

This is a world without magic, Minions and Megatron, but you will bump into groups of happy Muggle children at any time and wait in line for 40 minutes to get a KFC meal.

If you ask tourists why they choose to come to Happy Valley, the two reasons you hear the most are: the annual card has just been issued and it is about to expire. Kaiyuan applied for the annual card at the end of last year 10, and September 30th this year was his second visit-it was too far away, too troublesome and no one to accompany him, all of which became the reasons to discourage this Haidian college student. One week before the expiration of the annual card, he finally found his schoolmate, with the goal of brushing all the roller coasters in the scenic spot.

After entering the park, he wanted to renew the fee: his schoolmate read the advertisement at the entrance and got an annual card.

The annual card with a price of 399 yuan is the best-selling sales model in Happy Valley: the eye-catching slogan-+100 peak, +200 waves a year, can be seen everywhere, just opposite the subway station, at the gate of the park and in every rest area in the park. Pan Pan decided to upgrade his annual card only after he entered the park. I thought, "I'm here." You can get your money back after playing twice. It is best to apply for an annual card.

Maybe the wool is on the sheep, but compared with Universal Studios with a single-day ticket of 628 yuan and Disney with an annual card of 1599 yuan, this sheep is at least inexpensive. Bonus hunter's other two ways are evening performances and birthday tickets. Before 202 1, Happy Valley has introduced a lower-priced evening ticket-1admission after 7: 30, and the ticket price is between 49.9 and 79.9, which enjoys the same rights as the pass. In addition, visitors can enter the park free of charge on their birthdays, and 1 companions can enjoy a preferential price of 265 yuan.

With these promotion methods, Happy Valley has attracted many sticky local tourists. Pan Pan recalled that in Happy Valley in the off-season, there were many male tourists in their thirties and forties who spoke Beijing dialect. On the musical roller coaster, a man walked with them. Before each dive turn, big brother will give a warning in advance, "there will be weightlessness here" and "it will be reversed soon". When waiting in line, Big Brother told Pan Pan that he was familiar with the models of each roller coaster in Happy Valley and knew which roller coasters were the first in China and the best in XX. He said that he had played every roller coaster at least dozens of times.

Father or mother with a child is the most common combination in the park, and sometimes a parent with four or five pupils is seen. Parents call this situation a student on duty: there are often classmates holding annual cards together and coming to the party every holiday and weekend when there is no class. For parents in Beijing, time is the scarcest resource, so it is the most economical strategy for parents to take their children to play in turn. In front of more exciting projects such as the wings of the Sun God car crystal, most of the queues are minors. They often run to the door to queue up again immediately after the project is completed, and sit for several times before giving up.

Teenagers are the most loyal tourists in Happy Valley. A parent told People magazine that my son was very excited after Universal Studios opened, because Happy Valley finally didn't have to wait in line: for a boy of 10, Harry Potter is no more attractive than hanging roller coasters and jumping machines, and my children have never seen Transformers, a once phenomenal IP, which we watched as children, not theirs. Up to now, they have been to Happy Valley for more than a dozen times, and the children enjoy it, but the schedule of Universal Studios has been put in the distant future: wait until the network celebrities who punch in the cards leave and the queues are less.

A kingdom trapped in the whirlpool of time

If you have been to Happy Valley ten years ago or earlier, you will get a wonderful experience on your way back: time flows here at an incredibly slow speed.

Even if new performances and activities emerge one after another and amusement equipment is updated, the cultural atmosphere of Happy Valley is indestructible, just as it was ten years ago: there are hawkers from mechanical female voices near each rest area, where you can taste and choose new foods; The most common foods are fried squid from 30 yuan and sausage from 8 yuan. The stalls at the intersection are all portraits of real people, fortune-telling names, and balloons win dolls.

A staff member told People magazine that except for chain brands such as KFC and Forrest Gump Cucui, all the other projects were operated by Happy Valley, and the skills of fortune-telling and fried squid were firmly passed down in the form of mentoring.

