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Lake Elsinore, CA, April 27, 2021 – Storyland Studios have been appointed to design a series of new location-based entertainment concepts for Grupo Cataratas, the largest tourism operator in South America.

Grupo Cataratas currently operates six sites in Brazil, with more in development. In 2019 alone, the group welcomed nearly six million guests. The group champions conservation, sustainability, and preservation of the natural environment for future generations.

“Brazil is home to some of earth’s richest landscapes, and many of the most undiscovered parts of our world; places, communities, cultures and histories that have not yet been documented to this day,” said Ben Thompson, Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Global Clients at Storyland Studios.

“Grupo Cataratas are a wonderful organisation because their core purpose is about celebrating and securing the legacy of the natural environment; the flora and the fauna, the indigenous species, the landscapes and the ecology of this beautiful country. Grupo Cataratas see their role as custodians of the natural world, creating educational, fun experiences that immerse and educate people in the things that really matter in our world.”

Attractions managed by Grupo Cataratas include:

• BioParque do Rio, a reimagined zoo experience which focuses on research, education, and conservation.
• AquaRio, the largest aquarium in South America, which features immersive exhibitions and 350 aquatic species.
• The Paineiras Visitors Center at the base of Corcovado mountain, where more than two million visitors per year travel to see the famous statue of Christ that overlooks Rio de Janeiro.
• The Marco das Três Fronteiras tourist complex, located at the meeting point between Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina featuring historical sites, regional fare, and an immersive educational experience in the Parana region.
• The Iguaçu National Park and its visitors’ center, where travelers can discover incredible natural wonders such as the Iguaçu Falls.
• EcoNoronha park, a beautifully preserved, government-protected series of islands that include coral reefs and locations such as Praia do Sancho, twice voted the world’s most beautiful beach.
• The upcoming AquaFoz, an aquarium facility that will champion research of both marine and freshwater species, particularly from the ecosystems supported by the Paraná and Iguaçu rivers.

Grupo Cataratas are looking to grow their tourism offerings throughout South America, adding new immersive experiences and attractions. That’s where Storyland Studios comes in.

“Grupo Cataratas hopes to dive deeper into location-based entertainment, in addition to their current, successful aquarium brand “Aqua” which I had a hand in developing as a consultant,” Thompson said. “They want to explore other kinds of immersive, story-led visitor experiences they can offer that are in line with their core purpose. These could center around technology, IP, gaming, or educational content. We’re thrilled to have been selected to help them with this next stage of their journey.”

Storyland will work to develop a themed entertainment strategy for Grupo Cataratas, which includes identifying locations for potential attractions and concept development for the attractions themselves.

“Our team will come alongside Grupo Cataratas to determine whether these attraction sites will utilize existing international or local intellectual property (IP), or develop something completely new for each space,” McGowan says.

For example, Grupo Cataratas recently inked a deal with a Brazilian IP owner, Turma de Monica, to develop an attraction which will operate from the AquaRio aquarium in Rio de Janeiro’s Porto Maravilha Urban Operation. This waterfront community is located in one of the oldest urban developments in Rio de Janeiro, and its goal is to breathe new life into the area through inclusivity, sustainability, modern infrastructure, and innovation, while honoring the region’s rich heritage.

As the partnership develops, Storyland and Grupo Cataratas will explore multiple potential avenues for these immersive attractions. Possible attraction formats include physical activity, IP, edutainment, and both indoor and outdoor water parks.

“This is a fantastic company for Storyland to work with,” Thompson said. “Grupo Cataratas leads with their values and the impact they want to have on future generations. Their goal is to both preserve the natural world, but to also celebrate its power to educate.

“Grupo Cataratas wants to create ways for people to enjoy landscapes, environments and the natural world in a way that leads to better understanding, better actions for a better world.”

Storyland Studios imagines, designs and creates immersive experiences and environments that lift the spirit. For more information, visit www.storylandstudios.com.

Photo by Gabriel Rissi

Lake Elsinore, Calif. – Experience design and themed entertainment firm Storyland Studios is excited to announce its inaugural Storyland Design Challenge, an all-new, international concept design competition for freelance designers working in the themed entertainment industry.

Freelance designers seeking to make their name in themed entertainment are invited to pitch their design concepts for immersive, story-based experiences. The grand prize is $20,000 and the winner will have the opportunity to pitch their concept to industry veterans in a spotlight session at the 2021 Blooloop V-Expo this October.

