Blurring Lines in Entertainment
Museums Are Theme Parks, Streamers Are Hospitality Brands, and Everyone’s Serving Dinner
This week is all about blurred lines. Theme parks are pushing into live events. Museums are evolving into entertainment centers. Media companies are opening restaurants. And brands are building museums. It’s a collision of culture, commerce, and storytelling - where players need a unique skillset to remain relevant.
Streamers Are Becoming Theme Parks (Sort Of)
Netflix is rewriting the rules of what a modern "theme park" looks like. Rather than following Disney’s centralized model, they’re going decentralized, immersive, and nimble.
Queen’s Ball: A Bridgerton Experience has already sparked 70+ marriage proposals during its touring run. The immersive waltz, character meet-and-greets, and fanfare keep social feeds buzzing between seasons.
Netflix House, launching in Dallas and Philadelphia in 2025, will bring experiences like Squid Game’s glass bridge challenge and Bridgerton’s ballroom to mall-based venues.
Netflix has launched over 100 touring experiences, many adapted to local culture - creating a flexible content-to-experience pipeline.
But Netflix's model poses a question: Their IP is often momentary. Without the evergreen strength of a Cinderella or a Mickey, will their physical experiences rely on fast ROI over legacy value? Or will the company see part of the ROI in the visibility for its IP? As Netflix is already competing with sleep, a direct ROI focus should be present.
Meanwhile, YouTube is ascending to become the world’s largest media company. It raked in $54.2 billion in 2024, just shy of Disney - and is projected to become the #1 U.S. pay-TV provider by 2026. In Q4 2024, more people watched YouTube on TVs than phones - proof the living room has become YouTube’s new stage.
And then there’s Cosm, pushing cinema toward dome-based immersion. Their Matrix experience projects iconic scenes onto the curved screens with spatial audio. Working with Little Cinema one may wonder if the goal is to build a scalable model reminiscent of Secret Cinema but optimized for minimum logistics and custom theming.
Theme Parks Are Expanding Their Scope
Universal Studios Hollywood just announced Fan Fest Nights, a brand-new 12-night, springtime event designed to be “Comic-Con meets Halloween Horror Nights.” This isn’t just a special event - it’s a new tentpole.
The entire park becomes an after-hours playground for sci-fi, anime, fantasy, and gaming fandoms.
Created by the same award-winning team behind Halloween Horror Nights, the event includes:
Star Trek: Red Alert (Paramount): A story-driven, group-based experience onboard the U.S.S. Enterprise-D, using screen-used sets from Picard.
Back to the Future: Destination Hill Valley: Guests board a tram to the iconic Courthouse Square backlot for an immersive, live-actor re-creation of 1955.
Dungeons & Dragons: Secrets of Waterdeep: A walk-through RPG adventure with a giant puppet villain created by the Jim Henson Company.
One Piece: Grand Pirate Gathering: A fan zone inspired by the anime classic, with character photo ops and location builds.
Over 60 themed F&B items will be served - not just visual gimmicks but multi-sensory dishes focused on aroma, texture, and narrative flavor.
Beyond Fan Fest, Universal is launching a permanent horror attraction in Las Vegas and a kid-focused mini-park in Dallas, all while prepping for Epic Universe in Orlando. Meanwhile, Disney is investing $60 billion into its Experiences division, including a large focus on new cruise ships.
Gaming Leaps from Screens to Streets
Games are no longer just games - they’re becoming films, attractions, and IRL adventures.
Minecraft: The Movie opened with a record-breaking $157M box office, cementing its cultural reach.
For its 15th anniversary, Minecraft Experience: Villager Rescue launched as a touring, real-world adventure across U.S. cities.
Merlin Entertainments partnered with Mojang for £85 million worth of Minecraft attractions, launching in the U.S. and U.K. starting 2026.
Monopoly Lifesized, already a hit in London, transforms the board game into a 60-minute escape room-style experience across a massive, interactive board.
