When 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 by way of display because the evil President Snow who oversees the televised spectacle of youngsters preventing to the demise, is the most recent in an explosion of launches seeking to money in on a growth in client demand for experiential leisure, usually linked to bankable franchises.
The growth available in the market for experimental, uncommon nights out and reveals is properly 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 massively profitable Abba Voyage. Current pop-ups embrace experiences linked to Minecraft, Jurassic World and Squid Recreation.
As large cash has rolled into the sector, so too has a need from corporations to depend on strong gold mental property to usher in the crowds – with combined outcomes.
“We’ve regarded into plenty 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 Best Showman. “Whereas even [prime] mental property doesn’t assure a hit, 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 deliver it to life in a real-world expertise, and struck a rights take care of twentieth Century Fox, now owned by Disney.
Disney can be launching its personal extra conventional theatre-style model of The Best Showman in a world premiere on the Bristol Hippodrome within the spring.
Whereas reveals equivalent to Come Alive! have proved a hit – it lately prolonged its run on the former residence of the BBC Earth Expertise for one more yr – prices concerned in real-world productions imply that business success is much from sure.
The plight of conventional theatre offers a cautionary story for the booming immersive leisure sector.
A current evaluation by the New York Instances discovered that not one of the 18 business musicals that opened on Broadway final season have but made a revenue, and a minimum of 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 current, acquainted IP – have change into worthwhile up to now.
One other vital situation dealing with the comparatively nascent experiential trade is {that a} gold rush mentality has resulted in an growing variety of operators launching occasions that fail to stay as much as expectations.
Final yr, 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 unsuitable 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 kinds”, made world information when police have been known as after households who had spent a whole lot of kilos on the occasion that left kids in tears grew to become livid, and it was abruptly cancelled.
The latest manufacturing to return 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 may 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, mentioned it clarified there can be no hologram by the point tickets went on sale and had been “overwhelmed” by reward from attendees.
One attender mentioned the expertise was “completely atrocious” and one VIP ticket holder mentioned it was a “shambles from begin to end”.
Whereas some followers loved it – one mentioned she “cherished each minute” – opinions have been combined. 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 trade is actually nowhere close to a crash,” an analyst on the Gensler Analysis Institute wrote in its 2025 Immersive Leisure & Tradition Business report. “However an inflow of confusion has undoubtedly begun to rise inside markets as low-quality choices are being pushed out.
“The newest plague to infest the trade 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 can be price £98bn this yr, 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,” mentioned Tom Lionetti-Maguire, the founder and chief govt 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 motion pictures and programmes equivalent to Star Wars, Stranger Issues and James Bond, signifies that deep-pocketed media heavyweights imagine the long run stays vibrant 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 father or mother firm.
Emanuel’s world occasions firm is near a take care of 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 yr 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. “Once they fail an viewers, that has a scarring influence, destroying belief within the sector.
“Secret Cinema has a really high-quality model and heritage and we goal to be on the high finish of the spectrum. There are plenty of good individuals realising experiential is the place the current is assembly the long run.”
He provides: “Netflix, Apple, Amazon and others have finished an outstanding job of elevating the bar of high quality and amount of content material coming into your front room. Dwell theatrical and occasion producers want to boost the bar to get them to depart the lounge.”
