The lone bright spot for the movie business has been what they call premium large format, or Imax if you like brand names. It’s the only part of the theater industry that has been consistently growing each year. For decades, Imax has been synonymous with the biggest screens. Until James Dolan, who created The Sphere, said “hold my overpriced soda!” Soon, thanks to AI, you will experience The Wizard of Oz on the world’s most immersive screen. Read more below the news in this week’s One Big Thing.  

Hey Imax, I haven’t seen an overnight shrinkage in stature like that since I did the ice plunge in Finland in January.

New Developments

🎢 Theme Parks

Brent Bushnell’s Downloadable Theme Park on ABC’s Shark Tank

Brent Bushnell, CEO of Two Bit Circus, introduced "Dream Park" on Shark Tank—a mixed-reality theme park that users can download and experience anywhere. The concept merges digital and physical play spaces, allowing users to interact with virtual attractions in real-world environments. The Sharks were intrigued, but they expressed concerns about the product's high valuation and market readiness. Read more.

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🕹️ Family Entertainment Centers & Arcades

Epiland Park – Ukraine’s Largest VR Zone

Epiland Park in Chabany, Ukraine, has unveiled a 5,000-square-meter VR zone, the largest in the country. Visitors can engage with exclusive simulators, including Formula 1 racing with authentic steering wheels, jet fighter experiences, and immersive VR cinema. The park aims to offer a magical, family-friendly environment that blends cutting-edge technology with entertainment. Read more.

{Editor’s note: Am I the only one who finds it amazing that a huge FEC just opened in a country that is in the middle of ground war with Russia?}

Zero Latency Expands to Illinois

Zero Latency, a global leader in free-roam VR gaming, has opened its first Illinois location in Schaumburg. The venue offers state-of-the-art multiplayer VR experiences in a spacious 2,400-square-foot arena, allowing players to move freely without the constraints of wires or backpacks. Franchise owners Mihir and Rina Patel were inspired to bring this immersive gaming experience to their community after experiencing it abroad. Read more.

🖼️ Museums & Science Centers

Egon Schiele – A Personal Encounter at the Leopold Museu

The Leopold Museum in Vienna offers a VR experience, "Egon Schiele – A Personal Encounter," transporting visitors to early 20th-century Vienna. Participants engage in a narrative that delves into Schiele's life and work, providing a deeper understanding of his art and his era. Read more.

Art Masters: A Virtual Journey Through the Prado's Masterpiece

In collaboration with the Prado National Museum, ACCIONA Living & Culture has developed "ART MASTERS," a VR experience that immerses users in some of the museum's most iconic artworks. The program combines high-resolution visuals with scholarly narration, offering an educational and engaging exploration of masterpieces by artists like Rubens and Brueghel. Read more.

🎭 Art, Music & Culture

The Matrix Reimagined – Immersive Viewing Experience

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of The Matrix, Cosm, Little Cinema, and Warner Bros. have partnered to create an immersive viewing experience. Utilizing an 87-foot LED dome, audiences are enveloped in the film's universe, enhancing the cinematic experience with cutting-edge technology that brings the movie's iconic scenes to life. Read more. and see One Big Thing below for context.

Taiwanese Artists Innovate with VR Experiences. 

Taiwanese artists are pushing the boundaries of storytelling through VR, creating experiences that delve into isolation and emotional introspection themes. These immersive narratives invite viewers to explore the characters' inner worlds, offering a profound connection between art and the audience. Read more.

Technology

👓 Snap’s Vision for AR: Spectacles and Beyond

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel remains optimistic about the future of AR, particularly through the company's SpectaclesDespite challenges in the consumer AR market, Snap is investing in enhancing Spectacles' capabilities, aiming to integrate AR seamlessly into daily lifeThis vision includes applications in entertainment, education, and communication, positioning Spectacles as a gateway to immersive experiences. Read more

🎢 Snap and Dream Park: A Glimpse into AR-Enhanced Theme Parks

Despite what those Sharks think, Dream Park offers a novel approach to theme parks by integrating AR technology. Utilizing devices like Snap's Spectacles, visitors can experience interactive attractions overlaid onto the real world, transforming ordinary spaces into dynamic amusement environments. This blend of physical and digital elements aims to redefine the traditional theme park experience. Dream Park co-founder Aidan Wolf sat down with Snap CEO Evan Spiegel to talk about AR in LBE and more.

More News

🎭 Banijay Live Studio: Merging IP with Immersive Experience

Banijay, known for its extensive television content, is expanding into live, location-based entertainment through Banijay Live Studio. This initiative transforms popular intellectual properties (IPs) into immersive experiences like VR installations and interactive exhibitions. Collaborations with entities like Balich Wonder Studio and the acquisition of immersive cinema pioneer Tristan Desplechin underscore Banijay's commitment to blending storytelling with experiential design. Real the story by Lou Pizante on Blooloop

🎮 Theaters and Participatory Media: Navigating New Norms

The release of the Minecraft movie has sparked discussions about participatory behavior in theatre. Some cinemas have reported unconventional audience interactions, prompting a reevaluation of theater etiquette in the context of interactive media. This situation highlights the challenges and opportunities in adapting traditional viewing environments to accommodate evolving audience engagement. Read more on Variety.com 

One Big Thing

📉 A Not-So-Fun Fact for Attractions

Americans aren’t flocking to attractions as much as you’d think. According to PGAV’s 2025 Voice of the Visitor report, (hat tip to White Hutchinson) the average U.S. consumer only visited four attractions in all of 2024—and that’s the same number forecasted for 2025. That includes everything from zoos and museums to theme parks and FECs.

