Introducing Sergio Navarro, a new original character for Halloween Horror Nights 2025

Introducing Sergio Navarro

Sergio Navarro will make his debut in a haunted house called “El Artista: A Spanish Haunting” during Halloween Horror Nights 2025 at Universal Studios Florida in Orlando. The event kicks off Aug. 29 and continues select nights through Nov. 2 (see our full guide to HHN 2025 for help with planning your visit). “El Artista” is an original story developed by Universal Orlando, not based on an existing franchise of horror films or video games.

Artists from Universal announced “El Artista” and first introduced Sergio during a panel at the Spooky Empire horror convention in Orlando on June 20. Sergio himself appeared onstage in full wardrobe and makeup, and narrated a teaser for “El Artista.”

Sergio is an artist whose career is in a dip. He journeys to La Casa Creación, a manor in the woods, “a place where dreams — sueños — come to blossom,” as Sergio says in his narration.

“Unbeknownst to him,” said Ramón Paradoa, show director/writer at Universal Orlando, “the grounds are infested by the spirits of artists that came before him,” said “This deep sense of evil overtakes Sergio’s mind, influencing his art, forcing him to paint these horrifying things that come to life. The spirits want to use his artwork as portals to break into our world.”

Is Sergio Navarro the icon of Halloween Horror Nights 2025?

It’s tradition for Halloween Horror Nights to often feature an “icon” character as a mascot of sorts for the event at large. Sometimes Universal distinctly identifies a character as that year’s icon. Sometimes there’s no icon at all.

This year, it seems Sergio Navarro lands somewhere in the middle. He is not an official icon of HHN 2025, but could be considered iconic. Regardless of his title, his influence can be noticed by observant guests.

Michael Aiello, senior director of entertainment creative development at Universal Orlando, had this to say about Sergio Navarro being an icon during the Halloween Horror Nights 2025 panel at Spooky Empire:

The “icon” word is a heavy word, especially for this room. It’s a heavy word. It means a lot of things. Here’s what I can say about Sergio Navarro: He is a central character to our story this year. I’m going to throw out the word “icon” because that is a word that you all can place on that character if you choose to, or if you choose not to.

What I will say is we’ve identified this character as a way to tell our story this year. His influence is in the event in some capacity. It may not be the way an Oddfellow was in the event, or definitely not the way Jack the Clown was in the event, but, again, it is us every year trying to determine, “What’s the best method to tell a specific story?”

What I can say with this particular story and this particular character is: there is a beginning, middle, and end to this story, and it resides within “El Artista.” How that permeates the rest of the event is a discovery that you can take on yourself and decide for yourself how you feel about Sergio Navarro. 

Concept art for ‘El Artista’ at Horror Nights

The graphics seen throughout “El Artista” tell “the story of artists who were striving to find their passion again,” said Lora Sauls, assistant director of the creative development group and show direction at Universal Orlando, during the Spooky Empire panel. “As artists come to this house, this Spanish manor, and they are being possessed. Their works of art are being possessed by these haunting and these other artists that came before them.”

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