Chaos At Hogwarts Tips:
Keep watching the ticket board! You might see a familiar shiny-loving creature stealing your coins. Also, look closely at the letters. Some letters change into symbols like the Deathly Hallows.
Dont be afraid to speak up and be comfortable! The team members are SO nice and helpful. Theres nothing to be shy about. They want you to have the best time possible.
This attraction can have multiple endings, so make sure you muster up all your magical energy when you get to the end.
Accio Unreal Engine: The Making Of New Yorks Harry Potter Vr Experiences
Harry Potter
The spark of a great idea
Harry Potter Harry Potter Chaos at HogwartsWizards Take FlightHarry Potter
A pinch of Unreal Engine
A dash of interactivity
Wizards Take FlightChaos at HogwartsWizards Take FlightChaos at Hogwarts
Butterbeer Wands And Merchandise
As far as shopping goes, the building attempts to condense Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade into a two-story shopping attraction. Featuring interactive displays, exclusive merchandise, and themed areas, the wizarding store goes above and beyond to distinguish itself.
Guests can indulge their sweet tooths by browsing the shelves of Honeydukes candy shop or ordering from the Butterbeer Bar, which in addition to a souvenir cup, also offers various confectionaries such as Butterbeer ice cream and miniature Harry Potter birthday cakes. Or, after learning about different wands and their owners via an interactive display, guests can choose their own modeled after their favorite characters. Also, in addition to wares such as toys, home comforts, books, and clothing, shoppers can purchase personalized items via Things That Must Be Named.
I think the best part about Harry Potter New York is that theres something for everyone, whether youre a superfan or not, Durrant stated.
Regardless, most can expect to come home with something from the Harry Potter shop, whether its an indulged palate, something from the shelves, or memories shared when exploring the stores displays and attractions. Similar to the city surrounding it, Harry Potter New York offers a unique charm that needs to be experienced in person to understand what makes it so magical.
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Harry Potter New York Vr Experiences
We happened to be in the NYC area when the new Harry Potter VR experiences opened up at Harry Potter New York and were able to snag tickets for Wizards Take Flight!
Our flight time was for the last half hour the store was open, so we headed over right after dinner. We wanted plenty of time to shop and experience the Harry Potter store before our VR time.
One perk of getting VR tickets is that you are guaranteed entrance to the store itself. Without a VR reservation, you have to scan a QR code at the stores entrance to get a return time to come back later. This can be several hours later and there is no guarantee that youll be able to get in, especially if you scan the code later in the day. Even if you do get called back, youll have to make the trek to the store twice that day once to scan and once to enter.
There are two different VR experiences at the Harry Potter store Wizards Take Flight and Chaos at Hogwarts. In Wizards Take Flight, you fly on a broomstick around Hogwarts and London and fight Death Eaters. You wear a VR headset, hand sensors, and are seated the whole time. In Chaos at Hogwarts, you battle a variety of creatures, while wearing a VR headset, hand and foot sensors, and a light backpack. And in both experiences, you use a physical wand to cast your spells.
Head here for a great review of Chaos at Hogwarts!
Virtual Reality Experiences At Harry Potter New York
Location
Cost:
The interactive Harry Potter virtual reality experiences Chaos at Hogwarts and Wizards Take Flight can be experienced exclusively at the Harry Potter New York flagship store. The ground-breaking experiences give fans of the Wizarding World and thrill seekers the chance to explore the magical world as never before. Tickets for each experience are $37 and on sale through September 12. For tickets and more information go to harrypotterstore.com.
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Harry Potter New York Debuts Virtual Reality Experiences Review
Harry Potter New York is the first flagship Harry Potter store to open in the United States. Located in the heart of New York City, this store is a Harry Potter fans dream. According to the official website, it actually houses the largest number of Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts merchandise in the world! With the addition of a Butterbeer bar, this is the perfect stop to enjoy all the Wizarding World has to offer.
In addition to the wonderful variety of collectibles, merchandise, treats, and photo ops, Harry Potter New York has just introduced two new virtual reality experiences inside their store. We had the amazing opportunity to be one of the first to experience these new adventures!
Keep reading for our review of our time visiting Harry Potter New York and all the tips and info you need to know before making the trip!
Chaos at Hogwarts and Wizards Take Flight are the two new virtual reality experiences offered at Harry Potter New York. The two experiences use a combination of VR headsets, backpacks, and hand-and-foot trackers to give the wearers a totally immersive experience. Each attraction group can take up to 6 guests and costs $34 USD each.
Harry Potter New York Virtual Reality Experiences Realize The Magic Of The Wizarding World
A little over a month after the three-floor, 21,000 square foot Harry Potter New York opened its storefront in New York Citys Flatiron District, its giving Harry Potter and Wizarding World fans the chance to try two new magically immersive virtual reality experiences.
