While most theme parks rely on the physical thrills of roller coasters, dark rides, and intellectual property acquisitions, Puy du Fou has formed a unique and successful niche. Instead of rides and coasters, Puy du Fou’s theme parks offer spectacular live shows.
Established in France in 1978, the operator has a highly specific brand of historical theatricality. Following the launch of a second permanent destination in Toledo, Spain, in 2021, Puy du Fou is now in the midst of a radical international expansion.
With plans moving forward for a massive £600 million theme park in the United Kingdom, the upcoming launch of an immersive rail experience called 'Le Grand Tour', and the creation of a brand-new touring version of Puy du Fou’s long-running Mousquetaire show, the French operator is rapidly scaling its operations.
Speaking to blooloop, Nicolas de Villiers shares his thoughts on the psychology of themed entertainment, the value of local heritage, and why true success in this industry relies on “shaking the soul rather than shaking the body”.
The Puy du Fou ethos
Nicolas de Villiers is the president of Puy du Fou, founded by his father Philippe de Villiers in 1976
Image © Stéphane Audran
Puy du Fou's foundational philosophy is different from traditional theme park operations. For De Villiers, the main goal is emotional unity.
"We have a very unique artistic model with Puy du Fou," he explains. "The idea is to offer a park with only shows in it, in the middle of a natural landscape."
Often when visiting a theme park, families are inevitably split up based on height requirements, thrill tolerance, or physical ability. But De Villiers believes that Puy du Fou’s success comes from creating experiences that entire families can enjoy together, rather than attractions aimed at specific age groups or thrill seekers.
"All the generations can gather together in the park and can share the same emotions, which is unique in this leisure industry. We never divide the family; we are really open to any generation, any situation.
“It is probably one of the only places where you can really do that and create some memories that you will bring back home all together.”
Emotional resonance is key
When asked how he measures an attraction's success, De Villiers looks beyond attendance figures and typical metrics, favouring a philosophical approach to human experience. He draws a clear contrast between physical thrills and emotional effect.
"I would say that for me, emotions are above sensation," he says. "When you make roller coasters, you talk to the body, you make the body shake. But when we do live shows, we don't talk to the body. We talk to the soul.”
Le Secret de la Lance, a medieval adventure at Puy du Fou, set during the Hundred Years’ War
Image © Arnaud Masson
He argues that live theatre offers a richer emotional connection, even if creating that response is inherently less predictable than engineering a thrill ride.
“So, we take a big risk, because when you make a coaster, you know that if it is fast enough and gives the feeling of a kind of danger, it will work, it will be successful. But my belief is to take the risk, not shaking the body, but shaking the soul.”
Achieving that emotional response, he says, requires carefully balancing story, music, staging and performance: "I'm looking for a kind of perfection."
That philosophy similarly shapes Puy du Fou's expansion strategy.
Rather than replicating its French parks overseas, the company builds each destination around the history and culture of its host country; a model it is now applying to its proposed UK resort.
Puy du Fou’s UK plans
Puy du Fou has officially submitted a planning application for a £600 million history-based theme park near Bicester in Oxfordshire. If the comprehensive plans are approved, the new park is scheduled to open in phases starting from 2029.
When fully developed, Puy du Fou expects the park to deliver a £500 million annual boost to the local and regional economy and attract an estimated 1.47 million visitors each year. The proposals remain subject to the UK planning process.
Visitors to the UK's Puy du Fou will find themselves completely immersed in British history, exploring four distinct period villages and experiencing 13 spectacular live shows.
To accommodate the influx of tourists, the resort will also offer three hotels, each intricately themed to different periods in British history, alongside a cutting-edge conference centre.
Puy du Fou's La Cinescénie, whihc involves 2,550 actors on a stage spread over 23 hectares and 28,000 costumes
Image © Martin Sylvos
De Villiers emphasises that cultural authenticity is a fundamental element of Puy du Fou’s worldwide growth plan.
"We believe that the Puy du Fou makes sense only if it's rooted in the local heritage, and this is what we want to do in the UK, as we did in Spain.”
The company's experience in Spain has reinforced that approach, De Villiers says. “When we are in Spain, we are Spanish; we are not French. When we are in England, we will be British in the way we write the stories, in the choice of the topics, in the architecture, in the food, in everything in the park.”
The strategy illustrates Puy du Fou's wider expansion model of adapting each destination to local history instead of just exporting the French park wholesale.
Offerings at Puy du Fou's Spanish location include El Sueño de Toledo, which takes audiences through 1,500 years of history
Image © Puy du Fou
To ensure the British park connects genuinely with domestic audiences, De Villiers and his creative team are leaning heavily on local expertise.
"We use this historical material as the base of our inspiration, and so we are presently surrounded by some British advisors, real British women and men able to tell me the historical truth, and to avoid going in a way which is not exactly British, or which is totally fake or false.”
Ultimately, the creative philosophy relies on tapping into a joint cultural consciousness.
"Our philosophy is to draw from the collective imagination some stories which let people travel, but also some stories which deliver a very simple message, which is what we have in common," De Villiers says.
"The art is here to gather the people, not to divide them.”
Le Grand Tour
Puy du Fou is also aiming to reinvent mobile entertainment with Le Grand Tour. Slated to open to the public in spring 2027 (with tests beginning in 2026), this premium rail experience will take guests on a voyage through the heart of France.
For De Villiers, Le Grand Tour represents the culmination of a lifelong ambition. "It's a dream that I had in my childhood to have a real train.”
He says the project was made possible by recent changes to French rail regulations. Billed as the world's longest show, Le Grand Tour is a six-day, five-night immersive experience on board an authentic Belle Époque train.
