In June 2023, the eagerly awaited Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo – The Making of Harry Potter opened to the public for the first time.
At the attraction, located on the former site of the Toshimaen amusement park in Nerima, Tokyo, Japan, visitors can discover a range of exciting new exhibits and interactives, featuring props, costumes, special effects and models used to make the iconic Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts films. In addition to famous sets like Diagon Alley and the Great Hall, guests can also enjoy a range of F&B and retail experiences.
To find out more about what visitors can expect and to discuss some of the challenges in adapting a much-loved experience for a new market, blooloop speaks to Geoff Spooner, SVP & general manager of Warner Bros. Studio Tour London -The Making Of Harry Potter, and Craig Hanna, chief creative officer at Thinkwell Group, the global experience design and production firm.
Bringing the world of Harry Potter to life
As with the hugely popular Warner Bros. Studio Tour London, the Tokyo tour takes guests behind the scenes of the Harry Potter film series. It allows guests to step onto the sets, see the costumes and props, and learn how filmmakers brought the magic to life on screen.
“For the visitor, it feels like you’re being able to walk through the Great Hall of Hogwarts,” says Spooner. “You can visit the Ministry of Magic and Diagon Alley and you can explore your favourite parts of Hogwarts Castle. You can venture into the Forbidden Forest, you can step onto the Hogwarts Express at Platform 9¾.
“We’ve got some fun interactives that you can experience, and you can get up close with all those exquisite costumes and props from the films. We’ve also been able to show how the special effects evolved from Harry Potter to the Fantastic Beasts films.
“And, of course, everyone should be reassured that you do get to ride a broomstick!”
What’s new at Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo – The Making of Harry Potter?
In creating this new tour, the team wanted to take all the fan favourites from the London location but elevate the experience even more.
In terms of what’s new, there are sets that you can only find in Tokyo. For example, the Ministry of Magic and the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. One key thing that London has proved is that visitors enjoy interactive elements. So, the Warner Bros. team worked closely with its partner Thinkwell Group to introduce more interactives.
As it did with the original Studio Tour in London, Thinkwell provided strategic development, master planning, concept development and refinement, design and development, project and production management, technical, lighting and audio design and media production services, as well as in-field art direction, installation supervision, programming and training
“When we started the project, we wanted to take what was successful from Leavesden and bring it up to date and make it appealing for a Japanese audience,” says Hanna. “And we knew that in order to do that, we would need to increase the level of interactivity and media presentation throughout the tour.
“Guests can enjoy elements that are beloved from the London tour. But we also have a variety of new things that provide another level of engagement, immersion and interactivity.”
Casting spells
Expanding on these interactive elements, Spooner says:
“The first interactive that visitors will encounter is when they step into the portrait hall, a familiar Hogwarts moving stairway area. This gives visitors the chance to appear in a moving portrait themselves, which appears up on the wall.
“The visitor reaction is amazing; I was there the day we first tested it, and people were just completely overwhelmed. Everybody wants to do it and they love seeing themselves alongside all these magical portraits, so it’s landed brilliantly.”
“Later, you can make your own digital Death Eater mask. This then gets projected up on a big screen, so that everybody else on the tour can see. You can also arrive digitally in the Ministry of Magic by chimney.
“We know from experience in London that visitors love learning the art of wand combat. So, for Tokyo, we were able to create the Defence Against the Dark Arts set. This is amazing as a standalone set. But it also includes fabulous interactives that will teach you how to cast different spells in the classroom. As you’re casting them, your spells will cause things in the set to move around.”
Part of the Quidditch crowd
Another popular interaction is the chance to appear in a Quidditch match as part of the crowd.
“Visitors take on the role of either a Slytherin supporter or a Gryffindor supporter, in a Quidditch stand. We have a director who will give them instructions, for instance, to duck or to gossip or to cheer or to boo. Then we capture that footage and it’s edited into a sequence from the film. The visitor then gets to watch that on a playback screen. At the end of the experience, they also get to take that away as a digital souvenir.”
“Where there is digital content like that in the tour, Thinkwell has worked with our photography provider Pomvom to ensure that the visitor has a digital take home. This is free, so it’s part of the experience.”
Food and drink experiences at Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo
When it comes to retail and F&B, the project was a collaboration between Warner Bros. and several other experts, says Spooner:
“Lumsden Design oversaw the design and master planning for the food and retail spaces. MinaLima manages the branding and the graphics in those areas, and then with the theming and the props and the sculptures that appear in those areas, we worked with British company Cod Steaks.”
“Anyone who’s been to London is going to immediately recognize some of the F&B areas, designed by Lumsden in 2019. We worked with them to take the Chocolate Frog Cafe and the Food Hall to Tokyo because we know they are popular. But we’ve made them bigger and better. So, for instance, we have added some seating that’s designed like Chocolate Frog boxes that have been opened.
