Which would you rather do, learn about how to launch a rocket or actually launch one? Watch your favorite WWE Superstar or actually become one? You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to answer that, but wouldn’t it be cool if you were?
The answer is obvious, but the difference is more nuanced than simply prioritizing participation over observation. Creating main-character energy requires creating worlds where visitors have agency and their choices meaningfully impact the outcome of their experience.
Here are a few ways we’ve done this in our own work, and some of the technology and trends we’re excited about.
Superstar you
Hyper-personalized environments give visitors the kind of agency and buy-in that turns casual interest into super fandom.
In the WWE Experience Riyadh, guests create their own WWE Superstar persona before taking the stage for their signature walk-on moment (pictured, top).
Choosing their own fonts, colors, background aesthetic and walk-on music from hundreds of variants leads to the ultimate payoff–a fully-realized WWE walk-on that turns fantasy into reality.
“That level of personalization led to deeper engagement, repeat visits, and real enthusiasm around sharing content from the experience. It obviously enhanced the guest journey and the value of the experience for the client,” says senior creative producer Dustin Stephan.
Lift off
Half a world away from Riyadh, the RL10 Engine interactive at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center gives visitors the chance to bring an actual, space-flown rocket engine to life by combusting hydrogen and oxygen at exactly the right moment to achieve lift-off.
It’s not easy in the out-of-this-world conditions of space, so we didn’t program it to be easy on Earth, either.
The stakes are high, the effort is real, and the well-earned payoff delivers the kind of main-character energy that keeps the experience and the learning alive long after their visit is over.
The next frontier in transformative fan experiences
After more than a quarter of a century of creating remarkable fan experiences, we know one of the most powerful things we can do is make the visitor the star of the show.
We’re excited about the many ways agentic and generative AI can give everyone a moment in the spotlight, like adaptive show systems that respond to guest behavior and virtual environments that reconfigure themselves based on visitor interactions.
“When technology meets real human curiosity you get experiences that feel alive, and that’s the direction our work keeps pulling us,” says Stephan.
