The innovation in brand realisation session at the Festival of Innovation explored how to turn IP into successful brand experiences, with guest speakers Jenefer Brown, executive vice president and head of Lionsgate Global Products & Experiences; Philipp Edelmann, head of attractions at Netflix Experiences; and Anthony Chong, group chief executive, Kingsmen Creative Ltd.
The conversation ranged from ways to transform a successful intellectual property (IP) into a successful branded experience to how to appeal to those who are not already familiar with the brand, as well as the trends and innovations shaping the industry.
The annual Festival of Innovation is a free, online event that brings together the international visitor attractions community to explore the most innovative projects, products and organisations that are advancing the attractions industry.
Innovation in brand experiences: meet the speakers
Jenefer Brown, executive vice president and head of Lionsgate Global Products & Experiences, has positioned Lionsgate as a leader in branded entertainment.
Brown oversees several growing businesses that extend the reach of Liongate’s film and television properties, including LBE across the US and EMEA, in addition to interactive games and consumer products.
She was named Executive of the Year by Los Angeles Business Journal in 2021, and in the blooloop theme park influencer power 10 for three consecutive years.
Head of attractions at Netflix Experiences, Philipp Edelmann is responsible for developing and producing acclaimed visitor experiences worldwide.
His experience includes leading the creation of brand attractions for Coca-Cola, Ford, Heineken, Diageo, and NASA, and working with US and EU governments on pavilions at World Expos in Shanghai, Milan, and Astana. Edelmann has been honoured with Cleo Awards for his work at Netflix, Thea Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination for his contribution to the TV documentary Farrah’s Story.
With more than 40 years of marketing and event management experience, Anthony Chong serves as group chief executive, Kingsmen Creative Ltd. and leads the group’s theme parks, museums, exhibitions, events, and LBE companies.
Kingsmen Exhibits creates innovative immersive experiences for trade exhibits, corporate and sporting events, galleries, museums, and theme parks. Additionally, the group develops and operates LBEs and family entertainment centres (FECs).
The group’s subsidiary, Kingsmen Xperience Inc., focuses on licensing IPs for LBE and reimagines brands to create large-scale interactive experiences at leading attractions.
Current projects at Lionsgate & Netflix Experiences
Lionsgate’s latest LBE project is the John Wick Experience in Las Vegas, which launched in March.
“Vegas has been a great market for the studio,” says Brown. “This is our fourth attraction in that market.”
The experience is set at Las Vegas Continental, a new location that extends the lore of the John Wick world. “The walk-through journey is a blend of immersive experience, gamified elements, and escape room. It’s an interesting project because it takes a lot of different aspects of our industry and puts them all together in one space.”
Additionally, the Paddington Bear Experience recently opened in London.
“It sets a high bar for our industry in terms of those standalone walk-through experiences,” says Brown. “And we have another Paddington experience we’re working on in Hong Kong that’s going to open next year.”
Also in 2026, Netflix Experiences is launching Netflix House. “In a way, it’s the best of Netflix under one roof,” says Edelmann. Fans will be able to explore their favourite stories and characters in immersive experiences, accompanied by a unique food and beverage offering and retail.
Since its inception, Netflix Experiences has opened 170 projects worldwide. “Netflix House represents the next generation of these offerings, and brings these stories to life in a new, ever-changing and very unexpected way.”
“We’re also currently open with Squid Game The Experience in New York and Madrid, and soon in other places around the world. And then, in 2025, we also opened Netflix Bites in Las Vegas.”
Adaption & authenticity
As these experiences open in new locations, they are refined for new audiences.
“When you start the design effort with any attraction or experience, you have to know your audience,” says Brown. “And so doing that research, and making sure that you understand how that audience wants to experience the IP when it gets realised in this space.
“It’s important to always stay true and authentic to the brand or to the intellectual property, so you can’t lose your core values of who you are.”
Yet it’s important to recognise the preferences of the market, from food to whether the audience likes water attractions, she adds, while designing broadly enough for a wider tourist audience.
