The key reason why this failed is that it was prohibitively expensive to run. They had to maintain a cast of professional actors, and even minor hotel staff had to maintain story and character.
There’s a very small audience that’s willing to pay thousands of dollars for a Star Wars LARP, no matter how professionally it’s produced.
It was like $6000 for two nights for a family of four. We’re talking some pretty basic rooms, too. Just stupidly expensive.
Christ, our local fantasy LARP only costs about $15 for a weekend, I believe. (Can’t go anymore for health reasons)
Plus IIRC it opened during Covid. If I was going I’d need a few more years to make plans.
“I’m sorry there seems to have been a problem with your reservation and the command deck suite is unavailable. All we currently have is the garbage mashers on the detention level.”
“Get in there, you furry oafs. I don’t care what you smell.”
This seemed like the most relevant community to post this in, I wasn’t sure what category this even fits into. It’s a very expensive AR game I guess?
Yeah, very interesting and sounds like a really cool experience. I think tying it to the sequels was a meh choice and kinda pigeonholes some stuff to focus on their advertising, but the basic bones of it sound neat.
I’m sure the real world issues of corporate and state politics/clashes had some hand in its shuttering as it looks like Disney is kinda slowly pulling out of Florida, but if the success of attractions like this and their other Star Wars interactive sites will fuel further projects like this, I’m down!
It wasn’t tied to the sequels it was tied to the high republic, the main star wars park is set during the sequels.
The article mentions First Order and Resistance which are the two factions in the sequels.
I think if it were set in the high republic, that would be my preference as well. Although, the pool of potential customers would likely be different if they didn’t tie it to the sequels. I get their advertising from a current brand recognition and hyping up their new content point of view, but for my money, I’d be way more interested in a trip set during the prequels or sorta like early empire as well.
High republic would be my favorite, if done well, and likely the safest for Disney as they could advertise their new high republic content, but that’s still in its infancy, so I see why they decided to tie it to the sequels.
Edit: Left out a few words because I’m on mobile lol
Yeah just looked it up, it was definitely set during the sequels. I’m sure during it’s initial announcement it was meant to be high republic. The ship is even a famous one that features in a few high republic content.
Honestly, I have a vague memory of that being the initial plan too lol not sure if it’s the Mandela effect though.
People had much the same comments about Secret Cinema - yes there are legitimate things to criticise them for, but saying “it’s just a $100 cinema ticket” seemed a bit disingenuous to describe an evening of roleplay with actors in a decorated set.
