Over the past few days, eagle-eyed Harry Potter fans have noticed something interesting happening at The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Hogsmeade at Islands of Adventure: a mysterious-looking tent has seemingly popped up overnight!
The tent is beige in color, and is encircled behind a permanent metal fence structure right outside the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey attraction entrance. Universal hasn’t announced anything official as coming to this area, so we can only speculate what this new area enhancement may be, but based on permits and the overall look of the structure, we’ve got a pretty good guess!
An additional wand interactivity elements is probably coming to Hogsmeade
Though there are a few interactive wand elements in the Hogsmeade area of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, the lion’s share of spells that guests with the interactive wand can practice are across the railway in Diagon Alley, where guests can perform spells at over a dozen locations.
However, it looks like Universal may be looking to add another interactive wand area to the original Harry Potter land, as there is a telltale box outside the tent area, which looks suspiciously like the wand gesture readers that power the interactive wand areas throughout the parks. You can see a video of the tent as well as the wooden box structure in a short video posted by Attractions Magazine on X.
Permits may reveal what kind of experience this element is
Alicia Stella of Orlando Park Stop also posted on X about this mysterious structure, posting screenshots of permits that show it is part of a new interactive wand game named “Dueling Dummies.” Though the permit doesn’t specifically state that the project is an interactive wand game, Stella notes that the project number in the permit has been used previously on other permits that do for interactive wand elements, and the name certainly hints at an experience that has something to do with wands, even if it doesn’t say so explicitly.
So what could this new free-standing wand game be? Given the name listed on the permit it seems likely that this is some kind of wand combat training, potentially with a wink and a nod to the former Dueling Dragons (and later Dragon Challenge) attraction that used to sit right across the thoroughfare where Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure now sits.
Whatever this new feature is, it will probably be available soon
Though whatever is behind the curtain of this mysterious tent is still officially shrouded in mystery, we’d expect that Universal will be revealing it very soon, as it has been “onstage” for a few days now. Though this may be a small enhancement to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, it is always nice to see Universal continuing to invest in their parks, even in small ways, to keep the experience fresh for guests who visit this area often and provide new experiences for those who love using their interactive wands to channel their own magic.