“The great thing is that usually brand pillars are very defined and stay true globally, right, especially with brands like Paddington or Stranger Things. Those brand pillars are there, and that’s the core, and you have to stay true to those,” says Edelmann. “But then there’s local adaptations.”
For example, the Squid Game experience debuted in Los Angeles and is now travelling worldwide. However, some of its games, which are adapted from the TV series, don’t translate. “Children’s games aren’t the same in each region.” Other considerations include tactical adaptations like dubbing for different languages, says Edelmann.
“We have amazing dubbing teams here at Netflix, and we can employ them and use the same voice actors that are used for the series to dub over any talent that we might feature.”
Transformational storytelling
So, when it comes to innovation in brand experiences, how do you turn a successful IP into a successful attraction?
“You have to start with the premise that not every successful IP should be an attraction,” says Brown. “That analysis needs to happen from the outset.”
Then, key questions include whether the attraction stands on its own, independent of the IP? Does the experience make the IP even better? Does it offer something fans aren’t getting from the film or the TV series? How does it enable fans to engage with it differently?
“If you can answer all those questions, then you’re going to be able to achieve something that fans will be incredibly excited about.
“The other piece of it is to create something that feels right for the story. That’s not to say that you can’t expand the story,” she says.
“But you have to get the details right. Fans know the content they love incredibly well, and if you do something that doesn’t feel right, they’ll call you out on it. As they should.
“So, it’s important you don’t cut corners, that you’re delivering the best possible experience and also staying true to the core elements of whatever story you’re telling and the characters that the fans know and love.”
“There are universal truths about attraction design,” says Edelmann.
“Everyone needs to start with a relevant foundational story. A relevant story creates an emotional connection to your audience, a transformation of some sort.”
Innovation in brand experiences: core creative pillars
When working with IPs, the core creative pillars provide an emotional foundation.
“We have the privilege of working with our creators very closely, and sitting in a room with them and the content execs and everybody who’s shaped the IP in the past, and really figuring out what it is about.
“And then creating creative pillars, which for Stranger Things, for example, would be, it’s really about friendship, the supernatural and the 80s nostalgia. That’s what this brand is about.
“Then there are a lot of subcategories after this. But if you understand the brand, I think you can really create something that’s emotional.”
Creating for both fans and non-fans is also key.
“It’s important for us that we create stories that speak to everyone, even if you’re not that familiar with the IP. It’s been successful for us to create standalone stories and have a clear beginning, middle and end, that are very much rooted in the mythology of the IP and story and the brand, but that stand alone.
“Fans see themselves in it, but anyone who doesn’t know the IP will still be able to go through, understand the objective, and get the story and the spectacle.”
“If we do our work right, then even those who walk in who weren’t fans might become fans, right?” says Brown. “And then they’ll look to the TV series, or look to the films, and it’s a great opportunity for us to continue to grow our audience.”
Key trends in LBE
IP, immersive experiences, and competitive socialising are among the key trends, according to the speakers in the innovation in brand experiences session.
Brown adds that nighttime walkthroughs are becoming more prevalent and that many are story-driven. “And customisation, allowing audiences to come in and make the experience personal to them,” she says, for example, the Lego Ferrari Build and Race, WWE and PUBG.
In addition, Edelmann says it is becoming more common to open attractions in smaller destinations, beyond typical tourist hubs
“For that, flexibility is key. If you’re able to update or change your offering, then it’s really effective to be in those smaller cities and reach that market.”
These updates can be achieved with IP.
“That’s one of the greatest benefits of IP,” says Brown. “Because with most of the work we do, there’s another movie or another season of a TV series or a video game or a really great consumer products activation that’s happening, so there’s always continual content.”
Integrating changing content into the experience through overlays or events can be impactful and affordable. Seasonality offers further opportunities.
Additionally, Brown says that attractions in smaller locations can benefit from becoming part of the community, for example, through hosting events. “The more you can plug into it, the more that the community is going to support the attraction and experience and feel like it’s part of their own.”
Integrated partner offerings
Partner offerings emerged as the pivotal trend shaping the future of innovation in brand experiences.