“We have the hammer beams in the Great Hall, but we also have house banners and a new potions area. Even the food servery is tiled out with a mural that’s dedicated to the house elves that are preparing your food.”
The Backlot Café
Then, halfway around the tour, visitors arrive at the Backlot Café.
“This is quite different. In London, it’s designed to represent a typical film studio’s café. However, for Tokyo, we wanted to create a more themed environment to elevate the overall food experience and to make it significantly larger as well. So, the food area has a greenhouse feel, complete with original dirigible plum trees. That continues into the seating area. We also have other sections designed in the style of a potions classroom.”
“At the London tour, in the evening, we introduced afternoon tea. This is served in the hall under the floating candles and the hammer beams. But in Tokyo, we wanted to do something different. Lumsden created this central circular seating area that’s very pink and leathery and afternoon tea-ish and even has moving cats on tea saucers, à la Professor Umbridge.
“Then, as you go outside, we’ve also created a separate Butterbeer Bar. This is much bigger than the one we have in London.”
The retail experiences
In terms of the retail spaces, the team wanted to make sure that these truly feel like an extension of the experience.
“Lumsden provided this experience, and it’s got loads of ‘wow’ factor. Our main shop in London, of course, has a lot of that too. But, when I first walked around the Tokyo shop, it was just incredible. It is enormous; it could probably be a visitor attraction in its own right.”
“The Platform Shop that we have is probably twice as big as the one in London, and our main shop is probably three times the size of the one in London. Because we’ve been able to plan it from scratch, we’ve been able to give dedicated spaces, so there’s a House of MinaLima shop which showcases all their graphic design talent. And then Cod Steaks worked with Lumsden to create some amazing pieces.
“For instance, there is a giant phoenix, but there are also lots of little interactive things, like Bowtruckles in tree trunks, that you can find. It’s a fantastic retail experience.”
Learning from experience
When Warner Bros. Studio Tour London -The Making of Harry Potter was created, no one knew just how popular a Harry Potter Studio Tour would be. Now, since welcoming over 18 million people to the London site, the team has more experience and learnings to draw from.
“That’s allowed us to be a lot bolder in the opening design, while still delivering that five-star experience that we’re known for,” says Spooner.
Hanna adds: “One of the things that we challenged ourselves to do was to try to tell a more linear story, rather than presenting the departments just to showcase the different aspects of film production.
“We also wanted to highlight some of the elements of production that we didn’t include at the London tour. So, we’ve included sound design, scoring, and orchestration, as well as post-production and digital effects. It’s a much more thorough explanation of filmmaking. Of course, all that is in between the incredible sets, props and costumes from the films, which you can’t overlook because they are truly the stars of the experience.”
Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo – The Making of Harry Potter is bigger than ever
One of the main lessons the team took from the London tour was that space is key:
“Firstly, everything in Tokyo is a lot bigger, to provide more flow space,” says Spooner. “It’s not just the seating areas and the shops. The whole experience has just been stretched, so there’s more space in visitor flow areas. Of course, the sets are the same size, but we spent a lot of time with Thinkwell making sure that the experience had lots of space to breathe while continuing to deliver those wow moments.”
“In London, things like Platform 9¾ and the Forbidden Forest were all later expansions. So, we had to construct areas for them around an open and operational attraction, which is tricky. In Tokyo, we’ve been able to put those in from the start. We might want to expand the tour in Tokyo in the future, but we’ve put those expansion spaces in already. That means we can fit them out while minimising any disruption.”
It was not simply a case of scaling up, however:
“We know that Tokyo is a very dense urban market, and it is home to some of the biggest Harry Potter fans out there,” says Hanna. “So, we needed to create this higher capacity attraction, but we also still needed to maintain the intimacy of the experience. That was a key challenge.”
Something for everyone
While the experience might be bigger, the core vision has remained the same, says Hanna:
“For Thinkwell, the edict that we laid down internally didn’t change much between what we did in London in 2012 and what we did in Tokyo. Our vision was to create something that works for the non-fan, for the uber-fan, and everyone in between.
“One of the pleasant surprises from London was that book sales in the retail shop were huge. You would think, if people are going to the tour, they’ve probably read the books or seen the movies. But we hear a lot of anecdotal stories about people who’ve brought a non-fan with them to the tour and they have left saying, ‘Well, I need to read this’. To me, that’s a great success.”
“For the uber-fan, we present a lot of interviews with the filmmakers and the stars of the films. We said from the very beginning that we don’t want to have a single piece of media that an uber-fan might have seen before. We didn’t want it to feel like repurposed material. So, that was a real challenge for us, to be able to create all new media content that people hadn’t heard or seen previously, enabling them to hear answers and responses to subjects that have never been covered before.”
Tailoring the Warner Bros. Studio Tour to a Tokyo audience
Speaking about the process of creating a new version of the experience for a completely different market, Spooner says:
“It’s been a great challenge and we’ve learned a lot. One advantage was that the London tour attracts visitors from all over the world, and they all enjoy it equally. So, we didn’t feel we had to overly adapt the core design. But at the same time, we were conscious of the local culture which is very different to London. We wanted to make sure that we respected that in the project.
