Inside the Very Expensive, Extremely Overwhelming, Engineered Fun of Theme Parks
Photographs by Sinna Nasseri
On a recent Friday morning, I found myself in a sea of bodies waiting to be admitted to Universal’s new $7 billion Orlando theme park, Epic Universe. Speakers hidden in the foliage blared a soaring melody suggestive of a heroic quest involving swords. The adults in the crowd, most of whom were unaccompanied by minors, wore performance athletic-gear. We filed through a metal detector and presented our tickets. Then all around me, people began to run.