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Humor me as I trip down memory lane for a bit... Most know that the park gave behind the scenes tour to Acer's and members of Dafe when they were loading out PT late in the season after its closure... But in addition, I was fortunate enough to "play" (park personnel supervised - of course) throughout the building during conversion of PT to Scooby. Although it broke my heart to see things in shambles, junk piles, tossed into garbage cans etc (aside from the animatronics - which were all gathered into the maintenance bay in one big bunch.) it was pretty cool to actually handle the props & figures. When they cleared out PT - it was done in stages. They first removed all the figures. then removed all major props (like the cannon, gargoyle, furnace etc) Most of what remained were the wall props, signage, antiques, small chandeliers etc. Those all were literally thrown into garbage cans & dumpsters. I've got a slew of pics somewhere - but here's a handful I found on an old thumb drive. Bear in mind these were taken on a really bad digital camera - in very, very dim light. Not sure these add much to the topic - but figured some might enjoy. I think I shared some of these pics in the past - can't recall for certain. Some notes: The prop room "sword" I'm holding was very light-weight... like a blow-molded plastic or lightweight plywood. It was in a trash can and I pulled it out to fake a "chop" at a friend (whom I edited from the picture for privacy...) The other was still on the wall. If you look, you can see where the loose one had previously been bolted to the mechanical rod on the wall. The washers on the back of the handle were there to help counterweight the length of the sword as it rocked up and down. If you look closely, one of the handle "scrolls" was broken off - a testament as to how they just tossed it in the garbage during removal. As for the "electrical panel" it was all simple plywood panels with aluminum handles hinged and what equivalated to Christmas lights fed through the various holes. You could access the scene other side of it via a hidden passage... it basically masked the back of the figures in the dressing room doors on the other side of the wall. Of all the things in there - I wanted to take the "Schedule" sign home with me... Oh, I begged to no avail. I wonder if it somehow survived. But I doubt it, since most of the non-animatronic props & signage was being thrown away. Everything was filthy. Dust covered, spit on everything, gum blobs everywhere - and lots of real spiderwebs. There were hydraulic fluid stains and grease where the figures were located. So much so, I felt like I needed to shower when I came out after crawling around in there... You could tell precisely where every prop and figure had been - because when they first installed them they used black spray paint to "age" everything - they lightly sprayed all around every item to make it seem like it had been there for decades. By January, the full Scooby install was underway - and PT was a memory by then. The most shocking thing was how they just built a plywood platform over the big pit that housed the Peppers Ghost scene. Every single time I rode SDATHC as well as Boo Blasters, as I passed the fireplace scene I thought "The stage is still under here." When I first saw them building the platforms over the old stage I thought to myself "At least it makes it easy to convert back if they ever wanted to." I wonder if they will..... Most of the scenes were on platforms that were about a foot or so off the actual building floor and matched the level of the omnimover track. The height of the platforms increased as the scenes progressed in order to achieve the height needed for the Pepper's Ghost "performance" scene. There were trap doors in most where maintenance could crawl under to inspect/fix wires and electrical components that powered the figures. The figures were all on independent stands that bolted to the floor or scenic element. Their power cords then ran through holes in the floor to a cable system that ran from scene to scene. I suspect that, with today's technology and the "ghost light" added effect - they will avoid any authentic Peppers Ghost effect. More than likely they'll use large digital screens for those effects. The original was achieved (of course) by giant floor-to-ceiling panels of glass which were (from what I was told) lowered in through the roof for PT. Those large panes were used for the projection/mirror effects but there were separate windows between the guest vehicles and the reflection panels. (I was also told this was done to avoid what happened at Disneyland - where a guest shot a bb gun at the large glass panels in the Haunted Mansion and cracked one. DL later installed a second set of smaller glass panels between the vehicles and the large Pepper's Ghost ballroom panes.) When PT was removed - the large panels were literally shattered and removed. I cannot imagine they'd spare that expense, or go to the lengths required, to re-install them.

So this is my personal thoughts to start out with, I really don’t like that this got leaked. I know that the TikToker nor person who shared it on Facebook meant anything wrong by it, but personally it would’ve been cool to see these in action at IAAPA (With the stage setup I do think for sure we’ll be seeing them.) Below, even though its probably out there here’s my thoughts on these:

Now this is the type of leak I can get behind. Funny how history repeats itself

A friend shared these with me. Taken near a work area with the door wide open that employees could see. If not allowed, sorry, please delete. Seeing the rid system is neat, it's so much simpler than I imagined it to be.

One of the best days I’ve had on these forums. Appreciate everyone sharing pictures, info, and memories. Really made my day. So excited for next year. Thanks for keeping the hype train going.

For those who are mad about the bumpers... and I'll never get used to people being mad about that.. there's a t-shirt for you: http://store.towertopics.com

Also confirmed from a non-leak source when we’ll be getting our first looks at IAAPA. (Gee I wonder which quirky characters we’ll be seeing)

Per the Tower Topics Facebook group: Edit: Added spoiler tags. Mods, feel free to remove if not cool.

I used custom supports for the first inversion, but the rest are auto-generated. Kings Island isn’t my home park but I really hope y’all get something like this.

Cool concept @ethancoaster! Did you use custom supports?

I've been to the Universal parks 50+ times, and here's what I would do: If it were me and I had never been before, I would choose Studios and Islands. Velocicoaster, Hagrid's, Hulk, Spiderman, Forbidden Journey are all super fun rides that you should definitely do. Over at Studios, Mummy and Gringotts are my faves. Sure, Epic definitely has some great rides and attractions and some of the best in-land theming I've ever seen, but it is REALLY hard to get everything done in one day. We chose to go 2 days so we didn't necessarily have to feel rushed to get everything done in one day, and we were even rushing then to get everything done. With breakdowns, weather, and long lines it is really hard to get everything done. If you can afford an Express, it would definitely be worth it and would let you get everything done much faster and you could get everything done for sure. That doesn't mean it can't be done though. I had a friend go about a week ago and did most things, while skipping some others. If I was going to skip rides, I would skip Curse, Yoshi, Dragon's Racers Rally, Constellation Carousel, and possibly Fyre Drill if you didn't care to get wet. The HTTYD show is much better than the HP one in my opinion, and I think you could skip the HP one. I would recommend the HTTYD show if you have time and it's not broken (I had a rough experience with this show. Tried 3 different times over 2 days to do it before it finally opened). I did not see the HP show fully, as it broke down right before it started. I did get free Express though! Sadly no Ministry with the Express card we got. The reason I would choose Studios and Islands though is simply because there are more rides and more big hitters there. You mentioned wanting to get on Velocicoaster, which is an absolute amazing ride. I just feel like you would get more out of Studios and Islands than you would from Epic. Epic might even be frustrating if you can't get everything done you wanted to do. Not sure what the crowd trends have been lately, but the best day to go to Epic was surprising the weekend. As of right now (7:50) the wait times are actually pretty good right now (everything under and hour with Monsters and Fyre Drill on delay). All that said, if it were me I would choose Studios and Islands over Epic, but Epic is a great park too. You didn't ask for all of that, but maybe it helped. I love talking all things Universal! Let me know if you have any questions, I'll probably have an answer

I want to be surprised for the most part no actual scenes however a teaser here and there would be nice, I still would like to see pictures of Boo Blasters props being removed though.