“There’s still such a such a drive to experiences, and for people to actually go out and experience something versus buying a product,” says Edelmann. “I think at the core, that’s still a truth.”
Brand experiences are increasingly offering integrated retail and F&B, and he sees a trend for “integrated, immersive dinner experiences, either through media or through dinner theatre, and down to simply the food offering that’s seen and relevant to the story you’ve been telling. Even the hot dog can be themed to your specific IP.”
“You’re going to see attractions and experiences create more of an ecosystem around their partner products and offerings,” says Brown.
“And so that might be retail, or food and beverage. It also might be things that happen in the digital space.”
This digital focus is important when considering Gen Z and Gen Alpha, who are significant consumers of LBE and spend their time gaming and socialising online.
Brands can create a next-level experience for fans by leveraging both digital and physical platforms. In the digital space, there is potential to build things that cannot be realised in the physical world, while the physical world can deliver an emotional connection that cannot be achieved digitally.
“Taking the best of all of these things, and combining them is really where I see a ton of opportunity,” says Brown.
Challenges and opportunities
“The idea of flexibility gives you all of these opportunities to reach your fans, to go where your fans are, to scale your business.
“But it’s also the biggest challenge,” says Edelmann.
“To keep things fresh, find these new ideas, bring new things to people constantly, is difficult.”
This is why scaling is key, as it moves the potential reach from thousands, such as in a time-limited marketing campaign, to millions.
Another key challenge, says Brown, is the opening of weak experiences, such as 2024’s unofficial Wonka experience.
“Things like that can have a chilling effect on the industry, and it’s unfortunate, because there are so many great examples of incredible brand realisations right out in the world. It only takes one or two to give a bad name to the many that are so incredible.
“The other thing is these projects aren’t for the weak of heart.
“They are time-consuming, with so many complexities. Even the ones that are smaller and quicker to get off the ground.
“And so if you’re going to go on this journey, you have to be really committed, and also committed to not skipping any of the steps, to make sure that what you open in the end is really true to what you set out to do from the beginning.”
“If you can do that and commit to that, then the bar for success is much higher, but it also makes it a lot easier for you to attain.”
Innovation in brand experiences at Kingsmens
Anthony Chong, group managing director of Kingsman Exhibits and executive director of Kingsmen Creative, shared his insights into the trends shaping the sector.
“A successful IP can be a powerful foundation for an LBE experience, he says. “So it’s crucial to understand the core elements of the IP and how they can be translated into physical and digital experiences.
“We need to consider the story and the characters in the world we’re building. Carefully crafted immersive environments and interactive elements can bring the IP to life in a way that engages the audience.”
To attract both existing fans of an IP and new audiences, Chong says that marketing is a key factor. Yet, “more importantly, you must create a truly immersive and enjoyable experience for the audience, and from there, naturally, people will go out and promote the attractions.”
He adds that many brands are moving beyond traditional advertising and using innovative approaches, such as VR experiences or AR activations, to create moments that resonate with consumers.
The LBE sector, Chong says, is extremely promising.
“We’re likely to see more innovative and immersive experiences.
“Advancement in technology, such as AI or VR or XR or MR, will continue to push the boundaries of what’s possible.
“In addition, there’s a growing emphasis on sustainability and ethical practices in the industry, so we’ll see more LBE experiences that are environmentally friendly and socially responsible.
“Ultimately, the goal is to create experiences that are not only entertaining but also meaningful.”
Coming up at Kingsmen Creative
Kingsmen’s current projects include the first-of-its-kind VR experience, Space Explorers: THE INFINITE, which uses live or video footage rather than CGI.
“It’s highly rated, and on until March. It will continue afterwards in Asia for the next few years, and of course, there will be some refresh. We have plans to put in new footage as we move along.”
The company is also working with Netflix IP Squid Games, on an activity-based attraction that will open in Seoul in Q1 2026 before touring.
“One that we are very excited about is in Almaty, Kazakhstan, which is a children’s science museum. And we have been commissioned to design and produce the entire attraction,” he says. The museum opens next year and will feature new technology-based interactive elements.
“We continue to look for more IPs, more brands to work with.”
