The Void - Evicted

OMG! I just found out The Void was evicted from Downtown Disney (DLR) last week. How are more ppl not talking about this??!!?? The Void is amazing! There appears to be conflicting reports about why - lack of business from COVID / Misuse of IP.

Idk what this means for the future of The Void at Disney Springs (WDW) or the IPs they are allowed to use. I do know that Star Wars: Secrets of The Empire is by far the most immersive thing I’ve ever experienced. (I know we throw term “immersive” around a lot, but I mean it here!)

My wife, who only kinda likes the parks absolutely LOVES The Void. Heck it was the thing she was looking forward to doing most on our future DLR trip.

OT / Related - I spent a couple years working at Laser Tag / FunPlex birthday party places. The Void would be a franchise goldmine for this type of thing. I’d seriously buy-in and operate one. (I’ve got the experience and passion)

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We were to experience The VOID for the first time for our May (now August) trip, except that it is now closed. The question is if The VOID will ultimately re-open in Disney Springs or not due to this. Anyhow, it is one of the (now many) experiences my DS18 wanted as part of the graduation vacation that has been taken away.

Yeah… I was checking to see what is going on in Orlando. It doesn’t look good.

Seems like the company was already in financial trouble before spending all the extra to buy the IP rights to Disney properties. The COVID shut down seems to be the nail in the coffin.

While it was awesome to blast Stormtroopers, you could do this experience without the IP. There are plenty of generic themes you can apply.

“Space Adventure” / “Pirates” / “Knights & Wizards” / “Jungle Explorer” / “Secret Agent”

(If you can’t tell, I’ve been thinking about it for too long.)

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We loved doing Star Wars at The Void. It was amazing!

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Void can’t use any marvel IP on the east coast thanks to Universal, but this mentions the Star Wars one they’re not allowed to use either.

Weird how it’s suddenly in violation…?

I know… right? There’s so little info / news. It’s like they did it in while no one was looking.

All I can find is this:

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Wow, that is too bad. We also loved our trip to the Void when we were at Disney Springs. I always saw it a an extension of the SW theme to a spot outside the park. And we’d also go if it wasn’t SW. Hopefully, that one will pull through.

I don’t know much about these things but from a business perspective I would have thought Disney could have been a bit more generous with them- it’s complementary to the parks, a SW attraction they didn’t have to run located in Disney Springs. It expands the theming without costing them anything.

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OMG I am so sad!
It was one of our favourite experiences on the last trip.

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Aw man! So much for “we’ll do it next trip.” I guess we should have done it while we were at WDW in January. Assuming it also doesn’t open in Orlando.

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Same! We’ve always thought it looked fun (at Downtown Disney) but never had the time or wanted to the spend the money or both. It was always … maybe next time.

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Ah, that stinks - so many people said it was great.
Maybe another company will be able to pick up the pieces in the future.

Very sad about this. We should’ve been doing it for the first time last Wednesday.

Intrigued about the licensing issue though. It’s not like they were sneaking some IP in and hoping Disney wouldn’t notice. They were ON Disney property. I’d have thought any licensing they had to do would be watertight. Very strange.

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A lot of these licensing deals give Disney the ability to pull their IP for any reason. It doesn’t have to be because anyone was in breach.

There is the possibility Disney has their own plans for this, but that’s just specualtion.

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I was listening to a podcast this morning. They said the void had “mortgaged” its equipment. During the closure they defaulted on the loan. Disney’s license in non-transferable. The notice is their legal notice that the new owner (Of the Void trademark) can no longer Use their IPs.

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Thanks for the update! It is such an amazing attraction! Someone will do something with it some day.

I worked, for a short time while in University, at a very large family entertainment / miniature golf center. The owner would often sell / rent space to similar business to operate on the grounds - Laser Tag / Golf Driving Range / VR / etc… The new business would spend a lot of money getting that business going which they often didn’t make back for a very long time - if ever. They eventually would want to shut down / go out of business.

The owner, of the complex, would then buy all the equipment & etc… at a fraction of the price from them & operate it themselves. It was very smart - IMHO. They now have the largest fun center within 100s of miles.

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Thanks for that background! Often when I read an article reporting issues like this, the site doesn’t have the business acumen to understand what’s going on so what really happened is lost in translation. This actually makes a lot of sense.

Perhaps this is what Disney will do as well?