Dungeons & Dragons: The Twenty-Sided Tavern, now on Broadway, merges theater and gaming. Each performance changes based on live audience input making it the first interactive theater production.
The next phase? Watch for gaming companies to merge hospitality, education, and narrative immersion - using story-driven spaces to strengthen emotional brand loyalty.
Brands Are Becoming Museums
What can a challenger brand never replicate? Legacy. That’s why heritage-heavy brands are building museums - turning brand history into emotional capital.
Nintendo Museum: A newly opened temple of gaming history, from hanafuda cards to Mario Kart, offering hands-on play with classic consoles.
World of Volvo (Gothenburg): An architectural marvel and brand museum that also functions as an event space and culinary destination.
Porsche, Mercedes-Benz, and Ferrari all operate immersive brand museums with design labs, racing sims, and curated archives.
Hyundai Motorstudio Goyang: South Korea’s largest automotive theme park combines a museum, factory simulation, and futuristic 4D ride.
Even traditional institutions are evolving. The Franklin Institute partnered with Universal to create a touring STEAM-based theme park exhibition, launching in 2026. Earlier, they hosted the wildly successful Jurassic World Exhibition, blending science with cinematic spectacle.
Food and Hospitality: The New Frontier
Everyone - from streamers to fashion houses - is serving dinner.
Paramount scaled from 200 to 1,500 hotel rooms in 3 years, with another 2,000 in development - many themed to Nickelodeon and classic films.
Netflix Bites in Las Vegas offers show-inspired dishes like “Orange Is the New Mac” and “Love is Blind” cocktails.
Breitling now has two full-service restaurants and is opening coffee lounges worldwide. Tiffany & Co. launched the Blue Box Café at Harrods.
Not all experiments succeed. London’s Batman fine-dining experience shut down after 2 years.
On the flip side, hospitality experts are succeeding by expanding from restaurants into hotels:
Nobu Hotels, co-founded by Nobu Matsuhisa and Robert De Niro, now has 30+ properties worldwide that fuse fine Japanese cuisine with boutique lodging.
Death & Co (the famed cocktail bar brand) is launching Midnight Auteur, a new boutique hotel line built around cocktail culture.
The blend of taste, ambiance, and story is becoming a serious competitive edge.
Behavioral Science Insight: The Mere Exposure Effect
Let’s end with a cognitive principle behind all this cross-pollination: the Mere Exposure Effect.
People tend to prefer things they’ve been exposed to before - even without remembering the exposure.
It applies across images, words, faces, logos - even food packaging.
In immersive environments, repeating themes or motifs builds emotional resonance and familiarity.
It’s why IP like Harry Potter, Star Wars, or Super Mario performs so well - they’re already familiar.
On social media, repeated content exposures (thanks to algorithms) can make creators or ideas feel more credible and likable, simply by repetition.
In an attention economy, familiarity breeds fondness. Or in more scientific terms: exposure drives preference.
Final Thought: The New Rules of Engagement Demand New Skill Sets
As the walls between industries continue to crumble - theme parks becoming event platforms, museums acting like entertainment studios, luxury brands opening cafés, and media companies launching hotels - one thing becomes clear: the creative economy is no longer siloed.
Success in this new landscape demands a hybrid skill set:
· You need the narrative mastery of themed entertainment to craft compelling journeys that resonate emotionally.
· You need the discipline and detail of the museum world, where interpretation, accessibility, and educational impact are key.
· You need the agility of live event producers who can design for impermanence, high emotion, and social virality.
· And you need a deep understanding of value-add verticals like F&B, hospitality, and retail - not just as revenue streams, but as brand-building storytelling tools.
This convergence isn’t just about formats - it’s about mindset. Whether you're building a permanent attraction, a pop-up dinner, or a touring exhibit, the audiences are the same: distracted, curious, and hungry for meaning.
In short: The future belongs to creative generalists who think in experiences, not just outputs. If you're not building across silos, you're building for the past.
Wow, wow wow. So many of the thoughts that have been circulating my mind in fits and starts have been so succinctly and clearly articulated here. Best one yet.