Soft Opening

Universal Studios! =D

Saw this advertisement while browsing through the newspapers. I was wondering, what does "soft opening" mean? If there's "soft opening", is there "hard opening" too? Haha.

Dictionary.com didn't have any results when I typed in "soft opening". Neither did Longman Web Dictionary. Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary only gave me the entries for "soft".

And so I did a Google search for "soft opening".

I found this! A "Travel Industry Dictionary"! (http://www.travel-industry-dictionary.com/soft-opening.html)

It says that "soft opening" is:

"A period of time when a new hotel, which may not be fully complete, is open for business but has not formally announced its opening. Also used of rides and attractions at theme parks."

Ahh I see.. And so it's used here for the opening of Universal Studios.

I found this on Wikipedia too:

"It is often suggested that an organization not have a Grand Opening the very first day it opens its doors unless that organization is a well established already. Often an organization will have a "soft opening" first. In a "soft opening," the establishment begins to operate without a lot of attention. This allows the organization to become more organized the first few weeks or months before the more publicized Grand Opening, and gives the management and staff a chance to become familiar with the daily operations of their inventory, accounting, and customer service requirements. Once the institution is organized and ready to receive more clients, it will then sponsor a Grand Opening event." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_opening)

This contrasts "Soft Opening" with "Grand Opening", where "Soft Opening" precedes "Grand Opening".

So much for my "hard opening". There probably isn't a term called "hard opening". Haha. =P