This year’s Entertainment Experience Evolution 2025 at LA Live provided lots of thought provoking discussion and ideas around shaping the future of retail, dining, and location based entertainment.
Amongst a diverse set of panels, Sean Slater’s moderation of “Small ‘e’ Entertainment” brought up some interesting discussion including Darcy Huether’s examples of how art adds value to a range of developments, not only aesthetically, but also by driving approvals, permitting, and funding. As she noted: “just a pretty building is not enough anymore.”
And indeed, as more and more brands and experiences were showcased, it became clear that in general, being just one thing is not enough anymore either.
Cinemas are becoming Entertainment Centers. Entertainment Centers have realized the value-add of elevated food offerings. And restaurants are leaning into entertainment and immersive guest experience. This was an interesting trend to observe while reflecting on EEE 1234567, where hybrid experiences were identified as the things consumers were starting to want. It seems the industry listened and has acted on this.
This year’s conference also highlighted new challenges that have arisen based on these changes. Developers and architects lamented it’s harder to push projects through with funders and city approvals when they don’t fall into easily identifiable categories. These projects struggle with permitting and codes and often must suffer some hard lessons learned on the way to success.
Overall, the conference reinforced the critical need of thinking about how to integrate entertainment and experiences into destinations from the start development (or redevelopment), as well as the value of having a clear project delivery roadmap. As was noted by a kitchen consultant in a session about planning for F&B operations, the earlier they can get involved in a project, the better, as they can reverse engineer how to get the right solution from the start. They want to be in early because ultimately, they will have to live with and answer for the decisions made. The same applies to integrating experiences and entertainment into destinations. The earlier we can create an integrated delivery solution, get buy-in, and then drive alignment, the better.
As Fri Forjindam mentioned, it’s critical to have an ROI mindset from the start: “When you think of entertainment purely as a solution to resurrect your space, you’ve just started the countdown clock.” It’s interesting to watch the shift from the developer/tenant mindset to one of integrated guest experience in the LBE industry. I look forward to seeing how it develops and in doing what we can to help delivery these experiences.
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