“Our research told us in Japan that visitors expected the experience to reflect that quintessentially British nature of the film; they didn’t want it to be diluted for Japan. Everything had to look and feel British.”
“There are many local considerations that impact our food and retail offers. Our in-house team worked hard to deliver a fantastic retail range, which is resonating with our visitors. And then we worked with our Japanese catering partner, who brought a huge amount of local expertise. That helped us to adapt a London menu to suit Japanese tastes and expectations.
“We were also able to recruit an exceptional team to run Tokyo, led by Torben Jensen, our GM there. They’ve got a huge amount of experience to draw from, both from within the visitor attractions world and from elsewhere. Many of the team have experience of working internationally in different cultures. This has been a massive help in overcoming some of these challenges.”
The universal appeal of Harry Potter
Hanna adds that, while the teams talked a lot about designing for a Japanese audience, they also knew that Harry Potter fans are truly international:
“They have no problem travelling all over the world to get their next Harry Potter experience. I have seen tourists from all over the world in London, riding the train from Euston station out to the Studio Tour, with their Harry Potter costumes, and so we knew that was going to happen again in Tokyo.
“So, while we were designing for the folks in Tokyo, we also wanted to make sure that this was going to be something that appealed to a broad international audience. There are so many things in there that any Harry Potter fan coming from anywhere will find and enjoy, whether they speak Japanese or not.”
An evergreen brand
Spooner adds that the brand itself has the power to transcend borders and languages. Talking about why Harry Potter is so popular, he says:
“I think it’s pretty simple – ultimately, the Harry Potter books are really great stories that stand the test of time. As a brand, it’s evergreen. The original generation that read the books when they first came out and saw the films when they were first released, they’re now wanting to share that story with their children, and their children’s children.”
“Under production designer Stuart Craig‘s guidance, the films did this amazing job of visually creating for us Harry’s world. We all tried to imagine what it was like from reading the description in the book. I think if you asked anyone to think of what the Hogwarts Great Hall or Diagon Alley looks like, the image that would come to their mind is that visual reference from the films.
“That’s what makes the tour so special because you’re stepping into that world that you recognise.”
Creating Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo – The Making of Harry Potter
Now that the experience is open, Hanna and Spooner reflect on the project and talk about their personal highlights along the way.
“The real achievement of the project is the fact that we opened it on time, despite having to design and build it all during the COVID lockdowns when our teams couldn’t visit Japan,” says Spooner. “This required so much collaboration with our Tokyo tour team, with our partners like Thinkwell, Lumsden and Pomvom, as well as all the different construction teams and of course, the filmmakers who created all the content for the tour. In that context, it’s a mind-blowing achievement.”
“My highlight was the Sunday in June when, before we opened officially, we welcomed 5,000 guests for a full-on operational trial of the tour. There are so many individual elements in a project like this that can go wrong or turn out not quite how you imagined them. But walking around the tour that day and seeing it operating as efficiently as London operates, and seeing visitors enjoying it just like London, was an incredible testament to all the hard work of the design and operational teams.
“Since we opened, we’ve steadily increased our visitor numbers. So, Tokyo today is now welcoming the same number of visitors as London is per day. When you consider that we’ve done that in three months, and it took London seven years to get to that stage, you can only be massively impressed by the whole team.”
A rewarding moment
Hanna adds:
“Our long-standing relationship with Warner Bros. has spanned well over a decade. To have the opportunity to expand on the original tour in London and create something new and compelling for a completely different audience, with this IP, is always just something that you have to pinch yourself over.
“To continue to be able to work with this brand and these people is a real gift.”
“For me, when you see fans come in and take to it with such passion and love, it’s so rewarding. A big surprise was the interactive in the portraits room, where we have that iconic Hogwarts moving staircase. You can pause and do a little video moment and then your image is put into one of the portraits in that room.
“I thought this would be a nice thing and that people would enjoy seeing it, but people go crazy for it. They just are all laughing, they’re pointing and clapping and taking pictures. It was a real pleasant surprise to see that reaction.”
A positive reaction
In terms of the public reception for the Warner Bros. Studio Tour Tokyo – The Making of Harry Potter, Spooner says:
“I think it’s certainly surpassed our expectations. I’ve met with our ticketing partners in Japan and are telling us they’ve never known demand like it.
“It’s one thing to get guests to visit but it’s another thing to deliver the experience that they’re expecting. We’re seeing strong feedback, both from our visitors in their exit surveys but also independently and externally on Google reviews. The Google rating for the tour is on par with Disney and Universal in Japan, which is impressive given how established those attractions are.
“If you read reviews about the London tour, people often mention how fantastic the team that they’ve met here are. The Tokyo team has really taken that point on board and they’re creating an experience that is exceeding expectations.”
