A Demogorgon stood outside, ahead of a pink-suited guard. Downstairs pirates lurked, just across the hall from a werewolf. Upstairs a hormone monster prowled near a throne fit for an English queen. Love at First Sip cocktails were served, alongside gothic cake pops. In one corner, the floor was briefly lava.
This was Netflix House Philadelphia, the first permanent location for some of the immersive experiences and show-inspired snacks that the streaming service has trialed in 300 cities over the last five years. Begun as a way to debut shows or to keep them in the minds of fans during the gaps (sometimes very long gaps) between seasons, these experiences have since proliferated in complexity and invention.
A partial list includes “Bridgerton” balls and tea parties, a “Knives Out” mystery dinner, a “Money Heist” escape room and live versions of “Squid Game” and “Floor Is Lava.” “Life on Our Planet” got a multimedia concert tour and a live symphony orchestra. “Stranger Things” has now birthed a snazzy Broadway show.
Netflix House Philadelphia, a 100,000-square-foot space that opened earlier this month in the King of Prussia mall, on the site of a former Lord & Taylor, is home to a few such encounters. It opens with three virtual-reality “worlds,” a nine-hole mini-golf course, a restaurant, a shop, a movie theater, a “One Piece” escape room and a “Wednesday” carnival with a mystery on the side. A branding opportunity and a potential revenue stream, this House is the first of what Netflix hopes will be many. Netflix House Dallas is scheduled to open at Galleria Dallas in December. Netflix House Las Vegas is planned for 2027.
“I want people to come into Netflix House and feel like, ‘Whoa, this is so cool!’” Marian Lee, Netflix’s chief marketing officer, said on the afternoon of the space’s premiere. “I want people to come here and be transported.”
On a Monday in mid-November, I hopped a shuttle two hours south to King of Prussia, Pa., for an afternoon press preview at the mall and an evening premiere for invited guests. The site was chosen because of its proximity to Philadelphia and because the mall, one of America’s largest, could guarantee decent foot traffic. The space, dominated by a staircase painted the same brilliant red as the Netflix logo, was still pristine, and the gift shop had been outfitted with location-specific merch, like mugs that read, “Are Youse Still Watching?”
The effect was disorienting, some strange concatenation of art, marketing and commerce, yet also playful. Late capitalism, but make it fun.
Netflix got into the immersion game about five years ago, a little by accident. The streamer had already tested a few brief fan activations, like a 2019 takeover of Little Italy, in Lower Manhattan, pegged to the Martin Scorsese film “The Irishman.” But in October 2020, during the pandemic lockdowns, Netflix pioneered a “Stranger Things” drive-through experience in Los Angeles. (They called it “The Drive-Into Experience.”) Surprised by fan interest and ticket sales, Netflix built more experiences.
The biggest challenge: finding big, affordable spaces with high ceilings. So after Lee came on in 2022, she and her team began to think about acquiring those spaces more permanently. Netflix House Philadelphia — or, per vinyl stickers, Netphlix — debuted first, mostly as an accident of real estate.
Despite the success of Disney and Universal theme parks, a park was never Netflix’s goal — at least not one that couldn’t fit inside an anchor store in a mall. “It fits for where Netflix is now,” Lee explained, noting that the streamer had been offering original programming only since 2012.
“It’s not like we have 100 years behind us, where we have all this intellectual property,” she added. “It’s not like you’re planning a vacation a year out. This is like, ‘Hey, Mom, can we stop at the mall?’”
There is no entry fee, and the activities are priced fairly reasonably: $15 for mini golf, $39 for an immersive experience.
Netflix House reflects a trend toward in-person events as an alternative to the isolation of at-home, on-demand viewing, and as a way to increase visibility in an increasingly crowded online space. Alasdair McLean-Foreman, the founder of Teikametrics, a company that helps businesses optimize their position in the marketplace, has observed this shift.
“There’s a saturation point for online attention, and A.I. is going to make it worse,” he said. Instead, more companies are curating physical events to draw attention.
Each Netflix House will open with its own offerings. Dallas, for example, will have rooms devoted to “Stranger Things” and “Squid Game” instead of “Wednesday” and “One Piece,” and an arcade instead of mini-golf. Las Vegas is set to open with a Willy Wonka immersion, a product of Netflix’s acquisition of Roald Dahl’s intellectual property. The plan is to rotate these offerings, at least yearly and likely more often.
Not every Netflix property is ripe for inclusion. There is no “Maestro” escape room, no “House of Cards” photo op. Greg Lombardo, a Netflix vice president who heads live experiences, explained the criteria. Is the title beloved? Do watchers want to enter its world? Are the characters popular?
“What we’re always looking for is, ‘How do you provide wish fulfillment for a fan?’” he said. Few fans of, say, Alfonso Cuarón’s moody black-and-white film “Roma” desire immersion in it.
Showrunners are consulted for each experience. (Members of the Shondaland team, for example, had to approve the “Bridgerton” photo op, in which a throne sits beneath the Mastercard logo.) For the “Wednesday” immersion, the showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar were presented with the carnival idea. They asked Netflix to bring in the show’s costume designer, Colleen Atwood, and production designer, Mark Scruton. They also helped to write the mystery plot that participants solve with an assist, via text, from Wednesday’s sidekick, Thing.
“We’ve been doing this for 30 years, and we’ve never before had an experience where we thought our voices were heard in terms of marketing,” Millar said during a recent phone interview. “It’s been a lot of extra work, but it’s something that we have embraced.” He and Gough also offered feedback on the “Wednesday” mini-golf hole, which they found lacking. Netflix improved it. It was playable in time for the opening night party.
At the party, themed cocktails circulated, as did food from the dedicated restaurant called Netflix Bites, like a W.W.E. smashburger and a “Virgin River” grilled cheese. (It was difficult to imagine any of the snacks, which tended toward the too wet, the too dry and the weirdly gummy, to crack the Top 10.) The activities were meticulously designed and genuinely engaging, seemingly even for those who hadn’t seen the related series.
“What show is this based on?” a slightly drunk participant asked as the “One Piece” escape room began. Then he turned to the puzzles with enthusiasm.
The Houses are intended to buttress brand identification. Lee has found through surveys that fans don’t always associate the shows they love with Netflix. “They maybe don’t know that this is Netflix’s I.P.,” she explained.
And while Netflix hopes that the Houses will become profitable, that’s in the future.
“I don’t think you get there if you’re not delivering on the fandom,” Lombardo said.
For now, those fans can go on a virtual “Rebel Moon” mission, play the “Bridgerton” hole, pose in front of an “Emily in Paris” flower stand, chomp a giant pretzel that Netflix Bites calls a “Plot Twist” or buy a “KPop Demon Hunters” key chain. There is something for almost anyone on the way to Nordstrom.
“At the end of the day, you just want to entertain people, right?” Lombardo said.
Alexis Soloski has written for The Times since 2006. As a culture reporter, she covers television, theater, movies, podcasts and new media.
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