Allen Brideman, a British sociologist, described the management characteristics of theme parks represented by Disney in his book Disney Storm: first, themed, decorating the space with stories; Second, mixed consumption, including shopping, sightseeing, movies, competitions, restaurants, hotels and other different levels of consumption; The third is to authorize commercialization and promote goods through IP operations; The fourth is the performance labor force, and front-line personnel do a lot of emotional labor.

In contrast, Happy Valley is almost the opposite of these characteristics-it doesn't buy any mature and well-known IP, there are few actors, and the rotation system is adopted. It doesn't need actors to replace roles, just wear specific clothes and take photos with passers-by. Kaiyuan said that when he and his younger brother wanted to make friends, they found that there was no place in the park where they could take photos and punch in: they were either too cartoon or old ... We wanted a graffiti wall like 798, which felt a bit like a street, but most of them were embarrassed.

The lack of themes and stories makes Happy Valley unusually silent on the Internet: although it will also look for activities such as fashion and lifestyle KOL to promote music festivals and cultural festivals, its sound volume is still not as good as that of IP with its own traffic such as Minions and Mickey Mouse.

In addition to the annual card users, another identity of Pan Pan is a fashion blogger. She once received the promotion task of Happy Valley PR: to enter Happy Valley for free, take photos at the designated punch point, and write a travel experience of 100~200 words. Rewards are the same as other promotional activities in the Discovery Store. She heard that some bloggers in the circle got corresponding promotion when they were tested in Universal Studios, and the price was higher and the requirements for bloggers were higher. Millions of fans are the most basic, and there may be requirements for fan activity and blog theme. As for Disney, most people pay for it themselves. They can't get tickets, so they don't need publicity for a long time.

Keeping a low profile doesn't mean not making money. Happy Valley is an industry owned by OCT Group. Its original intention was to build the first cycling equipment theme park in China, which was different from the static theme parks such as splendid china and Window of the World in China at that time. 1998, shenzhen happy valley officially completed; In 2006, beijing happy valley was completed, realizing chain operation. In the following ten years, Chengdu, Shanghai, Wuhan and Tianjin Happy Valley opened their doors to welcome guests one after another, and formally established a group operation in 20 18.

According to official data, beijing happy valley alone has received nearly 50 million tourists since its opening. According to the Report of Theme Parks and Museums in 2020: Visitors Report of Major Attractions in the World jointly issued by the American Theme Entertainment Association and AECOM Economic Consulting Team, beijing happy valley has ranked among the top 25 theme parks in the world, with the number of visitors reaching 5180,000 in 2065+09, with an increase rate of 29.6%. Beijing, Shenzhen, Chengdu and Shanghai received tourists 16 1 10000. According to Snowball's forecast, its revenue may reach 4.8 billion yuan.

Rick Solberg, general manager of Cunningham Group in China, once mentioned in an interview that 80% of China theme park's income depends on tickets and 20% on retail. However, in foreign countries, 30% of the revenue of theme parks is tickets, 30% is retail, and 40% is catering and accommodation.

According to statistics, the tickets of Disneyland 1 yuan can boost the consumption of 8 yuan, and 70% of the income comes from the secondary consumption of souvenirs around. Happy Valley is obviously in a weak position in this respect, but its parent company OCT focuses on the cultural tourism+real estate model, and the goal of secondary consumption is by no means souvenirs: the research report of Southwest Securities shows that OCT can cooperate with the government to develop cultural tourism business, win surrounding land at a low price, and increase the premium of its real estate itself through cultural tourism projects. The appreciation of house prices and real estate is a more secret and firm way of income than Starbucks' ears and interactive wands.

Happy Valley with infinite joy.