These newly launched 30-minute experiences are tucked into separate nooks of the store and encourage fans to step into a world of magic and interact with popular creatures, characters and locations from the Harry Potter series.
Customized entryways are flanked by costumed employees who lead you through your entire adventure. Before traveling into the Wizarding World, ticketholders are taken into a decorated holding room where attendees don their adjustable state-of-the-art VR gear while receiving instructions on how to navigate through your upcoming journey.
This is also where you learn how to cast spells and select your own avatar who will sport your chosen Hogwarts house robes. As you get ready, big Harry Potter fans should keep their eyes peeled for the various easter eggs hidden within these holding areas, where recreated props, posters, signage and more rest on shelves or in lockers, and along with the room and hallway walls.
While the headsets provide a 360-view of every scene youre in , the immersive elements in Wizards Take Flight and Chaos at Hogwarts set this experience apart from other VR.
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UP NEXT
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Diagon Alley Mini Backpack
$75.00
Get ready for your next year at Hogwarts with this stylish teal colored miniature backpack from Loungefly. Everything you could expect to see on your shopping journey to Diagon Alley can be found here! Potions, robes and other magical supplies adorn the all-over print of the main body of the bag, while stunning die cut artwork of textbooks, an owl and the Sorting Hat feature prominently on the front pocket. From the exquisite stitching to the Hogwarts crest charm zipper tab, no detail of this backpack has been left untouched!
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Tucked into separate nooks of the store, customized entryways for each VR experience are flanked by costumed employees who lead you through your entire adventure. Ticketholders are first taken into a decorated holding room, where they don their adjustable state-of-the-art VR gear and receive instructions on how to navigate through their upcoming journey. This is also where youll learn how to cast spells and select your own avatar who will sport your chosen Hogwarts house robes.
Big Harry Potter fans should keep their eyes peeled for the various Easter eggs hidden within these holding areas, where re-created props, posters, signage and more rest on shelves or in lockers, and hang along the room and hallway walls.
Once geared up, youll be led into the actual experience room, where the headsets will provide a 360-view of every scene and the immersive elements will help set the experience apart from other VR.
In Wizards Take Flight, youre asked to take a seat on a broom and pull out a peripheral wand that will be vital in a high-flying battle against Death Eaters. Attendees are encouraged to shout their spells while flicking their wands as they balance on their broomstick, which shifts up and down and side-to-side to help you virtually fly.
Dobby drops in briefly to assist guests before theyre given a chance to freely roam Hogwarts grounds, including around the Whomping Willow and Quidditch pitch.
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Thats one of the joys, too, particularly with Chaos at Hogwarts. While many sections are pre-dictated, or will eventually reach their conclusion whether you participate or not, others can be changed and tweaked simply by using the wrong spell at the wrong time. Its the sort of experience that demands multiple visits, just to figure out all the secrets and Easter eggs in the experience.
Ultimately, its understandable that not everyone will want to shell out $68 for two VR experiences, or want to spend an entire day of their New York vacation inside a store. However, like a good theme park ride, even with the short-ish running time, this is fulfilling experience that youll want to do again and again. And for diehards, its the chance to live out a life-long dream, and finally go to Hogwarts, or fly on a broomstick. It really is that immersive, and that good the pictures and video currently online dont do justice to actually living it.
Just dont blame the Harry Potter Store if next time you stream every Harry Potter movie, watching the films pales in comparison to living them.
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The Mechanics Behind The Magic: Creating The Ultimate Retail Experience
Bringing the dynamic Harry Potter New York attraction to life was no simple feat. The development phase alone took close to a year and a half, and involved a number of creative partners.
London-based experience and design agency Household was charged with creative concepting and execution. The team designed the stores graphics, which Durrant says required combining iconic film images and utilizing the font to capture the look and feel from the Harry Potter fan club app to connect the New York store with various Harry Potter digital experiences. Household also spearheaded the store layout planning efforts and helped bring the interior to life down to the minute details, such as the wand-inspired stairway railings.
Meanwhile, Dreamscape Immersive developed the VR experiences, while UK-based prop company Codsteaks sourced and built hundreds of props and decor items to be placed within the store. Among the most notable is the larger-than-life griffin sculpture molded from the films original prop that rotates upon the staircase. Durrant says that the griffin is one of his favorite elements of Harry Potter New York.
To help build the Butterbeer Bar, Warner Bros enlisted MinaLima, a duo of graphic designers who worked on both the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts film series. The team developed an exclusive label for the souvenir bottles sold in the bar.
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Harry Potter Virtual Reality Adventures
The Harry Potter-themed stores star attractions are two interactive virtual reality adventures.
The first is Wizards Take Flight, in which guests join Hagrid in a high-flying battle against Death Eaters.