The theatrical journey starts in Paris, where passengers board their cabins, designed to reflect the golden age of train travel at the beginning of the 20th century.
Le Grand Tour will see guests taking a five night journey around France on an authentic Belle Époque train
Image © Puy du Fou
As the train traverses the country, guests will disembark at iconic locations including Champagne, Burgundy, Lake Annecy, the Arcachon Basin, the châteaux of the Loire Valley, and the Palais des Papes in Avignon, before the trip ultimately terminates at the Puy du Fou park in the Vendée.
De Villiers guarantees unprecedented access during these excursions.
"We had the opportunity to make a private tour at every step, so we will taste some wine, some food, we will listen to music, we will meet some characters, and all the people we meet, all the stories are linked to one running story during the week.”
The narrative structure of Le Grand Tour is highly modern, inspired by contemporary serialised television. "It will probably be the longest show in history…I wanted to make a series where each day of the travel is like an episode.”
Puy du Fou on the road
In addition to building new parks and operating luxury trains, Puy du Fou is also entering the competitive touring-show market. From November 2027 to April 2028, the company will tour France with a swashbuckling romance show entitled Mousquetaire.
Mousquetaire will tour France from January 2028, bringing the park's show expertise on the road for the first time
Image © RYSK
This original creation focuses on a young orphan named Bouton d'Or, a horse trainer at Puy du Fou living in the early 17th century, whose life is upended when swordsmen attempt to kidnap him.
The tour will bring the spectacle directly to audiences in major cities across France and beyond, including Nancy, Lyon, Clermont-Ferrand, Bordeaux, Strasbourg, Amnéville, Brussels, Douai, Toulouse, Montpellier, and Nice.
This venture marks a significant departure from Puy du Fou's traditional operating model. To make it a reality, the operator has partnered with Rivage, which he describes as France's leading producer of touring arena shows:
"Rivage is a company specialised in tour shows in Europe, and they have the most famous artists in France... they know how to make a tour show, and we don't." De Villiers says.
"So, they came to us saying, 'Okay, you make beautiful shows in your park, can you make a tour show? And we will, as Rivage, take care of everything for the tour itself.”
For the creative team, the difficulty lies in adapting the highly bespoke theatrical format to pre-existing arenas. "Making a tour show is creating an event. It's not a permanent show; it's completely different, because you have to put everything in the trucks," De Villiers explains.
"Usually, we design a show, and then we design the theatre for the show. For the tour show, we have to adapt the shows to an envelope, which already exists, like the big arenas we have in France.”
The existing show, Mousquetaire de Richelieu, has been running at Puy du Fou for two decades
Image © Arthur Aumond
Creatively, Mousquetaire acts as an expansive spin-off of one of Puy du Fou's most beloved park attractions.
"It's a fantastic opportunity for us to draw from one show we have, which is The Musketeers of Richelieu, which we have run for 20 years now. It's a very successful show, and now we have drawn a longer story from this 30-minute show.”
The resulting touring production is a two-hour epic, split into two parts with an intermission.
In an artistic gamble, De Villiers wrote the entire script in traditional French poetic verse. “All the dialogue is rhyming; it's like a long poem, and very modern, because we use a lot of technical effects and special effects that we put on stage.”
For De Villiers, venturing into the touring business is about connecting to audiences.
"We love to innovate, we love to leave our usual territory and to take some risks, and we have this opportunity too to visit the visitors, the people who come to Puy du Fou, in their cities.”
Keeping the Puy du Fou DNA
Whether it is designing a park in the UK, outfitting a luxury train, or writing thousands of lines of rhyming poetry for an arena tour, Puy du Fou is known for keeping almost every aspect of its operation firmly in-house.
De Villiers identifies three critical steps in the creation of a live show or leisure park: conception (designing and writing), production (building the physical infrastructure), and operation (running the show with performers).
"We in Puy du Fou believe that we must keep in-house the three steps.”
Le Bal des Oiseaux Fantomes, or the Phantom Bird's Ball, features birds of prey flying above the audiences' heads
Image © Apolline Cornuet
He points out that many of the world's most famous entertainment brands outsource at least one of these pillars, commonly relying on external creative agencies to design attractions they will later operate, or to design concepts they hand off to others to operate.
De Villiers sees this as diluting a brand's essence: "I believe when you do that, you lose a bit of your DNA.”
Outsourcing also creates logistical friction. "You lose time because you have two people to make something you could do with one person…When you create, and you control yourself, you go much faster, and you can go much further than anyone else.”
Dreams of being number one
By protecting their creative DNA and continually pushing the limits of immersive storytelling, De Villiers says his team is laying the foundation for global dominance in the sector.
"For the moment, when you talk about leisure parks, people have in mind two references, Disney and Universal. In 10 years, there will be a third one: Puy du Fou.
"I believe that you cannot be the number one if you don't dream to be the number one. Our brand is known in France and Spain and will be famous in the UK in the coming years, but it's still too small for me. We have to be famous everywhere in the world.
Le Signe du Triomphe takes guests back to the days of the Roman Empire with legendary chariot races
Image © Arthur Aumond
“I say to my colleagues: our purpose is not to be wealthy. We have one very clear purpose. Our purpose is that, in 10 years, all the children everywhere on the planet will dream of visiting a Puy du Fou park.”
Whether those ambitions can place Puy du Fou alongside Disney and Universal remains to be seen.
But with a UK resort progressing through planning, a luxury rail experience launching in 2027, and new touring productions extending the brand beyond its parks, the company is pursuing one of the industry's most distinctive international growth strategies.
