In the shadow of the Great Smoky Mountains, a unique new experience is coming to Sevier County, Tennessee. The 407: Gateway to Adventure is a 200-acre entertainment, dining and shopping destination currently being developed by Kituwah LLC, the business subsidiary of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI). Now, it has been confirmed that iconic theme park brand Puy du Fou will operate one of the site’s anchor attractions.
OE Experiences, a financial consulting and business management firm that specialises in the experience economy, is the project manager and owner’s representative for this project. The company is representing Kituwah LLC and The 407 in its search for entertainment partners for the development and last month it revealed that $75 million has been secured for The 407: Gateway to Adventure, following approval by the EBCI Tribal Council.
OE Experiences specializes in bringing financing and design together in a way that ensures the highest level of execution. From the conceptual stages of a project through opening and operation, OE Experiences serves as the owners’ rep and support for the parties involved in a development. In a market where ideas rarely make it off the page, OE Experiences is building a solid list of ideas that became realities.
With Puy du Fou on board, and many other exciting developments to come, blooloop spoke to OE Experiences, Kituwah, EBCI and Puy du Fou to find out more about the plans for a spectacular immersive show that is sure to put The 407 on the map.
A longstanding connection
Matthew Cross, founding partner and CEO of OE Experiences, was ideally placed to help the EBCI and Kituwah make The 407 a reality. This is thanks to a connection that dates back to his college days, as he explains:
“My first job was as a college finance intern for Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort. It was a great job. I worked across each finance department within the casino – income control, accounting, and in planning and analysis. At the time, they were doing a massive expansion and redevelopment of that Casino, which is the second most profitable casino in the country.”
Following this, Cross went on to work for a firm in Boston where EBCI was an investment client, and then moved into a financial advisor role at USI Consulting Group. EBCI was a client there as well.
“So, I’ve really worked with the tribe in some capacity in basically every iteration of my career,” he adds. “I have a lot of relationships there, they are great people and I’ve had a lot of good opportunities with them. Those relationships are very important to me both professionally and personally.”
Introducing OE Experiences
Cross, along with his co-founder and CFO, Lewis Frazer, began OE Experiences in early 2020 – perhaps not the ideal timing for a new venture, considering the global pandemic. However, the pair were united in their vision and able to react to the situation quickly.
“Lewis and I met on a previous project,” says Cross. “He has an unbelievable background and experience being CFO for Regal Cinemas. We complement each other well; he is a great partner. We both believe that the entertainment industry is evergreen. People will never not need to be entertained. You can’t out-innovate the need for entertainment; if anything, it just continues to evolve and technology is making it better and better.”
Frazer adds: “As one of the first executives at Regal and participating in the growth of arguably the first entertainment anchor for developments across the country, I am enjoying this chapter of my career as we seek, with our clients, the next idea that will shape out of home entertainment. Where will lightning strike next? That’s what we want to find, and we want to be the lightning rod.”
“When we launched OE Experiences, our original intent was to own and operate our own attractions,” says Cross. “But I was at the IAAPA Leadership Summit in 2020, the week that Disneyland closed because of COVID and when I came back, we were questioning: “How do we adapt? What do we do to survive in this short term?”
“It was clear to us that there was still an immense need for a firm to be that bridge between the financing and the owners. There is a need for that owner representation for development services, and so we started to look for those opportunities.”
Kituwah sends out a request
In April 2020, an opportunity came up; one Cross was well-suited to pursue given his connections with EBCI, Sevier County, and his experience in the industry.
“The tribe had conveyed what we now call The 407 Gateway to Adventure, through Kituwah, their business and economic development entity. And their CEO, Mark Hubble, called me and said: “We would like for your company to respond.”
“They were soliciting bids from across the entire state. And I said that we’d love to respond, but we’re going to respond with our flavour. To us, this development is the perfect test case for the experience economy as we see it.”
“We don’t have to convince people anymore that we’re in the experience economy, every real estate developer is aware of this. They’re all trying to figure out the best way to do it. And so, we said this is how we’re going to approach our bid: yes, we can be your project manager, but we also want to be your full owner’s representative and help you make those investment allocation decisions.
“Our original engagement was to help them blue sky the development. So, we sent out an RFP for a creative lead with theme park experience. Mycotoo was ultimately selected through that process. Then we used that original budget to come up with the idea of what could be The 407 venture. We needed to signal to the market that we were approaching this development differently, and seeking global players.”
