The Park Playground, a unique VR franchise, has announced a new partnership with Arena 21 in Brisbane, Australia, for its first venue outside Europe. The Park Playground’s current and future free-roam VR experiences will be available at Arena 21’s Drone-Games venue in Brisbane from 23 March 2023.
The Park Playground’s experiences are ideal for a wide audience of all ages, interests, and group sizes and feature a 100% mobile and wireless VR setup. Combined with Arena 21’s offering of drone racing, the Australian public can now experience premium location-based entertainment in Brisbane. The licencing deal shows that there is a need for newer, more interesting entertainment in the area and that both businesses have room to grow as they aim to expand.
A strong partnership
“We believe in the potential of the APAC market when it comes to location-based entertainment, and Brisbane is just the starting point for us as we plan to create more partnerships with franchise partners across the region in 2023,” says Peter Vindevogel, CEO of The Park Playground. “Arena 21 shares the same mission as us in bringing more immersive forms of entertainment to a wide variety of people. Together, we’ll set the stage for location-based entertainment in the continent.”
“We’re excited to host The Park Playground for the first time in Australia,” adds Wessel Brughuis, head of operations at Arena 21. “We currently welcome over 600 visitors monthly for (p)leisure and business reasons. The Park Playground’s offering is, therefore, the perfect fit for our current audience base as it’s suitable for team-building and school visits, while also having the ability to entice groups of people who are simply up for having a good time with friends and family.”
Darren Stone, managing director at Arena 21, says: “Arena 21 offers the world’s first and only location for everyone – regardless of ability – to come and try the latest technology in a safe and fun environment. Teaming up with The Park Playground enhances this offering and adds significant value to our business. We are excited to offer this amazing service for all customers and add it as part of our corporate team building packages.”
Full library of games available
The Park Playground will provide a turn-key installation with a 9m-by-9m (8-player) playing field, supported by The Park’s staff for onboarding, training, and ongoing tech support.
The whole mobile IP library of The Park Playground, which features the family adventure Mask of the Pharaoh, the spooky haunted escape room Don’t Scream, and the post-apocalyptic space adventure game Mission Planet X, will be available to Arena 21 guests in this area.
Players can experience The Park Playground’s game-changing technology while exploring a variety of immersive environments, including the first-of-its-kind VR headset that was developed in collaboration with HTC VIVE and requires no additional bulky hardware for even more freedom of movement.
The new location in Brisbane follows the launch of The Park Playground’s first UK venue in Leeds, last December. The Park Playground has grown steadily, creating all of its own VR experiences and running 12 prosperous owned and franchised sites globally because of long-standing industry partnerships, including the leading provider of VR technology HTC.