“After 20 years of telling stories in space, Storyland Studios is inviting the next generation of storytellers to showcase their talent,” said Mel McGowan, Chief Creative Officer at Storyland Studios and veteran Disney Imagineer. “We’re thrilled to offer this incredible opportunity to freelance designers during this unprecedented time in our industry.”

Joining Storyland for this exciting event are industry leading judges, legendary in the themed entertainment world. They include:

• Michael Mack, CEO, Europa Park and Mack NeXT
• Andreas Andersen, CEO and President, Liseberg Group, Sweden, and Board Member at LEGO®️ House Denmark
• Doris Hardoon, Executive Creative Director and veteran Disney Imagineer
• Laurence Beckers, Creative Director, Alterface and Board Member of l’Institut des Arts et Diffusion, Louvain-La-Neuve
• Rachel Read, Founder and co-CEO, Blooloop
• Mel McGowan, CCO, Storyland Studios and veteran Disney Imagineer

Storyland Studios Design Challenge partners include Alterface, Blooloop, Mack NeXT and ThemedAttraction.com.

Hardoon, a prominent voice in The Imagineering Story and Executive Creative Director at Disneyland Shanghai, is a passionate advocate for supporting emerging designers in the industry, alongside the group of stellar, industry-leading judges participating.

“I know the entertainment industry is flourishing and relevant when I see versatile designers showcase who they want to be as the industry’s next generation of visionaries,” she said.

Giving back to the themed entertainment industry

Twenty years ago this October, in the buildup following 9/11, Storyland Studios was formed as a design studio. Since then, Storyland has had the pleasure and privilege of serving the themed entertainment industry with some distinction. As a firm, Storyland has had the distinct privilege of working on award-winning projects, with award-winning industry innovators.

For example, Poverty Encounter by the Children’s Hunger Fund, a project Storyland worked on, was honored with the prestigious Themed Attraction Association’s (TEA) Thea Award. Josh Steadman, Art Director for Storyland, was also honored with a Thea Award for his work on Shanghai Disneyland. Steadman is also the recipient of 11 Solomon Awards and 24 AAFIEs.

Today, the Storyland team boasts over 100 team members and has evolved into a full experience design and storytelling firm with offices on three continents. Most importantly, the firm enjoys cherished relationships with its clients and partners.

“To recognize this achievement, rather than do the usual patting ourselves on the back, we wanted to do something different,” said Ben Thompson, Chief Strategy Officer at Storyland Studios. “we want to give back to the industry which has enabled us to become who we are today.

In particular, we want to give a helping hand to freelance creatives who have been most impacted by COVID. It would be a great shame if talented creative people left our industry at this time, and we felt we could do something about that.”

Design competitions create a networking boost for designers

In light of the COVID pandemic, the nature of networking has changed. The Storyland Design Challenge offers freelance designers the opportunity to get their pitch concepts in front of a distinguished and influential audience.

“The crucial first step to one day landing that dream job is just getting the opportunity to be heard,” said Jakob Fagerström, an independent spatial experience designer and art director. “If you don’t have any natural touch points within the industry, that can feel almost impossible.

“This makes every chance to connect and showcase invaluable for any designer who has a big dream but not as big of a network.”

According to Hardoon, giving future generations a platform is a duty that industry veterans should strive to fulfill wherever possible. Likewise, new talent should be actively making connections among peers and mentors.

“Awareness, connections and discovering talent are a relentless responsibility both the industry veterans and future talent need to engage in,” she said. “Opportunities like this Design Challenge provide a great platform to demonstrate who, why, and how an individual can be recognized and excel.”

Pre-registration open now

Three finalists will be invited to present their concepts during this year’s Storyland Innovation Webinar. All participants will receive a one-year subscription to the Kitestring virtual training platform.

Early registration is open from now through March 31. Entrants who register early may enter the competition free of charge. Standard registration is open from April 1 through June 4, 2021. Entrants may register at storylandstudios.com/designchallenge.

Storyland Studios imagines, designs and creates immersive experiences and environments that lift the spirit. For more information, visit www.storylandstudios.com.

