A surge of immersive, franchise-driven entertainment is reshaping live experiences, but audience satisfaction, spiralling production costs and IP-heavy strategies raise questions about strategic direction.
What’s Been Reported?
The Guardian reports that experiential entertainment, long associated with escape rooms, themed parties and interactive theatre, has entered a full-scale boom driven by franchise-led productions and a torrent of investment capital.
The sector’s latest high-profile launch is The Hunger Games stage experience, opening at the Troubadour in London’s Canary Wharf, featuring John Malkovich as President Snow via screen projection. Tickets reach up to £200, underscoring the premium pricing adopted by many new entrants.
Industry analysts Gensler Research Institute estimates that the immersive entertainment industry will be valued at £98bn this year and could climb to £351bn by 2030.
Major players continue to bet big.
Little Lion Entertainment, producer of The Crystal Maze Live Experience, has secured a decade-long rights extension, while Secret Cinema, long considered the sector’s pioneer, has attracted the interest of Ari Emanuel’s Endeavor-linked events group, which is reportedly close to acquiring its parent company.
This gold-rush mentality has encouraged producers to lean heavily on global intellectual property (IP) to drive audience acquisition. Hollywood financier Chip Seelig, who backed the Greatest Showman-inspired Come Alive! experience, argues that while strong IP “doesn’t guarantee a success,” it has become “critical” for attracting audiences. His show has enjoyed a successful extended run, but the article notes that few productions can offset the high capital expenditure needed to mount large-scale immersive events.
Industry analysts warn that low-quality offerings risk creating systemic damage. Gensler’s 2025 report argues that misleading marketing and AI-enhanced promotional materials have pushed expectations beyond what many productions can deliver.
Traditional theatre economics offer a sobering comparison: none of the 18 commercial musicals opening on Broadway last season have yet recouped, including some with budgets of around $20m. Productions without recognisable IP have fared especially poorly since the pandemic.
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Quality inconsistency is another pressing concern. A series of heavily criticised events, including The Detroit Bridgerton Themed Ball, Glasgow’s disastrous Willy Wonka experience, and the controversial Elvis Evolution showcase, have fuelled public scepticism. Attendees have publicly lamented misleading marketing, AI-generated promotional imagery, and experiences that failed to match expectations. One VIP visitor described Elvis Evolution as a “shambles from start to finish,” while reviews ranged from one to three stars.
Executives argue that, with streamers raising the bar for at-home entertainment, live producers must innovate to entice audiences out of their living rooms.
Why It Matters
For investors, strategic operators and rights-holders, the immersive entertainment surge represents both a structural opportunity and a cautionary tale.
The opportunity lies in the scale of consumer appetite. Immersive formats align naturally with IP monetisation, franchise extension and fan-based community engagement, three of the most valuable engines in modern entertainment. As studios and rights-holders chase incremental revenue, location-based experiences offer defensible pricing, high repeat-value potential and strong partnerships with real-estate developers.
Yet the commercial risks are equally pronounced:
- Capital intensity: Large-scale builds, custom environments and extensive staffing often demand outlays equivalent to mid-budget films.
- Operational fragility: Poor execution can damage brand equity rapidly and at scale.
- Audience trust: Over-promising—especially through AI-manipulated marketing—erodes consumer confidence across the entire category.
- IP dependency: Heavy reliance on recognisable franchises may inhibit creative experimentation, narrowing the pipeline of original concepts and raising licensing costs.
For media companies diversifying into experiential ventures, the long-term question is whether the sector matures into a reliable revenue pillar or becomes another bubble inflated by marketing hype and short-lived novelty. The Guardian’s reporting suggests both futures remain possible.
Curation Details
“Experiential entertainment is having a gold rush but commercial success is far from certain” by Mark Sweney, The Guardian, 19 October 2025.
Publisher: The Guardian
Journalist: Mark Sweney
The Story
The Guardian’s reporting fits within a broader landscape of coverage examining both the promise and pitfalls of the immersive, experiential entertainment boom. Several major outlets have documented the sector’s growing pains, showcasing the tension between audience expectations, marketing claims and the economic realities of large-scale experiential production.
BBC News highlighted the mixed reception to Elvis Evolution in its piece, “Elvis Evolution: Fans divided over AI-powered concert experience” (BBC News):
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20prvvgypyo
The Times also covered controversy surrounding the same production in “Elvis AI tribute live show criticised for misleading promotion” (The Times):
https://www.thetimes.com/culture/music/article/elvis-ai-tribute-live-show-m263p2msb
Beyond Elvis Evolution, other high-profile misfires have shaped public perception.
The Bridgerton-themed Detroit event that went viral for all the wrong reasons was examined in The Guardian’sarticle, “The awful Bridgerton ball that charged fans $1,000 to watch a pole dancer and eat KitKats” (The Guardian):
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/sep/25/the-awful-bridgerton-ball-that-charged-fans-1000-to-watch-a-pole-dancer-and-eat-kitkats
Similarly, the now-infamous Glasgow Willy Wonka experience, widely criticised after families arrived to barren rooms and sparse production, was reported in “Glasgow Willy Wonka experience slammed as farce as tickets refunded”(The Guardian):
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/feb/27/glasgow-willy-wonka-experience-slammed-as-farce-as-tickets-refunded
For a macro perspective, the Gensler Research Institute analysed structural risks and market enthusiasm in its 2025 Immersive Entertainment & Culture Industry Report. (Executive summaries available via Gensler Research):
https://www.gensler.com/research
Together, these stories illustrate a market expanding at speed, buoyed by strong consumer appetite and major capital inflows, yet constrained by operational challenges, brand trust vulnerabilities and the unforgiving economics of large-scale live production.
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