Commentary

How immersive entertainment infuses the ‘staycation’ model

Recent developments in the combination of immersive entertainment and "drive-to" destinations can be found across wide geographic swatches.

The Las Vegas MSG Sphere is scheduled for a Q2 2023 opening. Image provided by iStock.

September 5, 2022 by Kevin Williams

The concept of an immersive "drive-to" destination builds on the speculation of a shift in guests' interest in a social entertainment experience that is close to them and does not need lengthy travel, building on the "staycation" model.

The interest generated by the "live action role playing" game and "live experience" venues harkens back to the Walt Disney Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser hotel, the Secret Cinema, Circus Cirque du Soleil and the Great Wolf Lodge venues, offering a destination entertainment resort. The immersing of the guest in an on-property, full entertainment experience, also builds on the casino model.

Recent developments on this combination of immersive entertainment and "drive-to" destinations can be found across wide geographic swatches.

Two Bit Circus on the move

Shortly after Los Angeles based Two Bit Circus announced it was working on a second "micro-amusement park" facility to open in Dallas, Texas, Alpine Acquisition Corp., a Nasdaq listed special-purpose acquisition company, acquired Two Bit Circus for $50 million in stock, part of a move to acquire two conference hotels from Atrium Hospitality L.P. located in Denver, Colorado and Stamford, Connecticut, for $65 million.

The plan will see these 739-room hotels converted into experiential entertainment and gaming properties under the new Reveler's Resort brand.

The combined operations, named Two Bit Circus Entertainment, will continue with its location based entertainment facility plans and develop an immersive, "drive-to" destination concept that will include gaming, circus-style attractions and even Steam workshops.

This hopes to define the company as a one-of-a-kind world-class family entertainment brand. The original Two Bit Circus venue in Los Angeles was seeing some 233,000 guests during 2019.

Acquisitions continue

News soon followed that the London based Hollywood Bowl Group generated a record £100 million ($115.11 million) in revenue over six months across some 64 venues. With this news, the company announced it had acquired the Teaquinn Holdings group for some $13.3 million. The group operates the Canadian Splitsville chain of five family entertainment style bowling venues.

The Teaquinn group also runs the Striker Bowling Solutions operation that installs and maintains bowling equipment and venue services — and is the exclusive Canadian agent for Brunswick Bowling. This marks the international expansion of the Hollywood Bowl operation, looking to expand the number of sites by another 10 in the next five years.

Also in the Canadian scene, Premier Parks LLC, owners of theme and water parks, acquired the Canadian Valcartier-Calypso Group, an operation comprising indoor and outdoor water parks, hotel, spas and winter playgrounds. Following the acquisition, the Premier Parks operation will expand to 15 properties.

With the Canadian entertainment sector one of the last to come out of hard lockdown conditions applied by the government regarding the COVID situation, look for more acquisitions in this territory.

The MSG Sphere readies for debut

Meanwhile, the $1 billion Las Vegas MSG Sphere is scheduled for a Q2 2023 opening, while plans for the London sphere are clearing the approval process. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Sphere will transport guests to an experience and location displayed on an immersive screen. The Sphere will have a 160,000-square-foot wraparound interior LED display and a 580,000-square-foot exterior LED display, both capable of accommodating 16k-by-16k picture resolution.

Overall, a need to be able to create and curate the content for these first facilities, and the expected 30 other locations, will be done by the new Burbank studios, with content being displayed at levels of resolution that other creation houses would find impossible to support.

Frontgrid, the developers of the ParadropVR Pod platform, announced the first U.S. installation at the Sprockets Fun Foundry entertainment venue near Mount Rushmore, offering a compact operational envelope, new multiplayer VR paragliding experiences and simplified operation.

Jump by Limitless Flight held its grand opening for its first facility, located in Utah, featuring a hyperreal wingsuit simulator.

Developed by a group of executives, comprising ex-TheVoid leads, this latest VR location-based entertainment venue offers a physical immersive experience — the flight-suspension system and high-end VR content is priced highly as a VIP experience. With the grand opening, the operation looks to start plans for rolling out stores across several cities. Work on the launch of a second site in New York's American Dream Mall is already under way.

News from across the pond

In news from across the pond, Europe's family entertainment center operator, Veltmeijer Group, with nearly 50 facilities across the territory, partnered with branding specialist Goodkarmer to create a virtual recreation of its entertainment sites.

Able to be visited through web portal, the space will allow players to take part in a virtual arcade atmosphere and is planned to be linked to branding and competitions that will be cross-promoted with the physical operation. Founded in 1957 as Veltemeijer Automaten, the corporation has been an established developer of entertainment venues with its Gamestate, Gamecity and Gametown chain of locations.

The immersive entertainment sector continues to infuse the traditional "drive-to" destination.

(Editor's note: Extracts from this blog are from recent coverage in The Stinger Report, published by Spider Entertainment and its director, Kevin Williams, the leading interactive out-of-home entertainment news service covering the immersive frontier and beyond.)

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About Kevin Williams

Along with advisory positions with other entrants into the market he is founder and publisher of the Stinger Report, “a-must-read” e-zine for those working or investing in the amusement, attractions and entertainment industry. He is a prolific writer and provides regular news columns for main trade publications. He also travels the globe as a keynote speaker, moderator and panelist at numerous industry conferences and events. Author of “The Out-of-Home Immersive Entertainment Frontier: Expanding Interactive Boundaries in Leisure Facilities,” the only book on this aspect of the market, with the second edition scheduled for a 2023 release.

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