Lake Elsinore, Calif. – Experience design and themed entertainment firm Storyland Studios is excited to welcome Jason Surrell to their rapidly expanding team as Executive Creative Director. Surrell, a veteran of both Walt Disney Imagineering and Universal Creative Group, brings a wealth of experience in themed entertainment and storytelling to Storyland.

Most recently, Surrell served as Senior Creative Executive for both of Universal Studios’s upcoming parks: the $6 billion Universal Studios Beijing and Universal’s Epic Universe. Now, he is looking forward to taking on executive creative direction with Storyland.

“I had a special feeling about Storyland,” he said. “It feels very much how I imagine Walt Disney Imagineering–or WED Enterprises, as it was called at the time–must have felt like in the 50s and 60s. It’s an eclectic and diverse group of highly talented people from probably a hundred different disciplines.”

From the time he was a child, Surrell’s lifelong dream was to work in both film and television, in addition to being a Disney Imagineer. After multiple stints with both the Walt Disney Company and Universal Studios, he embarked on his next career adventure–which brought him to Storyland.

When Surrell saw the concept art for the projects he’s covering at Storyland, which include a theme park and a major film studio tour, he said they felt like “a match made in heaven.”

“Half of my career has been spent working with studio parks and ‘making of’ experiences in some of the biggest franchises in history,” he said. “It looks and feels like something Walt would have done.”

Surrell began his entertainment career as a college student. While working as an hourly performer and as Pluto at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., he and a friend pitched their first show, which went on to be approved and produced.

“I may be the youngest person to pitch, write, and direct a show for Disney. I was 21 and still in college,” Surrell says. “That showed me that, as a writer and director, I could have a future in the business.”

Surrell went on to work with Universal Studios Orlando and Universal Creative Group, where he concepted, wrote, and directed shows in the Orlando parks, in addition to Universal Studios Japan. He scripted both the Jurassic Park River Adventure ride and pre-show at Islands of Adventure.

Next, he moved on to Walt Disney Imagineering, where he worked on concepting and producing shows and media, creative direction, script and story writing, and copywriting. Surrell wrote the first treatment for the New Fantasyland in Orlando’s Magic Kingdom theme park.

“We called out a new way to meet and greet the characters, which became Enchanted Tales with Belle,” he said. “I first wrote down the concept of the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. The whole idea was presenting Fantasyland differently, in a more organic space with trees, mountains, boulders and water.”

Other credits with the Walt Disney Company include early creative development for Star Wars Land prior to Galaxy’s Edge, Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, The Legend of Captain Jack Sparrow starring Johnny Depp, Raiders of the Lost Jedi Temple of Doom, Star Wars Weekends, The Great Movie Ride, and many more. In addition, Surrell was involved in the enhancements and updates to The Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean.

Finally, Surrell headed back to Universal Creative Group, where he took on the role of Executive Creative Director for Universal Studios Beijing and Universal’s Epic Universe. He also oversaw creative direction of Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon, as well as several projects that have not yet been announced.

Surrell is the latest team member to join Storyland’s diverse, rapidly expanding team of creative professionals that includes individuals who formerly served Walt Disney Imagineering, Universal Creative Group, and Pixar Animation Studios, to name a few.

“I’m excited about Jason joining the team because it further enhances the Disney-Universal-Storyland Studios ‘triumvirate’ that we already enjoy and cherish,” said Ben Thompson, Chief Strategy Officer at Storyland Studios.

“Among our executive hires over the last year, Jason Surrell is the sixth alumni of Disney and Universal, joining Jeff Wyatt and Bruce Green, both of Universal and Disney Imagineering, together with Matt Ferguson, Ben Thompson and Josh Steadman, all of whom are Walt Disney Company and Walt Disney Imagineering veterans.”

Surrell says the move to Storyland Studios feels like a natural progression extending from his rich and varied career in themed entertainment.

“I’m excited to progress with a company that is so family-oriented and really has a lot of great projects on the docket. This is the job I would want if I were still working for Disney or Universal. It’s just that kind of company.”

Storyland Studios imagines, designs and creates immersive experiences and environments that lift the spirit. For more information, visit www.storylandstudios.com.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Storyland Studios, an experience design firm that helps brands connect their stories in three dimensions, has received the Themed Entertainment Association’s (TEA) Thea Award for Outstanding Achievement on a Limited Budget for Poverty Encounter, a permanent exhibit at Children’s Hunger Fund (CHF), a non-profit in Los Angeles, California. The annual award brings recognition to achievement, talent and personal excellence within the themed entertainment industry.