Happy valley doesn't want IP. In 20 16, Happy Valley spent 30 million yuan to buy the original animation IP of Cookie Sheriff from Jiangtong Media, and began to build a dessert kingdom paradise with the image of Cookie Sheriff as the core. Zhao Xiaobing, head of the chain brand innovation working group of Happy Valley Theme Park, said that toys, books, stationery and other derivative products will be developed in the future, and big movies will be developed in the future. Since 20 18, Happy Valley has successively launched cultural festivals with the theme of hip-hop, animation, fashion and national style. This year, I also signed a contract with Kankan Comics to introduce the characters in works such as My Male Ticket is a Royal Guards and Poor Father and Daughter into the park, taking them as the spokespersons of the secondary image.

However, the landing effect of these IPS is not satisfactory: most tourists who take pictures in the dessert kingdom have never seen relevant animations, and they take pictures here just because they are good at making movies. Happy Valley is also introducing my national brands such as Huang Wanshui and Beijing Opera Cat, and releasing joint souvenirs of Happy Valley. However, according to the clerk, the best-selling blind box is 89 yuan's Sen Zhi Elf series, which is a national brand deeply loved by primary and secondary school students and has nothing to do with Happy Valley.

Zhou, the founder of Jingjian think tank, said in an interview with the Beijing News that it is not easy to cultivate a local IP from scratch in Happy Valley. IP is a heavy asset, with public awareness, premium ability and clear intellectual property rights, so it can be called real IP. It is difficult to build IP, which is not only the economic cost, but also the time cost and opportunity cost. The biscuit sheriff has no time to precipitate and no heavy money to cultivate, so it is difficult to become an explosion.

Fortunately, Happy Valley does not need stardust, Mickey Mouse or Minions for drainage, and it will not be easily defeated by time and magic.

Although the road to IP is not smooth, Happy Valley has its own iterative logic: the eight Happy Valley built in China are all built by stages, of which Shenzhen has been built to the sixth phase and Beijing Phase VI project has been started. The concept that Happy Valley has built for itself is that every few years, Endless Happy Valley and Endless Happy Valley will be upgraded in a large scale and in all directions, and the riding equipment in the park will be updated, with thrilling projects and family fun for young people as the main focus.

In addition to increasing exciting projects, the convenience of geographical location is also a competitive advantage that cannot be ignored in Happy Valley.

Feifei is a college student who lives in Changping, Beijing. Both he and his girlfriend have Happy Valley annual cards. During the postgraduate entrance examination, they often set aside a working day to go to Happy Valley to play night shows. No punching, no shopping, just go to various roller coasters for a few laps and then go home to relax. It takes 4 hours to go back and forth from school to Happy Valley. It starts at 3: 00 or 4: 00 in the afternoon, and when you come back, just turn off the lights. The average consumption does not exceed that of 300 yuan. The schedule of Universal Studios is arranged further away. After the exam, he calculated an account for someone. He must check in one night in advance when he goes to Tongzhou, plus buying wands, magic robes, meals and tickets. Per capita consumption is at least 1000, which is equivalent to a short trip.

For family card users, Happy Valley is more convenient. A construction engineer who lives near Shuangjing told People magazine that due to his busy work, the only chance for him to get together with his daughter is the Happy Valley Night Show: when there are no projects, he will get off work one hour early and play with his children for two or three hours. Even on weekends, he can play five or six projects. His daughter likes roller coasters best. Every year, as their daughters grow taller, they can play more roller coasters. After Universal Studios opened, my daughter showed only a slight interest in Minions, but immediately gave up the idea of playing after hearing that there was no bigger roller coaster.

He told people to renew the Happy Valley Annual Card and not consider going to Universal Studios for the time being. He described this mentality as a sense of home-when you go to an amusement park and get familiar with every project, you will feel that it is yours.

Happy valley's side b

As a paradise with more fun attributes than IP attributes, it is obviously different from Disney and Universal Studios in that the smiling culture of Happy Valley is not outstanding. There are few staff in charge of guidance at intersections and queuing areas, and most actors are full of fatigue. Only when they take photos with children will they show relaxed smiles.

The staff of Happy Valley are divided into first-line and second-line, and only the first line will have direct contact with tourists. An employee who works as a vendor in other places said that Happy Valley has signed agreements with many universities in Hebei to transport front-line staff every year. Most employees can get the opportunity to stay, but few stay-before coming to Happy Valley, this employee had never been engaged in any service industry and could not cook. His major at school is computer, and another colleague's major is auto repair.