The 407 takes shape
The next step for OE Experiences was to oversee a concept development budget and build a team focused on experiential development. Mycotoo came on board in June 2020, leading a creative charrette process with Kituwah and a broad team assembled by OE Experiences.
Later that year, Cross spoke to blooloop for an article that introduced the project. This was to have a key impact shortly afterwards. Giving us an update on what has happened since we last spoke, he says:
“There have been some exciting developments. We finished that blue sky phase, and we knew we were going to have Buc-ee’s. So we knew that that was going to let people stop for 15 to 45 minutes. But we needed that next step, that entertainment anchor that was going to stretch that visit to The 407 to three or four hours.”
“When we spoke to you in 2020, we talked about how this is an unusual circumstance with a great developer that’s seeking economic diversification. We talked about how we have used a theme park designer to help set up this concept of a retail, dining, and entertainment establishment. And it was through that call to action that Puy du Fou originally approached us.”
Puy du Fou is top of the list
This initial interaction came during the pandemic, when many of us were isolated, working from home, and tuning into virtual conferences instead of in-person events. One such event that Cross had tuned into featured the digital case studies of the TEA’s Thea Awards 2020.
“Puy du Fou won an award for Outstanding Achievement for their show The First Kingdom,” he says. “And so, Puy du Fou was at the top of our list. When we had the first interaction with their international director, he reached out and said: “I don’t know if you’ve heard of us”. He’s about to launch into the explanation and I said, “No, we know all about you!”
“They told us they’ve been looking at a way to enter the United States for a while and they thought that maybe this development was the right fit. It was an exciting introduction because they are a prestigious company. This began a 16-month process, to build that partnership and get to the point that we have just got to, where $75 million in funding was approved by the tribal council for the benefit of The 407.”
The Puy du Fou story
For Puy du Fou, this was the culmination of a long search for the perfect site in the US, explains Guillaume Allaire, director of international affairs at Puy du Fou:
“To tell this incredible story, I have to go back almost 45 years ago to the beginning of Puy du Fou in France. From the very beginning, our small team used to go year after year to the USA, because America was home to the most impressive shows. For our predecessors, it was a benchmarking trip to discover the future of entertainment.”
Then, as Puy du Fou became more established, theme park fans and industry insiders in the US began to take notice:
“After some time, we started to receive people from America in our parks to see our shows. Then in 2012, our peers from the industry in America gave us the Thea Classic Award for the Best Theme Park in the World. Two years after that, we received the IAAPA Applause Award, in 2014.
“Our friends from America gave us these prestigious international accolades recognising the excellence of our people in the field of show entertainment. At the same time, we also started to expand our brand, globally. But at some point, when you want to be an international brand, especially in the entertainment industry, you need to have a flag in America.”
The 407 site checks Puy du Fou’s boxes
Credit: Stéphane Audran
This is why, right before the pandemic, Nicolas de Villiers, president of Puy du Fou, had tasked Allaire to search for a potential project for the brand in the US.
“So, we started, almost two and a half years ago, to look for the most appropriate place for this first US location,” says Allaire. “Together with my team we had a lot of interviews with local experts, and we assessed a lot of data. This work revealed that the Southeast quarter of the US could be the perfect place for us.”
“Great Smoky Mountains, Pigeon Forge, and Sevier County were part of this hotspot that we were monitoring. I always look at blooloop to be aware of what’s happening in our industry, and I read an article about OE Experiences and a potential development in exactly the location where we felt we could have a presence.
“That’s the reason why I contacted Matthew in January 2021 to introduce Puy du Fou. And of course, it turned out that he knew about us.”
Delivering a transformative experience
Puy du Fou is a perfect fit for what EBCI and Kituwah are trying to achieve with The 407 project, says Cross:
“First and foremost, our greatest aspiration is to deliver a transformative experience. To do that, you need authenticity, you need high production values, and you need an emotional story. Puy du Fou is a master at that. “
“They’re also proven operators in multiple countries. They’re unique in having both design and operations in-house. So, there’s that seamless transition and then that knowledge base of not just what sounds like a great creative idea, but what can be operationally executed well.”
“Plus, Puy du Fou has a brand that they need to protect, a standard that they uphold. That’s a good fit for the Cherokee who need bankable investments. They need partnerships they can lean on that that will pass financial, operational, and cultural due diligence. Puy du Fou was able to check all those boxes.”
