In honor of the milestone, we joined a small media session with Jeff Polk, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Universal Epic Universe. Polk reflected on the park’s first year, how guests have shaped its evolution, and what the future holds for one of the most ambitious theme park projects ever built.

Whether you’re a die-hard Universal fan or simply love the art of theme park design, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.

Thank you to Universal Orlando Resort for the invitation to participate in this special media opportunity.

A Career Thirty-Seven Years in the Making

Jeff Polk has been with Universal Orlando Resort for over 35 years. That alone tells you something about what this project meant to him. Polk spent close to the past decade leading the development of Epic Universe, a project he described as one of the rarest accomplishments in the theme park industry.

“I think with this park more than any, from where we started almost 10 years ago to where we came today, we pretty much made it all the way,” he said. “We set out on a mission to do something, and then we actually accomplished that something.” He added that the recognition from peers and others across the business has been “sometimes overwhelming.”

The park’s footprint puts the scale in perspective: the Epic Universe site is roughly the same size as the combined property of Universal Studios Florida and Universal Islands of Adventure, which opened in 1990 and 1999 respectively and have been growing ever since.  “This is a long-haul proposition,” Polk said. The story of what this park will eventually become is still just getting started.

The Details Almost No One Notices Are the Ones That Matter Most

One of the most striking themes in our conversation was Polk’s belief that true immersion isn’t built through the big moments alone. It’s built through the things guests almost never consciously register.

Polk pointed to the individual roses on the scrolling ironwork at Frankenstein’s Manor in Dark Universe as a prime example: small, easy to miss, but exactly the kind of detail that makes the park feel personal. The philosophy runs throughout the entire park, from the way plants on one side are lush and alive while on the other they’re dead and withered, to the dragon transformation details woven throughout How to Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk. These aren’t accidents. They’re deliberate decisions, knowing some guests may not notice them at first. And often they don’t, until later. “They get home, they look at the photo, and they go, ‘Oh, I didn’t notice this thing was happening over here,'” Polk said.

That’s exactly the point. Polk described the park as being designed around “more intimacy, more immediate immersion, more personal attachment to the experiences in front of you,” so that guests feel like any place they are in the park is their spot, somewhere they can make meaningful to them and to the story Universal is telling.

“It makes it feel so personal and so intimate that it connects you to the place in this kind of organic way,” he said, “and makes you want to share that with others and come back and see if you can discover other things.”

Those layers of quiet detail are what Polk credits with setting Epic apart. “Those are the important things that have really, I think, really put Epic in a whole new space.”

A Layout Unlike Anything Else on Earth

Many guests describe Epic Universe as unlike any park they’ve been to before, and Polk said the layout is a big part of why.

“There’s no other park in the world that’s laid out like Epic’s laid out, where you’ve got this big central space, and then you’ve got these portals really taking you off to these zones,” he said. He clarified that while it shares some DNA with a hub-and-spoke model, “there’s no wagon wheel to go around the outside.”

Underlying all of it was a simple philosophy: “I think the stories dictate how the park should be designed.” Guest services follow the same logic, integrated throughout the park rather than clustered at the front gate, a model built on lessons learned from Universal Volcano Bay.

Celestial Park at Night Keeps Surprising Everyone

If you haven’t experienced Epic Universe after dark, put it at the top of your list.

Celestial Park is home to 7 million color-changing, individually programmable LED lights, and Polk said the nighttime response has been one of the biggest surprises of the park’s first year. “Some things that were a little bit more intense than I expected were how much people really love the nighttime lights in Celestial Park,” he said.

What struck him most was what guests chose to do with that experience. “I’ve never been in a park where people are more enamored with just being in the environment and not doing anything,” Polk said. “Guests are more than willing to just come and sit and watch versus even feeling like they’ve got to go tick all the boxes.”

It was enough to change how the team thought about operating hours. Rather than following the traditional off-season playbook of closing earlier, Epic went the other way. The reason, in Polk’s words, was simple: “Our guests want to be in the park at night.”

Water plays a big role in that magic, too, from Astronomica to the Cosmos Fountain show. Polk described it as creating moments that are Instagrammable, yes, but more than that, genuinely memorable in a way that belongs to you.

Guests Are Shaping the Characters as Much as the Park Shaped Them

One of the most delightful parts of our conversation was hearing how guest behavior has directly influenced the park’s evolving cast of characters.