Credited with Poverty Encounter’s concept development, design development and schematic design, Storyland worked hand-in-hand with the CHF team to create a thought-provoking experience through realistic settings and an emotionally captivating storyline that would carry throughout the entire exhibit.

“We were humbled at the opportunity to help Children’s Hunger Fund craft their story,” said Mel McGowan, Chief Creative Officer at Storyland Studios, “to develop a place that not only educates and transports guests to a place they’ve never been, but transforms visitors’ hearts through the experience.”  

Poverty Encounter is a 90-minute interactive, educational exhibit that transports guests from the comforts of home to witness the reality of extreme poverty as experienced by children around the world. Guests step into a garbage dump village in Central America, a Caribbean town struck by natural disaster, a labor camp in Asia and an underground children’s colony in Eastern Europe; all modeled after real places around the world where impoverished children suffer. 

Storyland’s “Spatial StorytellingSM” team  worked with Children’s Hunger Fund to develop an experiential sequence of encounters around the key objectives that the charity felt were important for telling its story well. 

First, CHF wanted to depict situations that truly reflect the heart-wrenching circumstances children face every day, such as the garbage dumps of Guatemala, internally displaced persons camps or the brickyards of Nepal. Second, they desired to build the highest standard of realism into the scenes with “Disney-level” immersion, including authentic materials to sound effects. Finally, CHF wanted visitors to leave Poverty Encounter with the understanding that food, development and other resources can create opportunities for hope despite dire circumstances.

The experience concludes in CHF’s volunteer warehouse where visitors are invited to take immediate action building food boxes for families in need.

“We’re grateful to join Children’s Hunger Fund in thanking the Themed Entertainment Association for this honor and recognition,” said McGowan.

Other 2020 Thea Award recipients include Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run at Disneyland Resort in California, Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure at Universal Orlando, The Hebrew Bible Experience at Museum of the Bible in Washington DC and Warner Bros. World in Abu Dhabi.

The TEA Thea Award recipients are announced each November and formally awarded the following Spring. However, due to pandemic restrictions in 2020, the Themed Entertainment Association will celebrate and showcase the 26th Annual Thea Awards recipients with a series of digital Thea Case Studies sessions, and in 2021, TEA will resume gathering in person for the TEA Summit and the Thea Awards Gala.

About Storyland Studios

Storyland Studios is a unique team of experience-design specialists comprising artists, architects, strategists and problem solvers who believe in the power of story to change the world. The studio exists to help business leaders create and connect their stories in three dimensions: the strategic brand narrative, the spatial environment and with interactive media. Storyland partners with brands and with other agencies to create environments and immersive experiences that lift the spirit, creating deeper stories that shape culture.

More info: www.StorylandStudios.com 

Media inquiries: mel@storylandstudios.com

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HIRES MORE FORMER DISNEY LEADERS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                        

(Lake Elsinore, CA, August 6, 2020) – Three-dimensional storytelling firm Storyland Studios announced today that the company has opened a new office in London, officially making the company an international one. Storyland appointed Ben Thompson as Chief Strategy Officer and Head of International, effective August 1, 2020. Thompson will run the office just outside London, England.

Ben Thompson has spent 20 years in major corporate brands, leading marketing, sales and strategy teams all over the world, first for Mars Incorporated, then for The Walt Disney Company and finally for Merlin Entertainments. He was Disney’s Regional Marketing Director for the UK and EMEA markets, leading teams in 47 markets on projects such as Star Wars Ep VII, Avengers, Iron Man 3, Spider-Man 2, Frozen, Cars 2 and Brave.

After Disney, Thompson moved to Merlin Entertainments, opening LEGOLAND®️ Parks and Midway sites across the world including Shanghai, Melbourne, Nagoya and Istanbul. He followed up his Merlin time by launching his own strategic marketing firm where he met Mel McGowan of Storyland Studios at IAAPA in 2019. They became friends, then formed a successful client-partnership and finally an official team!

“We believe Ben is the perfect individual to lead Storyland Studios’ next chapter of success and growth,” said Mel McGowan, Chief Creative Officer at Storyland. “We’re all confident in his ability to lead us in strategic marketing, and to build out our client-base outside of the USA. He’s a world-class leader and we’re excited to have him on the Storyland team!”