“Secondly, this is a unique moment where you have two communities coming together. There’s the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and their 16,000 tribal citizens who need to benefit from economic development. Then you’ve got Sevier County, which is a great community and a huge regional tourism market. Together, they have an unbelievably rich history.”
Understanding the market
In order to get the Puy du Fou team on board, it was important for them to understand the market where The 407 is located. So, Cross and his OE Experiences team brought a group over from Puy du Fou:
“We took them through Sevierville, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg. We took them to Dollywood, the aquarium, Titanic, and everything else the area has to offer,” he says.
“Then we spent a good deal of time talking about how things are changing in this market. For instance, Dollywood has half a billion dollars they’re investing in their resorts with increasing levels of luxury and higher-end amenities. There are some exciting projects that are starting funding and support. We have several TEA member projects open or coming soon in the area; we’ve got AOA’s Project Flavortown and Dynamic Attraction’s SkyFly that opened. We’ve got SimEx-Iwerks extending with their own flying theatre.
“These are internationally-known companies. They have worked on theme parks all over the world, and they’re all investing in this market.”
Futureproofing The 407
It was important for OE Experiences to take Puy du Fou through all of this, to ensure that they understood the competitive profile, says Cross:
“That’s key because we’re not designing this development for the market today. We are designing it for the market 10 years from now. So, we need to know where we’re at. Then we also have to anticipate where these new attractions are going to open, so that this remains competitive.”
From Puy du Fou’s perspective, the site checked all the boxes, says Olivier Strebelle, Puy du Fou CEO:
“A good site for us is a challenging combination of aesthetic, economic, and cultural features. That’s the reason why this place is a perfect match.
“Here we have the magnificent backdrop of the Great Smoky Mountains. Then there is the legendary hospitality of the Southerners and a strong cultural heritage rooted in Cherokee and American history. Moreover, it’s already a booming tourist destination, driving millions of visitors each year.
“Finally, we’ve had a warm welcome from the authorities of Sevier County and the State of Tennessee. That is, naturally, very important when you start such a development.”
Visiting Puy du Fou
The other key stakeholders and EBCI needed to understand Puy du Fou before agreeing to a deal. A team including the EBCI’s Chief Richard Sneed and Kituwah’s Mark Hubble went to France and Spain to experience Puy du Fou’s shows for themselves.
“In the United States, Puy du Fou is still being discovered; a lot of people don’t know about it,” says Cross. “Outside the industry, people don’t understand why people think they’re special, why they’re so effective at storytelling. So, we knew we had to benchmark these experiences. We watched most of the shows in French or Spanish, and we were still able to understand the story. That really speaks to how effective they are as storytellers, and it was incredibly moving.
“The most amazing moment was when we went to the volunteer villages to meet these actors with Chief Sneed and Mark. We could see the camaraderie and the connection there.”
“Afterwards, we were debriefing, and Chief Sneed reflected that these villages are tribal, they have a real connection. That’s what we mean by the word tribal. And that connectivity is perfectly represented by the fact that everyone here is united around this cultural story, this legacy. They are united about participating in it and communicating it, and he was deeply moved. He took a carving with Cherokee symbols on it out of his pocket, which was given to him by his mother before she passed, and he put it on Nicolas as a gift.”
Chief Sneed adds: “We felt it was important to see Puy du Fou firsthand before making any final decisions. What we found is that words don’t do justice in describing what they offer. It really takes seeing these immersive experiences personally to understand their power. We are excited to offer that same opportunity to visitors at The 407 in the near future.”
A real connection
As well as the partnership making sense on paper, the trip cemented a real connection between Puy du Fou and the EBCI, says de Villiers:
“Hosting a personality like Chief Sneed and his team was a great honour. He represents the sovereign nation of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, so it was far more important than just a meeting between business partners. It was an encounter between the Cherokee nation and the Puy du Fou nation. These are two proud communities who both have a strong sense of belonging, rooted in a multi-secular history.
“At the end of this visit, I left a friend. But I was sure that it was the beginning of something unique. I’ve been told that there’s no word for “goodbye” in Cherokee because we know that our paths will cross again in the future, and here we are!”
Cross adds:
“Watching these communities literally come together was a profound moment. And that moment established a level of trust, that Puy du Fou can handle the storytelling. They can take a Cherokee story and they can treat it with the right approach.
