Sinners: A Night to Remember
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There are legends of people born with the gift of making music so true, that it can pierce the veil between life and death.
Conjuring spirits from the past and the future.
This gift can bring healing to their communities.
But it also attracts evil.
SINNERS: A NIGHT TO REMEMBER
THEMED WALKTHROUGH & LIVE MUSIC SHOW
This year, Universal Fan Fest 2026 is excited to announce an all-new themed house/walkthrough experience dedicated to last year’s critically-acclaimed and commercially successful Sinners. At Sinners: A Night to Remember:, you’ll explore moments from the daytime sequences of the film (replica sets) in an elaborate walkthrough / queue. Once all lined up, at the top of each night’s hour Club Juke opens for a 25 minute live-music show.
These two gonna be playing down at the old sawmill. It’s the grand opening of our new joint – Club Juke. We gonna have us a battle of the Blues. It’s gonna be a real ring-a-ding-ding.
So ya’ll ready to eat? Ya’ll ready to drink? Ya’ll ready to sweat till we stank!
QUEUE
Sinners: A Night to Remember is split between two major experiences – a walkthrough queue experiencing key moments leading up to the titular juke joint. The second, and main experience, is a 25-minute live music show acting as “house” extended walkthrough.
The walkthrough queue has two goals: a). give simple character beats for anyone who has not seen the film, and b). for fans to explore.
Walking through Universal Hollywood guests will notice the simple, gable-roofed and painted-white wood church. This is the domain of “Preacher Boy”’ Sammie’s church. Guests walk through the wooden doors like Sammie at the start of the movie to begin their journey. Inside, it’s all empty, but “Let It Shine” plays prominently as a background track.
Obscured silhouettes illuminate through a nearby window, on occasion, they speak:
Sammie, you strummin' that guitar tonight?
Good mornin', Miss Beatrice.
You gonna tell me where you playin' or am I gonna have to hear it through the grapevine?
You have a good one, Beatrice. I'll see you at service tomorrow morning.
I guess the grapevine it is.
The queue takes a turn and immediately transitions to the inside of Delta Grocery. It’s also empty, though there’s a bit more life here with the food-stocked shelves and cabinets. A train whistles in the distance… leading to…
The Clarksdale Train Station, busy with tran whistles, crowds, and luggage. Through the noise, we eventually arrive near the center of the station and enter a quaint interior. Here, through the window we can see silhouettes from a moment in the film – the announcement of Club Juke.
Stack’s Sales Pitch – already pasted above near the Club Juke concept art – is heard through the window alongside Delta Slim’s and Sammies’ spontaneous blues mix. A crowd can be heard just outside clapping and cheering on the performance.
This transitions to the final set, Annie’s House. A much quieter locale from the increasingly-upbeat corners, this area gives us some place to breathe, as Seance – from the Sinners OST – hums on in the background.
Annie’s Speech – from the start of the film and this writeup – plays distantly, as we realize we will soon encounter spirits both live and dead, from past and future, of good and evil.
With this, we are ready for…
THE JUKE JOINT (HOUSE)
Unlike the walkthrough, the House experience takes creative liberties to expand on the film’s most exciting musical moments while altering the Vampire tension for a larger live audience. But, the set itself is a 1 to 1 recreation of Club Juke’s exciting opening night.
The central throughway is an elaborate dancefloor for guests to cheer on the live music performers. Right from the entrance are three areas – the bar, open across the dancefloor, which runs the entire show. As Stack promised us in the queue, it serves small bites (food) and drink – Irish Beer, Italian White Wine, and a Southern Whiskey Cocktail. There’s a “games room” (the gambling room) where while there’s no gambling at Universal Studios (we wish we put this in Vegas) it is instead a nice place to relax and get a breather from the otherwise packed establishment. Finally, furthest from the stage is a locked door. If you try to open it, you’ll hear Michael B. Jordan’s Stack call out:
“Hey! Busy in here.”
The bouncer, Cornbread, invites everyone into the club before closing the door. Now the show begins in proper.
INTRO SONG - TRAVELIN’
Sinners OST | Guitar Solo
As guests file in, Travelin’ , a guitar solo, plays while everyone gets their bearings. A cast member, dressed similarly to Stack & Smoke – but not actually them – invites everyone and introduces the live music for the night.
At the far end of the stage are just two performers – a guitarist, fitting the character Sammie from the film, but does not have it literally resemble – and a harmonica player, like Delta Slim. Behind is a big red curtain, which certainly won’t drop at a climatic moment of the show…
FIRST SONG - WANG DANG DOODLE
Sinners OST | Guitar - Harmonica Duo
The guitarist thanks for the applause, then starts the full-scale production – Wang Dang Doodle is a fun, upbeat blues song, encouraging guests to explore and fill out the dancefloor. Guests are prompted to clap along to the simple beats.
SECOND SONG - I LIED TO YOU
Sinners OST | Full Band
The guitarist and harmonica player begin performing “I Lied to You” – Sinners’ most iconic song – and encourage guests to feel the rhythm of the music. As they do, speakers embedded into the full-scale recreation of Club Juke begin reverbing – slightly unnaturally – as two voices – Delta Slim first, then Annie – cast overhead…
Blues. We brought this from us from home. It’s Magic what we do. It’s Sacred, It’s Big.
There are legends of people born with the gift of making music so true, that it can pierce the veil between life and death.