In addition to Thompson, Storyland also added Josh Steadman to their growing list of former Disney Imagineers to their team. Josh is an Art/Production Designer and Set Designer with more than 20 years of experience working in television, theater and themed entertainment. He has worked on projects such as Shanghai Disneyland, Marvel Avengers STATION and Evermore where he was an integral part of conceptualising and delivering a ground-breaking immersive experience. While working at Walt Disney Imagineering, he conceptualized, designed and installed the Enchanted Storybook Castle Walkthrough for the world’s largest Disney castle in Shanghai. He holds Thea Awards (Themed Entertainment Association) for both Show Design and Production Design simultaneously for his work on Shanghai Disneyland. With his former Disney experience and similar project work, he’ll fit right in with the Storyland team.

Storyland Studios creates immersive environments and experiences that lift the spirit through storytelling.

Contact:  Mel McGowan, Storyland Studios

Phone:    800-218-1932

Email:     mel@storylandstudios.com

If you would like more information about this topic, please email Mel at mel@storylandstudios.com.

One of the springtime traditions I look forward to all year long is the Themed Entertainment Association (TEA) Thea Awards. “The Theas,” and the TEA Summit that they cap off, bring together many of our cherished friends, colleagues, clients, and co-creatives to celebrate the great achievements of the themed entertainment industry worldwide.

But just like so many other important events held at this time of year—weddings, proms, graduations, family reunions—the TEA Thea Awards Ceremony, which was to be held tonight at the Disneyland Hotel, has been postponed due to the COVID-19 isolation orders.

Some of the greatest themed attractions in history were going to be honored tonight for their outstanding achievement, including Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and Smuggler’s Run at the Disney parks, and Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure at Universal Orlando. But one of the projects on the list of honorees is very close to my heart—Poverty Encounter at Children’s Hunger Fund (CHF).

So instead of lamenting the loss of the event and missing the community connections we might have made, I want to still celebrate that project and the creative and storytelling innovation it represents for our industry.

Poverty Encounter is the immersive, walk-through attraction at CHF in Los Angeles (Sylmar) that brings visitors face-to-face with the realities of poverty in fragile communities around the world.

For many years, thousands of school children and families had volunteered at the organization, boxing food to be distributed to families in need. Although this was a positive experience, Dave Phillips, CHF’s president, wondered if there might be a way to enhance it by creating a transformational experience visitors could never forget.

Rather than playing an antiseptic safety video before entering the volunteer center, what if the first act actually immersed guests into an eye-opening, heart-wrenching journey through areas of the world where the poor need the most help? Might guests leave with a greater sense of empathy and passion for the needs of others?

When I first heard what CHF wanted to accomplish, I was more than a little excited. Our team of artists, architects, and artisans at Storyland Studios helped them discover their big idea through a series of intensive blue sky sessions that led to the preliminary concept. Eventually, the underlying story broke through and we put their ideas down on paper and screen so they could present the concept to their donors who believed in the idea and invested in bringing the experience to life.

In the year since it opened, Poverty Encounter has transported thousands of guests through realistic, dimensional scenes of real-life situations faced by hungry kids – the garbage dumps in Guatemala, earthquake disaster zones in Haiti, and the Nepali brickyards where children as young as 10 are put to work.

Poverty Encounter is that rare attraction that grabs you by the heart and won’t let go. In fact, the experience ends with guests being offered an opportunity to step into the charity’s working food prep stations to prepare food for shipment to kids in need.

For many in the themed entertainment industry, the conversation of what makes a great attraction has turned from “story is the key” to “transformation is the goal.” Immersive experiences with great stories are compelling, but now we are finally asking what attractions should be compelling visitors to do, or even become.

So now, as we all slouch toward a post-COVID-19 world, attractions like Poverty Encounter will offer visitors new ways to see and impact their world.

The TEA Thea Awards Ceremony and TEA Summit are rescheduled for July,  and Poverty Encounter will receive its due applause, but until then let’s continue to aspire to make attractions that are more than fun, more than entertainment. Let’s make attractions that transform lives.

Mel McGowan, Chief Creative Officer, Storyland Studios

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Listen to my conversation with Alissa Whiteley, Director of Poverty Encounter on the Themed Attraction Podcast.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1BT1lTc5efXOIVOorUcxSq

back·​story \ˈbak-ˌstȯr-ē

noun, plural back·sto·ries.