The second is Chaos at Hogwarts, a fun adventure in which players sneak around Hogwarts on a mission to help Dobby the house elf. In particular, Chaos at Hogwarts feels like a Harry Potter story that the players are in the center of while also invoking the same quality and immersion as Universals The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. However, unlike the theme parks, its a more personalized experience that allows guests to choose their own Hogwarts avatar and use wands to capture magical creatures run amok.
Memorable locations in Chaos at Hogwarts include the Gryffindor Common Room, the shifting staircases, and the Chamber of Secrets, all ending in a final confrontation with a dragon loose in the Great Hall.
Utilizing 3-D graphics, 4-D effects, and sensors, every part of Chaos at Hogwarts and Wizards Take Flight are designed to feel real. Taking the best aspects of Universals Harry Potter attractions, both are digital story-driven journeys filled with humor, action, and the magic people love from the series.
We really wanted to bring a one-of-a-kind experience to New York, and the VR experiences do just that, Durrant said.
New Harry Potter Virtual Reality Adventures Take You Straight To Hogwarts
Part of the allure of Harry Potter and the entire wizarding world franchise is the fantasy that any one of us could find our chimney flue flooded with letters from Hogwarts, inviting us to trade our normal muggle lives for the magical school of witchcraft and wizardry. It’s why so many fans throw their money at movie-accurate wizard robes, prop wands, and all the bits and bobs that conjure the illusion of being a wizard for a day. The newly opened “official”Harry Potter store in New York City’s Flatiron district offers all that as the largest collection of Potter-themed products under one roof, but the retail destination takes that illusion further with two new virtual reality experiences offered only at this Manhattan location.
Making your way past the Fawkes phoenix model suspended overhead, the wand selection station, and the griffin statue that typically guards Dumbledore’s office , you find yourself at the entrance to Chaos at Hogwarts, where up to six people can suit up in VR gear and embark on a mission inside Hogwarts Castle. On the bottom floor, close by the basilisk winding its way around the section dedicated to the Dark Arts, is the second experience, Wizards Take Flight, which replicates the feeling of soaring over Hogwarts’ grounds and the city of London on a broomstick.
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Dancing With Dragons In Chaos At Hogwarts
The dragon smelled. That was my first takeaway from “Chaos at Hogwarts” because I was so busy being overwhelmed by this second VR adventure, which aptly lived up to its name. This one, unlike “Wizards Take Flight,” actually had us wandering through the Hogwarts halls and hidden chambers, though I imagined it looked more like us shuffling back and forth across a platform to the staff.
For “Chaos at Hogwarts,” we were ushered to the second floor and a much bigger space than “Wizards Take Flight.” The entrance was an immaculate reproduction of a King’s Cross ticket booth, with a large imposing clock behind us, and schedules of coming trains. But we wouldn’t be boarding those trains: our guide this time took us to a familiar red brick wall after we were given foot and hand sensors, a headset, and a backpack to track our movements. Once given our gear, we were brought into an industrial-looking room with a huge platform at the center that had handrails all around it handrails that would play a key part in the adventure we were about to embark on.
Despite the small spaces that they’re both held in, the VR adventures are probably the closest that Harry Potter fans would get to riding a Wizarding World theme park ride without buying a ticket to a Universal Studios park. They’re incredibly immersive, with even a little story thrown in to keep you engaged, and some hurdles to remind you that you are still bad at video games. But you could still make a decent wizard.
Harry Potter Nyc Vr Experiences
First and foremost, before you read this, please check out The Trevor Project. Read their site, learn some new stuff, share their materials, and if you can, donate to them. This project helps LGBTQ youth through hard times and helping fight back against anti-trans hatred, like the stuff JKR spews, is very important. We highly suggest reading Daniel Radcliffe’s response to Jo on their site.
Your life matters no matter your racial, gender, or sexual identity.
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Harry Potter NYC is a two-story shopping destination located south of the Flat Iron in Flat Iron District. The store features all sorts of merchandise you’d expect if you have visited the Universal parks in the past 20 years plus higher-priced items like Le Creuset cookware, jewelry, and Vera Bradley bags. This is New York, after all. Potter fans will also appreciate the exclusive MACUSA merch and HP NYC branded items . I personally bought some exclusive candles for myself and my sister. In addition to the merchandise is a small cafe selling Butterbeer at $10 a pop, Butterbeer soft serve, and other pastries.
The real unique factor are two virtual reality experiences offered at the store. One, Wizards Take Flight, is a simulated broom ride around Hogwarts and through London. The second, Chaos at Hogwarts, takes you from Platform 9 3/4 into Hogwarts as you help Doby deliver a suitcase to Dumbledore. Both experiences are booked online prior to visit and cost $34 plus tax per person.
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