Ride Guys: Stardust Racers First Look was created to provide theme park fans and roller coaster enthusiasts an exclusive sneak peek at Universal Epic Universe, Universal Orlando Resort’s newest and fourth theme park opening in May 2025. Since the announcement of Epic, drone footage and helicopter shots continued to fill fans’ feeds with leaked images and videos of the park’s construction. We saw this excitement and knew we needed to satiate this appetite for any and all glimpses of the upcoming theme park by taking fans behind-the-scenes in a way that only we could, using personalities they knew and loved.
When strategizing a unique and engaging way to go behind-the-scenes of Epic Universe, an active construction site, we decided to start by giving our fans a look at the park’s most thrilling and intense dual-launch roller coaster: Stardust Racers. To do this in a way that felt authentic, we turned to our existing portfolio of content and identified Mike and Dylan, hosts of our attraction-centric series Ride Guys, as the perfect individuals and coaster enthusiasts to speak about Stardust. Prior to this, Ride Guys existed solely as a fun, "edu-taining" video series created to show and tell the need-to-know information about riding Universal’s thrilling and immersive attractions. Now, we were presented with an opportunity to leverage the format of the show and built-in fan equity and transform it to instead go behind-the-scenes of an upcoming attraction versus one that already exists — something we had never done before.
This Ride Guys episode was developed in less than two months and filmed in the sweltering Florida summer heat almost a year ahead of the park’s grand opening. In the video, viewers witness the Ride Guys tour the coaster’s construction site, see the very first reveal of the ride vehicle and POV ride footage, learn why Stardust Racers will be the most thrilling coaster in the theme park, and hear from one of the creators of the attraction in an exclusive interview.
Understanding the hype and excitement behind Epic Universe, we launched three teasers to build anticipation and wonder before releasing the entire behind-the-scenes featurette. The first teaser dropped a week before the episode’s premiere and featured the Ride Guys gearing up in construction gear without any further context. It did exactly what it was intended to do: pique viewers’ interest and tease that the Ride Guys’ next adventure was bringing them to Epic Universe. Three days before the episode launch, we released a scene from the full video revealing the first-ever visuals of Stardust Racers’ ride vehicles. This teaser was a catalyst for the episode's ultimate success as it served as proof that excitement surrounding this episode was high since it quickly went viral, garnering earned media and heavy social media chatter. Media outlets picked up the teaser, broadcast news channels covered it on television, fans were buzzing with excitement and sharing screenshots on X, and content creators were breaking it down on YouTube and TikTok. The final teaser dropped an hour before the episode’s release, providing more context of the behind-the-scenes experience viewers were about to embark on with the Ride Guys.
As a nod to coaster enthusiasts, the episode was released on August 16th, National Roller Coaster Day, and was the hero content piece of the company’s major announcement about Stardust Racers. We didn’t want the excitement to end with the episode, so we integrated its release across different Universal channels, including the website, blog, and podcast. An episode-dedicated article was shared on the blog and a podcast recording breaking down the episode and going even more in-depth with the ride creators released shortly after the video premiere to engage fans wanting to learn more. Additionally, the episode played on loop during the entire weekend of its release on big screens in our parks to provide maximum exposure.
With its high social engagement, television coverage, and headlines in the news, this Ride Guys episode was a resounding success and is currently lauded as a milestone accomplishment for our team. It was a major victory as our channel’s fastest video to ever reach over 2.4M views and is currently the most-watched Ride Guys episode for Universal Orlando with an average percentage viewed of 67.1%. This video was also our first foray into creating behind-the-scenes content for Epic Universe and allowed us to soldify the idea that we’re listening to our fans and want to be transparent them. Comments on the video included:
Our "first look" also proved that the behind-the-scenes format is something our fans want and crave. As a result, days after the episode launch, we were greenlit to produce more behind-the-scenes Ride Guys episodes featuring rides currently under construction. Plans are even underway to adapt this format for Universal Studios Hollywood and go behind-the-scenes of the theme park's first high-speed outdoor roller coaster opening in 2026.