Conjuring spirits from the past and the future…
Upon the boom of the word “future”, the red curtain suddenly drops to reveal… a full band comprising…
A traditional West African drummer and dancer. A 50s rock n’ roll guitarist, a 70s Motown artist, and a DJ at the disc jockey, providing steady background beats. The full band is here, and they play together – but each differently – as the song organically weaves between solos highlighting each artist and music genre while also showcasing their similarities and shared lineage.
From here on out, the rest of the show operates under the same surrealist logic of the “I Lied to You” sequence in the film – the show now departs the safety of the Sinners OST towards songs of iconic Black artists across time.
Because plot twist - we lied to you. When deciding Sinners (2025) for Universal FanFest, the secondary logic is, due to this explicitly a musical tribute, the “fans” of FanFest include not only fans of the 2025 film, but also more broadly fans of all music, especially from African-American history. This is why the queue so thoroughly establishes a baseline to get here – the juke is to be accessible for fans of all music genres.
THIRD SONG - IT TAKES TWO (1988)
Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock | DJ Remix w/ Traditional Drum
Huge tonal swing with an all-original remix of It Takes Two. After a first chorus identical to the mainline song, there is a subtle blending of the upbeat rap song with the drums of the traditional dancer. As the dance implies, it takes two to make something special, and our contemporary DJ and traditional drummer come together for this opening act.
This is continued following the song with a solo by the traditional drummer.
FOURTH SONG - JOHNNY B. GOODE (1958)
Chuck Berry | Rock n Roll Guitar
Deep down in Louisiana close to New Orleans
Way back up in the woods among the evergreens
There stood a log cabin made of earth and wood
Where lived a country boy named Johnny B. Goode
Who never ever learned to read or write so well
But he could play a guitar just like a-ringin' a bell
Go Johnny, go, go -
FIFTH SONG - SEPTEMBER (1978)
Earth, Wind & Fire | Motown + Rock n Roll Guitar(s)
Hey, hey, hey
Ba-dee-ya, say, do you remember?
Ba-dee-ya, dancin' in September
Ba-dee-ya, never was a cloudy day
SIXTH SONG - A NATURAL WOMAN (1967)
Aretha Franklin | Singing w/ Supporting Instrumentals
Following the upbeat opening, the songs gradually decline from upbeatness to a more mellowed, musical tone (culminating in the dark Pale Pale Moon). Here, a vocal performance takes center stage as the lights dim and it the night continues on…
SEVENTH SONG - PURPLE RAIN (1984)
Prince | Full Band
The lights change – impossibly and unnaturally – from the warm yellow to purple as Purple Rain overtakes Club Juke. Outside, it seems to be raining.
This is only a minute-long rendition, marking the shifting lights as signal for nearing the end of the show… and the impossible seeming to happen.
At the end of Purple Rain, there’s a sudden joyful cheer – and a knock at the door. No one moves. Another knock, followed by a cheery:
Oi! Heard you from there? Mind if we join? Care to invite us in?
But the musicians at stage don’t even seem to hear them, as they are immediately into their eighth and final song…
EIGTH SONG - PALE PALE MOON
Sinners OST | Full Band
Moonlight shines through the juke joint, framing the singer, as the band hums along adding to the eerienss. Throughout the ominous song, loud bangs and steps are heard near the walls.
We can barely here:
“Care to invite us in?”
We don’t respond, and the song continues. Until at last, the song comes to a triumphant close – to the applause of the entire joint – and the harmonica player, first to speak at the start of the performance – just has one thing to say:
“Thank you everyone! Really, we appreciate so much all the love and good will in this room right now. We just wanna invite everyone single person with musical intent into this lovely place right here right now”
THE VAMPIRES
and you thought we’d forgot em’?
Upon our friendly harmonica player’s poorly-phrased closing remarks, the Vampire motif booms into being. Enter the Vampires, led by Remmick, of an ancient and folksy Irish descent – who immediately opens the door we all heard him knock at before, casual and effortless. He smiles, waving towards the stunned audience in a completely friendly tone.
“Why thank you for the invitation! We Vampires need that to “come on in” he-he. Why don’t I show you my friends?”
At that, Remmick begins to dance – and lines dances forward as two more Vampire dancers follow, each wearing traditional Celtic attire. Remmick claps and all the warm lights dim, replaced entirely with a dark red.
Now, we gonna drain yer’ blood. But first, we just loved all the music you folks were playin’! Coming from the heart and all, we just wanna share you, the same from der’ ol’ hometowns…
The giant wooden doors entering the Sawmill careen open as we are ushered into the finale room of the walkthrough experience!
—
FINALE ROOM - THE OUTDOORS
Guests are brought into a small-scale “dark forest set” with a painted black backdrop simulating the night sky. Here, we are corralled in by the Vampires, who gradually revealing their band is much, much larger than we could’ve anticipated. Over a dozen Vampires surround us – though clearly undead – they are no presented as too scary.
And then, they all start to dance…
VAMPIRE SONG - ROCKY ROAD TO DUBLIN
Sinners OST | Irish Vampire Dancers
The Vampires dance. And they dance. And they dance all the way through the song. Remmick gets into a jig and extends it for as long as he might, the music prolongs… for all the too predictable early rays of morning light.
Remmick screams in fear.
Arhgh! Flee! Flee!!
The Vampires flee – clearly in tremendous pain. Some claw back, so as not to present them as too nice – but no one gets all that close, and they clearly prioritize their own safety over our lack thereof. We do the same, sticking to the center as the sun gradually overcomes the once pitch-dark rooms, and there are no more vampires in our proximity. Last Time (I Have Seen the Sun) hums overhead as they depart the walkthrough. Guests are ushered outside the forest and back towards the small churchgrounds at the start of their journey.
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