Tom Lionetti-Maguire is the CEO and founder of Little Lion Entertainment, the creators of The Crystal Maze LIVE Experience and the Tomb Raider Live Experience. He is also the CEO and founder of The Ents Inc., the company behind Chaos Karts. In 2019, he was named in The Sunday Times 100 Entrepreneurs of the Year.
Little Lion Entertainment is the UK’s largest immersive theatre company, with over 250 staff and close to 1 million satisfied guests. Speaking to blooloop in 2017 about the creation of The Crystal Maze Live Experience, Little Lion’s first production, and the inspiration behind it, he said:
“My background is as an actor. I trained a long time ago, did all sorts of West End jobs and other stuff, but then became aware of interactive theatre. I’m a big fan of what people like Secret Cinema and Punchdrunk do. I saw that there was this incredible appetite for live immersive experiences, where you become part of the show. That blending of the worlds of theatre and attractions was really exciting and inspired myself, Ben and Dean [Ben Hodges and Greg Fittock] to do something. So, we set up a production company, Little Lion Entertainment, and we kept coming back to this idea of a live Crystal Maze.”
Translating IP from the screen into tangible immersive experiences is one of Little Lion’s USPs, he added while speaking to blooloop about the Tomb Raider Live Experience in 2022.
“Despite the promise of the metaverse, I hope, and am convinced that the real world will always be the most interesting place that we operate. Taking the world of video games, taking the world of TV and films, then installing it into the world of theatre; you’re there doing it with your friends in real-time, right in front of you. That’s super interesting for me.”