1. a narrative providing a history or background context, especially for a character or situation in a literary work, film, or dramatic series.

In themed entertainment design, we regularly employ a literary tool called “backstory.” Typically, this is used to provide color and context for a character. However, in Spatial Storytelling℠, characters may play second fiddle to the setting,  which visitors are invited to step into and be immersed in. Rather than a generic “theme” or “genre”-based setting (eg. Disneyland’s Adventureland or Universal Studios Singapore’s Sci-Fi City), a backstory may be employed to provide a unifying thread of internal logic and layered storytelling that makes the whole greater than the sum of the parts.

A recent post on the Disney Parks Blog from Scot Drake, Creative Executive of Marvel Global Portfolio, revealed the backstory the company isrolling out in three of its parks. This elaborate story is worldwide in scope with each of the park locations (Hong Kong, California, Paris) playing a part in the Avengers’ global fight against Hydra. Guests will become characters in a story that literally takes place across three continents. While most Disney guests will never visit all three of these locations, the backstory has been established all the same and will guide every design detail built into these environments.

In most art forms, an individual artist is the only one painting on a canvas. Because of our larger multi-dimensional canvas and the collective, co-creative nature of the art form known as themed entertainment, the backstory (whether it is a one-liner, a paragraph, or a larger document) can provide a “North star” to the many individuals contributing to the design, fabrication and operation of a themed experience.

For all of its advantages in facilitating a more believable, immersive design where “One plus one equals three” over and over, backstories become less frequently used at larger scales of design. For example, at the scale of an individual cart, shop or attraction, it makes perfect sense to think through the fictional shopkeeper or protagonist of a story. Their story informs hundreds of design decisions from light fixtures to furniture, props and background music. Essential backstory elements are those story points that have to be conveyed to guests in order to make sense of the basic narrative arc and conflict points of an attraction. The “Scene One” queue, or “Pre-show” is often used to establish these elements because of the time constraints of most attractions. An excellent example is the spatial sequence leading up to and inside the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror before we ever step into the ill-fated elevator shaft. At the “land” or “district” level, both the strength and weakness of backstory is its ability to edit out inconsistent IPs (Intellectual Properties), brands and characters.  

For example, without employing an elaborate backstory, any of Disney’s Fantasylands are flexible enough to encompass multiple settings (from a French castle courtyard, to an Alpine village, to the Hundred-Acre Wood, to Neverland, to an early American circus). In contrast the designers of Universal’s Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley have to live within very specific “rules of the universe” established by JK Rowling and the pre-existing “dogma” of the Harry Potter books and films. Far from being a “curse” the depth of the backstory provided elevate these environments to the heights of Spatial Storytelling℠.  

When designing “beyond the berm” we have found that a soil-specific backstory elevates standard real estate projects into experiences and live/work/worship/play destinations that lift the spirit. People are drawn to and want to spend time in cohesive soil-specific settings, as opposed to another “Mall of Generica.” In Florida, Disney recently employed backstory to fix a problematic real estate development, now known as Disney Springs. The district was originally conceived of as a 70s wood-shake “downtown” of Lake Buena Vista, a leisure-based planned “host community.” “Inspired” by Orlando’s Church Street Station and Universal CityWalk, Michael Eisner globbed on a faux-warehouse club district in the 80s and a postmodern “big box” zone in the 90s.

With its recent re-imagining, the Imagineers researched the natural and cultural history of Florida small towns, including the freshwater springs that attracted settlers and represent nature, optimism, possibilities and inspiration. Theron Skees, the Creative Director of Disney Springs summarizes that the backstory “we developed for Disney Springs is different from our theme parks. It’s not like Frontierland or one of the lands in a theme park, but the storyline that we developed gives us a background history for which to create everything on – our landscaping, our architecture and everything.” This “storyline” is summarized in plaques bearing the town seal and motto “Disney Springs: The Source of Inspiration.”

