Wētā Workshop, a creative services company combining artistry and innovation, is celebrating the fifth anniversary of Wētā Workshop Unleashed, the larger-than-life sibling to its Wellington-based tourist attraction, Wētā Workshop Experiences.
The attraction was developed to give visitors an all-access pass to the company's world, addressing the challenge of not being able to bring people into the workshop due to confidentiality and health and safety restrictions.
Wētā Workshop Experiences offers a glimpse of Wētā Workshop in New Zealand, but Wētā Workshop Unleashed is an interactive, immersive experience. Guests explore fantasy, horror, and science fiction film effects and the universe of the five-time Academy Award-winner through three fictional film projects spanning sci-fi, horror, and fantasy.
From storyboarding to special effects, design to the director’s chair, it’s a rare chance for guests to discover how extraordinary practical effects are brought to life as they touch, make, and marvel through the creative process during their 90-minute tour.
An immersive journey
Head of security, Jeff, a chatty, wisecracking Orc realised through a sophisticated, life-sized animatronic that can speak Hindi, Mandarin, and English, offers a first taste of the imaginative world awaiting ahead.
Intergalactic, fantastical, and otherworldly cinematic realms unfold, all crafted by Wētā Workshop’s Immersive Experiences team, whose expertise in transforming extraordinary ideas into fully realised experiences around the globe ranges from the world's largest duty-free shopping complex in Hainan, China, to Alif: The Mobility Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Wētā Workshop Unleashed is fun, captivating, educational, and, above all, a celebration of creativity. Leather-punching stations, Operation-style autopsies on fictional creatures, complex storyboards, and the ability to control the movements of a five-metre-tall humanoid robot simply by looking at it all embody participation and wonder.
It also exemplifies Wētā Workshop’s skill not just as a practical effects house but as a thoughtful storyteller in immersive arts. In 2021, Wētā Workshop Unleashed won first place in the Blooloop Innovation Awards’ Storytelling category. That same year, it received a Thea Award for Outstanding Achievement.
“Wētā Workshop Unleashed is completely unique — especially within a New Zealand context, where only a handful of experiences like this exist,” says Wētā Workshop head of tourism Sam Holdich.
“It pushes the boundaries of imagination while giving our international guests a window into the creativity and culture of innovation that define Wētā Workshop.
"At its heart, Wētā Workshop Unleashed is about sharing and inspiring creativity. It invites people to step behind the curtain, explore impossible worlds, and see how ideas are brought to life. That commitment to hands-on wonder and bold storytelling is what has set Wētā Workshop Unleashed apart over the past five years.”
Award-winning experience
Wētā Workshop Unleashed opened just eight months after the World Health Organisation declared Covid-19 a pandemic. In March 2020, New Zealand adopted a four-tier system for managing the outbreak, closing borders to all but returning citizens and residents.
From December 2020 to early 2022, when restrictions eased, Wētā Workshop Unleashed operated only domestically.
That it now welcomes hundreds of visitors each day, with a Google review average of 4.9 stars on Yonder and an NPS score of 81, speaks as much to the strength of its unique proposition, a Willy Wonka-esque labyrinth designed to inspire future makers, as it does to the realisation of its vision.
“Over the last five years, Wētā Workshop Unleashed has continued to evolve, driven by a constant desire to push the boundaries of what’s possible,” says Holdich of the experience, which celebrated its fifth anniversary on December 14.
“We’ve expanded the experience through live events, special movie screenings, hands-on workshops and fully themed conferences and celebrations. That ongoing innovation keeps the space dynamic and allows guests to encounter Wētā Workshop Unleashed in new and surprising ways, reinforcing its role as a creative hub as much as an immersive attraction.”
Wētā Workshop Unleashed is an unforgettable home to some extraordinary inhabitants — a vengeful mythological forest creature with a taste for human flesh, a peace-loving herbivore society threatened by a clan of carnivorous dinosaurs, a colossal extraterrestrial robot — and a lasting tribute to the people who create them.
Wētā Workshop co-founder and chief creative officer Richard Taylor says, “Wētā Workshop Unleashed is a truly unique and creative experience that celebrates the Kiwi ingenuity behind our work, and demystifies for our guests, how we make and create.”
“We are immensely proud that we have been able to bring joy and fascination to so many people over the past five years.”
“Over the past five years, our experience has given guests a full-blown exposé of how Wētā Workshop brings the art of practical effects to life in the movies we have contributed to over our colourful career.
"Wētā Workshop Unleashed was born out of a desire to share our unique approach to the film effects that we create, with the aim to inspire our next generation of creative innovators."
