Playback 96
Playback96 is built on a well-tested instinct: nostalgia is selective for a reason. Nobody misses the dial-up screech, the late fees, or the loading bar that never loaded. But the games, the music, the feeling of a decade when fun was physical and nobody was filming it? People never got over that.
Playback 96
Funlab Pty Ltd
The brief was to bring back everything worth keeping and leave the rest behind. What came out the other side is a venue designed as a complete world, not a themed room. Every decision, from the neon signage, to the 90’s easter eggs hidden all over the venue, to the cocktail menu to the staff language guide, pulls in the same direction.
Funlab Pty Ltd logo
Funlab Pty Ltd
Guests are immersed into the experience before they walk in. The facade reads 90s immediately: retro cinema marquee boards, VHS store shelving visible through the windows. Step inside and it gets denser. A working replica video store with genuine 90s VHS tapes, the smell of popcorn. The playlist features Blur and Outkast. Candy towers floor to ceiling. Glowing Furbys, life-size 90s movie cutouts positioned around the venue. A retro hairdresser complete with salon chairs and functioning hood dryers. A beer pong arcade cabinet covered in era-appropriate stickers. A giant Etch-A-Sketch.
Playback 96
Funlab Pty Ltd
Nine competitive social games are the heart of the venue. Each is built on a mechanic people already know, Snake, Etch-A-Sketch, reaction testing, music identification, beer pong, a physical sprint, and reimagined at scale with 90s skins, 90s scoring language, and 90s energy. Familiar enough to understand in seconds. Competitive enough to argue about on the way home.
Playback 96
Funlab Pty Ltd
The Blowout is a 90s hairdresser room where guests sit under functioning hood dryers and identify the track playing through them. One Missed Call puts four players on giant Nokia handsets in a multiplayer Snake battle. Ready Player Run is a timed physical sprint through a candy pendulum course, hit the button at both ends, fastest across the light bridge wins. Line Master is a multiplayer Etch-A-Sketch draw-and-guess game where the drawing reveals itself a few pixels at a time, and guessing too early can cost you the round.
Playback 96
Funlab Pty Ltd
The technology at Playback96 is designed to disappear entirely. Guests collect a physical game card at check-in, a deliberate nod to the Blockbuster membership card, and tap into each game. Scores track automatically. The leaderboard updates in real time. Players can check their standing via a QR code at any game station without pausing play.
Playback 96
Funlab Pty Ltd
The card handles everything: session management, multiplayer assignment, scoring. Staff don't explain the mechanics. The one thing the venue does emphasise, on signage, in the briefing, and in the game design itself, is to read the instructions before pressing play. Every game is different. The ones who read have more fun, every time.
Playback 96
Funlab Pty Ltd
The bar offers cocktails and mocktails that extend the world rather than sitting alongside it. Signature serves include Screen Burn, a reworked Sex on the Beach served with a Pixel Buddy (tamogochi) hanging off the glass, and Troll Juice, a layered mocktail option served with a troll straw topper. Soft drinks are served in glassware featuring the original 90s Coca Cola branding & logo - Always Coca-Cola (approved by and in collaboration with CCEP, Coca-Cola Europacific Partners).
Playback 96
Funlab Pty Ltd
Guest can purchase merch items that walk out the door and keep working, eg VHS hats and PB96 branded slap bands.
Playback 96
Funlab Pty Ltd
Playback96 is, above all, a venue that assumes its audience. It doesn't explain the decade, ask people to remember it, or tell them why it's cool. It just lives there, comfortably, and trusts that the people walking through the door already know exactly what they came back for.