Backstory also provides a rabbit hole that visitors can go as deep as they desire. Details throughout the district provide clues to the fictional history of the town that parallels the real history of real places in the real state. For example, D-Luxe Burger is housed in the “original” ranch house of the Glowing Oak Ranch. On the front porch, the oak tree still stands and a display case contains an undated letter from the original settler Martin Sinclair to his wife Clara. “After a particularly hard rain, the light from my campfire was reflected in the droplets of water clinging to the leaves of the oak tree overhead. The leaves appeared to be dancing and the sight of it inspired me to name the place ‘Glowing Oak’. In a fortnight I will return to you in South Carolina and cannot wait to start our living here in this happy place.”

Similarly, the various other buildings and districts trace the evolution of this isolated ranch into a century of town building that culminates in the the fictional 1950 Springs Centennial Expo, and encompassing multiple Floridian architectural eras. The result is a taste of the density and diversity of an actual downtown.

In my hometown of Corona, California, I worked on a similar mixed-use town center called Dos Lagos. Built on the site of two former mining pits, the Dos Lagos site plan is centered on a perfectly circular pedestrian spine surrounding a matching pair of reflective lakes shaped like a heart, which redeem the scars of the abandoned mining pits. The thousands of details embedded in the urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, environmental graphics, lighting, and soundscape create a destination unlike any other in the area.   

Even today, at Storyland Studios, we’re applying the same depth of detail to an upcoming theme park project we are master planning and designing from the ground up. This incredible project is allowing us to create an elaborate backstory that draws upon and pulls together the universal stories that unite humankind. Guests will not only find the details of the backstory designed into the very architecture, landscaping, and attractions, but will bring to it a backstory familiar to each one of us.

In theme park design, or any creative endeavor for that matter, a well-developed backstory provides a living tapestry of “facts” and plausible “fictions” that help the viewer understand the full experience being presented to them, whether they recognize it or not. And as developers and designers of themed entertainment, it is our responsibility to author backstories so rich and believable that our guests never question the worlds we create for them to enjoy.

This post was originally published at ThemedAttraction.com by Mel McGowan. Mel is Storyland Studios’ Chief Creative Officer.

One of our team sat down with Disney Imagineering Legend Bob Gurr to find out where the theme park industry is going in the future.

Bob Gurr’s theme park career began in 1955 when he was asked to design the Autopia vehicles for Disneyland’s grand opening. From there, he designed practically everything on wheels at the Disney parks including the Monorail, Main Street Omnibus, PeopleMovers, and the Haunted Mansion’s Doom Buggies. His storied career also took him to other parks including Universal Studios and to design gigantic show effects for Queen, Michael Jackson, and the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

Bob has seen the growth of the themed entertainment industry from the beginning, so his perspective on its future is extremely valuable for those of us who plan to carry the torch.

Storyland: Where is the theme park industry going next?

Bob Gurr: Well, in the broader sense, I don’t see anything drastically different because we’re still filling the world with theme parks.

You see Walt was the first to do a real modern theme park, even though Tivoli Gardens and other places had existed for a very, very long time. But the idea of this generic theme park thing which would fit any size, any country, anywhere… What’s Disney got? 10, 11 of them now?*

And it’s almost certain that the next big country that gets filled up is going to be India because there are so many people in India. They’re going to grow in parallel to China. There’s so many theme parks in China. There’s so many companies in the Themed Entertainment Association. Vendors are so busy all over China.* And now Bahrain, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, they’re all starting to compete with one another.

I think, looking way ahead, when we’ve got the countries that can support it, we will sort of have done the infill of conventional theme parks. And I would love to come back in a hundred years and see what that next wave of innovation [is going to be].

It’s almost like when you have something and you infill all the stuff and now somebody says, “Ok, we’ve done that. Now what?” The “now what” usually leads to some people coming up with some brilliant stuff.

I don’t know what it’s going to be, but I see it’s way down the road. But it’s not there yet.

So there might be some kind of stuff, obviously some of its going to be virtual reality. But virtual reality, I think, is coming to a point where it’s going to be very generic in another couple of decades, in a way. And it’s almost like there’s going to be a semi-throwback to more naturalistic environments that are entertaining.

I can’t tell you very much, but I was paid recently for an entire morning with probably one of the most important, far-out theme park designers in the world, and I can’t say anything more than that. But that was the thrust I could see that they’re headed to. And this person has always been in the forefront.*

So, all I can share with you, is that, yeah, I might be the 86 year-old guy on the bus, but I did get invited to poke my nose into that next wave of the future. Because it’s out there.

To read the entire interview, visit FreddyMartin.net.

*Edited for clarity.