As for the salary, employees and interns are treated equally-the first-line salary is generally around 2,000-4,000 yuan, with free dormitory and monthly meals in 300 yuan. This employee told us that the dormitory in Happy Valley is very shabby, and it feels like it was built when the park was opened and has not been renovated. There is a dormitory for 8 people, and there is a water room and a public toilet on the first floor. There are three canteens, and the two canteens that frontline employees often eat are near the scenic spot. One meat and one dish does not exceed 10 yuan, and the taste is not bad; The canteen for second-line employees is near the office building far from the scenic spot. It is said that food is better and the price is more expensive.

One of the benefits is that employees can go to Happy Valley after work hours-as long as you show your work certificate, you can take the Rishen car 10 times. In the first week of coming to Happy Valley, employee Wang Yong played all the exciting projects with his colleagues. By the second week, he lost his enthusiasm for roller coasters. He watches it every day and passes by every day. He's too familiar to be interesting. Instead of playing in Happy Valley indefinitely, he wants a complete rest day: front-line employees have a rest every week 1 day, and most of the time they don't have to work overtime, but the specific working hours are arranged by the foreman, and Wang Yong can only know his rest time one or two days in advance. I feel that my life is fragmented and all the arrangements are in a mess.

Compared with becoming a full-time employee and working part-time in Happy Valley, it is a short and wonderful experience.

Gao Xiao worked as a part-time NPC (non-player role in role-playing) in Happy Valley for 4 years. Halloween is the biggest activity in Happy Valley all year round. Held every June 10- 1 1. Many college students will be hired temporarily. Those who wander in the park are called ghosts, while those who are better and experienced will be assigned to various haunted houses, such as NPC.

Halloween NPC enters the venue around 5 pm. They are forbidden to play sports, but they will get a pass as welfare after their part-time job. The salary of a part-time job is about 100 yuan/day. How much money is less is not the point: tourists and NPC are young people, and friendship, love and kindness of strangers will happen on these nights.

Gao Xiao once mentioned in Weibo that she would have a sore throat in the second half of the year, and some tourists specially sent her golden throat tablets; It is also common for NPC to exchange contact information with tourists. Gao Xiao met girls who chased Weibo from reality, and heard that they became several couples after Halloween every year. The only bad experience is that tourists occasionally hit NPC after being frightened, and Gao Xiao was injured by tourists. When she came back the next year, she heard a circular broadcast in the queuing area: Please don't hit the staff.

20 19 is Gao Xiao's last part-time job in Happy Valley. She was assigned to the haunted house jointly owned by Happy Valley and the mobile game "The Fifth Personality" and dressed as the game character butterfly. NPC training lasts 1-2 days. The planner of the haunted house introduced the plot and characters and taught her simple dance moves. Gao Xiao mentioned that unlike Universal Studios or Disney, NPCs in Happy Valley have no fixed words, and the staff only roughly assign roles according to their personalities. The rest are NPC's free play, and the most popular ones will be named Ghost King and Ghost King of the Year.

The appearance of NPC is not terrible, mostly facial painting, headdress and exaggerated secondary clothing. The better-looking characters are, the more sought-after they are. Every year, Happy Valley NPCs from all over the country board the hot search because of their good looks. Gao Xiao mentioned Gan, a draft player who once worked as an NPC in Changsha Window of the World-there are many handsome guys every year, and the flow of people in Happy Valley is so large. Can you become a big star again?

Perhaps, the project or IP is not the most important thing in the amusement park: as night falls in Happy Valley, girls begin to take selfies with luminous headdresses; Young men and women in school uniforms are holding hands and laughing and being booed under the cover of a group of people; Children are interested in the treasure of Odyssey.

Just like shopping in Xidan, every brand can be seen online, but every time you go, you will always be happy with different people at different times. Pan Pan said.

(The interviewees in this article are all pseudonyms)