Experiential leisure is having a gold rush however industrial success is way from sure

[ad_1] W hen the primary ever stage adaptation of the worldwide guide and movie franchise The Starvation Video games opens its doorways in London subsequent week, followers paying as much as £200 have been promised an “electrifying” and “immersive” expertise.

The present on the purpose-built 1,200 seat Troubadour in Canary Wharf, which options Hollywood A-lister John Malkovich showing through display screen because the evil President Snow who oversees the televised spectacle of youngsters combating to the loss of life, is the newest in an explosion of launches seeking to money in on a increase in shopper demand for experiential leisure, usually linked to bankable franchises.

The increase out there for experimental, uncommon nights out and reveals is nicely established, from escape rooms, axe throwing and slumber events to Secret Cinema’s Olympic Park takeover to recreate the setting for Again to the Future and the vastly profitable Abba Voyage. Latest pop-ups embrace experiences linked to Minecraft, Jurassic World and Squid Sport.

As huge cash has rolled into the sector, so too has a want from corporations to depend on strong gold mental property to usher in the crowds – with blended outcomes.

“We’ve appeared into quite a lot of immersive experiences,” says Hollywood financier Chip Seelig, who has backed Come Alive!, the London-based theatre expertise impressed by the hit 2017 movie The Biggest Showman. “Whereas even [prime] mental property doesn’t assure successful, we discover it very laborious to draw audiences with out recognisable world IP. So we expect it's a vital merchandise to success.”

Seelig’s TSG Leisure co-financed and produced the Hollywood blockbuster. Even earlier than its launch he had spied the chance to convey it to life in a real-world expertise, and struck a rights cope with twentieth Century Fox, now owned by Disney.

Disney can be launching its personal extra conventional theatre-style model of The Biggest Showman in a world premiere on the Bristol Hippodrome within the spring.

Whereas reveals corresponding to Come Alive! have proved successful – it not too long ago prolonged its run on the former house of the BBC Earth Expertise for one more 12 months – prices concerned in real-world productions imply that industrial success is way from sure.

The plight of conventional theatre gives a cautionary story for the booming immersive leisure sector.

A latest evaluation by the New York Instances discovered that not one of the 18 industrial musicals that opened on Broadway final season have but made a revenue, and no less than three with $20m (£15m) budgets closed lower than 4 months after opening.

And for the reason that finish of the pandemic, solely three of 46 new musicals – these not primarily based on present, acquainted IP – have turn into worthwhile up to now.

One other vital challenge dealing with the comparatively nascent experiential business is {that a} gold rush mentality has resulted in an rising variety of operators launching occasions that fail to stay as much as expectations.

Final 12 months, an unofficial occasion known as The Detroit Bridgerton Themed Ball, which charged ticket holders between $150 and $1,000, went viral for all of the incorrect causes when attendees have been proven sitting on the ground, consuming KitKats and watching a solitary pole dancer because the night’s leisure.

Equally, Glasgow’s shoddy Willy Wonka expertise, billed as a “celebration of chocolate in all its pleasant varieties”, made world information when police have been known as after households who had spent tons of of kilos on the occasion that left kids in tears turned livid, and it was abruptly cancelled.

The latest manufacturing to come back in for criticism is Elvis Evolution, which opened in London’s ExCel centre in the summertime with tickets priced from £75 to £300. It was initially marketed as a live performance expertise that might use “AI and have holographic projections of the star”.

An preliminary promise of a “lifesized digital Elvis who will carry out iconic moments in musical historical past on a UK stage for the primary time” ended up with AI getting used to “upscale archive footage”.

Layered Actuality, which created the present, stated it clarified there could be no hologram by the point tickets went on sale and had been “overwhelmed” by reward from attendees.

One attender stated the expertise was “completely atrocious” and one VIP ticket holder stated it was a “shambles from begin to end”.

Whereas some followers loved it – one stated she “cherished each minute” – opinions have been blended. The Telegraph gave it one star and even Time Out, which was extra optimistic with a three-star score, alluded to a “noticeable quantity of booing”.

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“The immersive artwork and leisure business is actually nowhere close to a crash,” an analyst on the Gensler Analysis Institute wrote in its 2025 Immersive Leisure & Tradition Trade report. “However an inflow of confusion has undoubtedly begun to rise inside markets as low-quality choices are being pushed out.

“The most recent plague to infest the business has resulted in unrealistic expectations set by an inflow of AI-generated imagery and deceptive copy on advertising and marketing supplies.”

Gensler’s report estimates that the worldwide marketplace for immersive leisure might be value £98bn this 12 months, and is projected to achieve £351bn by 2030.

Little Lion Leisure (LLE), the corporate behind the Crystal Maze stay expertise in London and Manchester primarily based on the cult Nineties TV present, has simply signed a 10-year rights extension with the present’s maker, Banijay.

“This isn’t simply an enlargement, it’s the start of a world journey,” stated Tom Lionetti-Maguire, the founder and chief government of LLE. “We’re reimagining the Crystal Maze expertise for the subsequent technology.”

The expertise of London-based Secret Cinema, a pioneer that has placed on occasions themed on films and programmes corresponding to Star Wars, Stranger Issues and James Bond, signifies that deep-pocketed media heavyweights imagine the longer term stays brilliant for the sector.

It emerged in September that Hollywood energy dealer Ari Emanuel, who co-founded the US leisure group Endeavor and now runs the corporate behind World Wrestling Leisure and the Final Preventing Championship, is closing in on a deal to purchase its dad or mum firm.

Emanuel’s world occasions firm is near a cope with TodayTix Group, the US-based digital ticketing agency that acquired Secret Group in a $100m deal in 2022.

Merritt Baer, a co-founder of TodayTix, says the agency determined to not launch any productions final 12 months whereas it “regrouped and had a rethink about what audiences wished”.

“Lots of people are throwing spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks,” he says. “After they fail an viewers, that has a scarring impression, destroying belief within the sector.

“Secret Cinema has a really high-quality model and heritage and we intention to be on the high finish of the spectrum. There are quite a lot of sensible folks realising experiential is the place the current is assembly the longer term.”

He provides: “Netflix, Apple, Amazon and others have performed an exceptional job of elevating the bar of high quality and amount of content material coming into your front room. Stay theatrical and occasion producers want to boost the bar to get them to go away the lounge.”

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