“What we’re starting to discover from our guests are all these very intimate storytelling moments, like Ygor, which, who knew that was going to happen,” Polk said. Ygor is a character found in Dark Universe, and his unexpected popularity is a perfect example of how guests are forming bonds with even the smallest corners of the park. That fan love has extended to The Plastered Owl, a bar in Celestial Park that has taken on a life of its own. “We’re now producing t-shirts that have The Plastered Owl on the front of them because that’s become a thing.”

Polk said the team is paying close attention to those fan-driven moments as part of Epic’s second-year focus. “Those things we’re really trying to lean into and give that back to the fans that are here telling us that they want more and more of those sorts of end-to-end things.”

That extends to every corner of the park. The flying dragons are another guest favorite. When they appear before the showtimes of The Untrainable Dragon, Polk said it’s intentional: a hint to guests of what’s coming. New character appearances are always joining the mix, too. Yoshi has been making temporary appearances, and Captain Cacao is making his meet-and-greet public debut today, on the park’s one-year anniversary. “We just introduced Captain Cacao to the world,” Polk said, “and he’s actually downstairs right now interacting with team members.”

The seasonal experience is growing alongside it. Polk said they “added holiday decor and are probably going to amp that up a little bit more this year,” framing it as part of Epic’s broader push to build on what guests have responded to most. “We did a few things last year. We’re going to continue to add to that this year,” he said, hinting at a larger offering across entertainment, food, and atmosphere as the park heads into its second holiday season.

Live entertainment is a growing priority heading into year two. “Live entertainment, by the way, huge piece,” Polk said. “Big supporter, big believer in the ability to produce still high-quality live entertainment.” He added, “I love our two shows,” (Le Cirque Arcanus in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Ministry of Magic and The Untrainable Dragon in How to Train Your Dragon – Isle of Berk) and made clear that the performers across every world of the park are something he takes particular pride in.

Food Goes Far Beyond What You’d Expect

Epic Universe’s food program was designed to feel personal rather than mass-market, and Polk said that was entirely intentional. “We want the food program to not feel mass market,” he said, with real plates, real silverware, and seasonally rotating menus all in service of that goal. “Those things are on purpose because we want guests to feel like they’re having a very personal experience in a very large space.”

Some of those bets paid off in unexpected ways. “Mac and Cheese Cones. Who knew people were going to go crazy for those things?” Polk said with a laugh. The bar program is also expanding, with private barrel bourbons and local brewery partnerships in the works.

Balancing Attendance With the Experience Guests Deserve

Polk was candid about how deliberately Epic has managed access in its first year. “We’ve been spending a lot of time being very cautious and very purposeful about how many people we let in, what type of experience we can get them,” he said. That approach shaped the ticketing rollout, starting with single-day tickets before evolving to multi-day, multi-park options.

On annual passes, Polk was direct about the challenge: “The issue with annual passholders is a tricky one.” Universal has a large existing passholder base, and integrating them thoughtfully takes time. “We’re being very, very deliberate about how we roll those things out so that we don’t overstep our capability,” he said, while making the intent clear: “Of course, we want our passholders to have access.” Discounted ticket products for passholders are already in place in the meantime.

One-year anniversary merchandise at Universal Epic Universe

What He Hopes Guests Are Still Saying Years From Now

When asked what he hopes the second year of Universal Epic Universe accomplishes, Polk’s answer was rooted in something deeper than rides or technology.

It comes back to the details. The care. The idea that a guest can visit five, ten, fifteen times and still find something new: a piece of ironwork they hadn’t noticed, a plant they’d walked past a dozen times, a moment that suddenly clicks into place. “So even with this coming week, we’re not going out and promoting this wildly, but we’re doing a bunch of really cool first anniversary merchandise offerings,” Polk said, “stuff I’ve seen that I really want myself.”

For someone who has spent over 35 years with Universal Orlando Resort and nine years bringing this specific park to life, the opening of Epic Universe isn’t just a professional milestone. It’s the culmination of a career spent in the service of the idea that a theme park, done right, can be something truly extraordinary.

One thing’s for sure… it’s been one epic year.

There’s no better way to celebrate one year of Universal Epic Universe than by going to the park! Save on tickets with Orlando Informer.

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The post One Year of Epic Universe: Jeff Polk on the Park’s First Year and What Comes Next appeared first on Orlando Informer.