Translation: It’s a brutal fight for attention, and if your attraction isn’t constantly updated, you’re yesterday’s news. Only the most dynamic, high-quality experiences will win those precious quarterly visits in an oversaturated market.

With dozens of new attractions opening in any given market each year, customers have plenty of choices to see the hot new thing. And if they’re only going to 4 attractions a year, it’s statistically improbably you’ll remain in the “must see” category for more than a year. Those go-karts, bumper cars, mini-golf and bowling lanes sound attractive, and can generate market excitement when you open. And they certainly seem like a safe investment since they’ve been around for decades, and every other operator has them.

Location-based entertainment trends come and go, and seem to come again decades later. Mini-golf was a staple in the 80s, and then died for decades until the last few years when it was brought back to life with new technology and theming (oh, and a place to set your beer while you putt.) Bowling was dead, and then came back, and now is shrinking again (in size if not stature.) Axe throwing was all the rage for a few years. In reality it was just darts on steroids.

Physical attractions like these cost a lot of money, and can’t be updated easily. So operators, and the general public, are stuck with them for years after the new smell has worn off. Savvy operators should look at the longest running location-based entertainment business for clues as to where the future of their business is.

Movies Show the Way

Movie theaters have been around for more than a century with a model of standard infrastructure and evolving content. The experience evolved over that time, from silent films to talking pictures, from black and white to color, and small screens to 70MM Cinemascope, back to smaller screens in multiplexes, and not to Imax and premium large format. The experience has continually evolved with technology, but the operating model has remained pretty much the same.

Humans love stories. We are wired for storytelling. It’s how we make sense of the world. Before we had science, spreadsheets, or search engines, we had stories to explain thunder, love, and why you shouldn’t eat the glowing berries in the forest.

Here’s why storytelling hits so deep:

1. Brains love patterns: Stories have structure—beginnings, middles, ends. Our brains eat that up like popcorn.

2. Emotional connection: A well-told story activates the same parts of the brain as real-life experiences. You feel the tension, joy, or heartbreak.

3. Shared experience: Stories bind communities. Whether it's campfire myths or TikTok drama, they give us common ground.

4. Memory magic: You're far more likely to remember a fact wrapped in a narrative than a raw stat. That’s why TED Talks crush PowerPoints.

5. Identity shaping: Stories help us understand who we are. They shape beliefs, values, and even cultural norms.

Storytelling isn’t just entertainment—it’s how we human. That’s why movies have endured for more than a century. But recently the model has broken down. It’s well documented that theater attendance has been declining for two decades. Ticket price increases and premium formats have slowed the box office revenue decline. Imax is one of the bright spots of the industry. It’s clear, when it comes to storytelling, people want immersion.

How Showing: Stories That Are 30-Stories High

This week two big stories broke that back this up. The Sphere confirmed during the Google Cloud conference that they’ve been working on a dome version of the classic film The Wizard of Oz. (You can see the full keynote here.)

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As Google described on their blog: “For months, thousands of researchers, programmers, visual effects artists, archivists and producers at Google DeepMind, Google Cloud, Sphere Studios, Magnopus, Warner Bros. Discovery and others in the film and technology industries have been working to bring the 1939 classic to a very big screen in a very big way.”

Then a few days later, Cosm and Warner Bros announced they are partnering to reimagine The Matrix. For those of you who haven’t heard of Cosm, it’s like a baby sphere. If a baby cost $80 million to build. They have locations in LA and Dallas with plans to expand to Atlanta and Detroit in 2026. They’ve mostly feature live sports content ranging from NFL and NBA games to Premier League soccer and UFC.

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Cosm emerged from the old Evans and Sutherland company, and also has a large business running dome theaters in museums and science centers. They raised $250 million last year from a group of private investors including former casino mogul Steve Wynn and plan to open more than 100 locations.

AI Makes it Feasible

While the construction cost of these venues is staggering, the content production cost is plummeting like scrap metal from a Starship experiencing “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” AI tools are driving down the cost of remastering classic films. And that same technology is enabling small nimble teams of creators to make new immersive experiences.

Last week a company I’ve been working with for the last year, Univrse, unveiled Xroam at Laval Virtual in France. This location-based VR platform includes a no-code unity plugin to enable anyone to create free roam VR storytelling experiences in as little as 20% of the time it used to. This new format takes immersion to a new level, and ads a level of interactivity never before seen in digital immersive storytelling.

The release of Xroam ushers in a new era of location-based entertainment storytelling. As more content creators and studios sign up to develop experiences, location owners and operators will develop the confidence to deploy free roam VR infrastructure to showcase these experiences. Unlike the Sphere and Cosm, they won’t cost billions, or even tens of millions. For $100-200K, immersive storytelling can be delivered almost anywhere.

If you’re interest in getting involved, here are a few options.

1. If you are a content creator, and want to know more about how to build for this market, reach out and I will connect you with the Xroam team.

2. If you are an operator interested in potentially hosting the exhibition of this exciting new medium, let’s talk. I have plans for distribution of content later this year.

3. If you’re interested in investing, I have several opportunities cooking I would love to share with you.

Immersive LBE storytelling is going to be the hottest new trend in entertainment. and virtual reality is the most cost effective delivery mechanism. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Stay immersed,

Bob