“After that, it purely became an exercise of ironing out the business partnership. We need to make sure that we structure this in a way that benefits both the Cherokee as investors and Puy du Fou as manager operator.
“That’s where OE Experiences’ relationship with Kituwah is so important because Kituwah is incredibly sophisticated. They have a great board; Mark has tremendous expertise. And then, with our team, we have tremendous knowledge and expertise in theme park design and creative execution. The deal was all about bringing those skill sets to bear and then ensuring that the project has the foundation that it needs to be successful for the long term.”
Building a best-in-class destination
The key goal of bringing a Puy du Fou experience to this particular market is the uniqueness of the concept.
“There is simply not another concept in the Smokies that does exactly what Puy du Fou does,” says Hubble. “We want to place a consortium of unique experiences at the development and Puy du Fou is unique.
“In addition, Puy du Fou brings many admirable aspects to the 407 Development. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and Kituwah, LLC are intent on building a best-in-class destination. A major component of any such endeavour is seeking partners with truly exceptional customer service and immersive experience expertise.
“I’ve visited many tourist destinations over the years. And I have never seen any company in the experience industry so singularly focused on the patron’s experience. Their shows absolutely enchant the viewer.”
A unique story
The show itself will tell a story that has not been told before. It is a true story about the Cherokee participating in WWI on behalf of the allies, even though at the time the USA did not count them as citizens themselves.
“Cherokee history is a rich tapestry,” says Chief Sneed. “The story we have chosen highlights a unique, and under-told aspect of our past. Puy du Fou has a proven talent for capturing the essence of historical events and bringing them to life. We are proud to partner with them to offer audiences a moving, one-of-a-kind experience.”
Cross says: “What I love about this is that Puy du Fou is going to bring a level of production and experience and quality that this market has never seen. And then the Cherokee are, of course, incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about their own history, their legacy and their symbolism and language.
“We now get to watch that cross-pollinate. I think it’s going to unlock something incredibly powerful and moving.
“We collectively decided to focus on this story because we wanted it to be universal. I mean that in the sense that every single visitor will get something out of this. They’ll walk away hopefully with a good response, with a sense of optimism. We will be setting a tone that will kick-start or cap off a great Sevier County experience.”
Bringing the Puy du Fou magic to The 407
The Puy du Fou team is also excited to be telling this new story, bringing their own unique magic:
“The story comes from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians,” says Allaire. “They have chosen us to bring it to life, using our Puy du Fou method of what we call “rooted entertainment”. For us, that means finding inspiration from local histories and heritage.
“We need to tell a beautiful story about the Cherokee heritage in a way that engages every visitor. It was important to choose the right storyline. So, we found this little-known story of the volunteers from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. They decided to join the American Expeditionary Force to fight for America.
“For us, it was exactly the kind of story that we love to tell. If we don’t have goosebumps when we are working on a storyline, we know it won’t work. But at the very moment we heard this story we knew it would touch the universal feelings of courage, bravery, friendship, and love.”
Strebelle adds:
“We will develop this project side by side with our friends at Kituwah. Mark and his team will bring us the cultural materials and mindset we need to create an experience that will touch the hearts and souls of our American audience. We have a unique expertise to stage moving and transformative stories, in a way which is both historically and locally accurate. This is the key to authenticity.”
Developing The 407: Gateway to Adventure
In May 2022, OE Experiences was able to reveal that $75 million has now been secured for The 407. Following the announcement, the chairman of the Tribal Council, Richard French, said:
“We are excited to take the first steps towards developing this world-class attraction that will help support our nation economically while creating a new platform to share dimensions of Cherokee history many have never heard.”
“Getting the funding was huge,” says Cross. “That’s a big part of our forte, bringing that financing and design together. But equally important now is ensuring the execution of this at the highest level. So, now OE Experiences is transitioning into finalising that operating model. We will be involved all the way through to opening and operation, as owners’ rep and as that support for Kituwah.”
“Everything’s greenlit, so now we’re moving forward and it’s going to be incredibly fulfilling to see this come to fruition. We are excited to be telling this story, and the community and the county are incredibly supportive.”
The Puy du Fou team are also enthusiastic to see the project take shape, says Allaire:
“I cannot say how excited we are to return and to thank our American friends who recognised the excellence of Puy du Fou decades ago. It’s very exciting to bring Puy du Fou to an American audience. And it’s also a great honour and a great pride for us to partner with the Cherokee tribe.”
