#1239 – Branding Driving Next-Gen Investment

AI Constructed Brief

The Licensing Expo 2025 highlighted significant trends shaping the future of location-based entertainment and retailtainment, with a strong emphasis on IP-driven experiences. Brands like UNIS showcased their ‘emoji Planet,’ illustrating how physical venues support licensing success, while resurgence in crane machines with licensed merchandise (“Crane Zones”) points to innovative retail engagement. Major toy brands such as Mattel are expanding into interactive venues and live shows, exemplified by UNO Social Clubs and Hot Wheels stunt entertainment, blending merchandise with immersive experiences. Film and streaming giants like Paramount, Warner Bros., Disney, and Netflix are investing heavily in immersive attractions, theme parks, and branded experiences, signaling a strategic focus on IP expansion. The event also underscored an increasing integration of retail and entertainment, with malls like Westfield London investing in social entertainment complexes and retail stores like Sega and Bandai Namco expanding physical brand presence. Overall, the sector is primed for continued growth in IP-based immersive experiences, retailtainment, and strategic brand activations, offering compelling opportunities for investors seeking innovative, revenue-generating assets.

Full Stinger Report

The final extensive coverage of the Licensing Expo 2025, revealing the impact of brands across the future landscape of location-based entertainment and the new developments that will be shaping future investment. 

Back on the Vegas show floor, and UNIS Technology came to LE’25 with an impressive recreation of their ‘emoji Planet’ facility layout. Building on the emoji license, examples of the amusement pieces ranging from cranes, merch and “Vendortainment” units, all supporting the popular brand. An example to the show attendees of how prominent brands are supporting a physical venue representation. UNIS has seen the opening of the first ‘emoji Planet’ venues, as reported in the coverage of latest openings by our ‘Open & Shut’ podcast at LBX Collective – with the UK facility one of the first, seeing popularity. 

The sudden resurgence of crane machines in bespoke venues has seen licensed merch appearing at what we have labelled “Crane Zones”. Populated with the “new-wave” crane machines, emblazed with LED light and displays, illuminated prize space, and populated with desirable merch and prizes. Examples include franchise chains like ‘ClawCADE’ and ‘ClawCity’ have exploded on the market and gained popularity. These venues promoting high quality merch in their machines, and unique “upscaling” opportunities for players. This new business increasing the interest in popular IP based merch and toys to populate the machines and offer a new aspect to the business.

Mattel presented at LE’25 celebrating their 80th anniversary of the company – promoting the toy and property brand and their involvement in the LBE scene. Mattel announced the opening of their new ‘UNO Social Clubs’ opened at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas – the pop-up venue (May till June) housing UNO Golf, mini golf space, UNO Team, card game tables, UNO Show’em No Mercy, and a gameshow audience experience. All part of plans to open pop-up facilities across key cities in North America. 

While regarding their toy brand Hot Wheels, showed the viability of the 57-year-old property with the announcement of their plans to roll out a live arena entertainment stunt show, (called ‘Hot Wheels Stunt Show’) – debuting in the UK. Hot Wheels brand entered the amusement scene again that Dave & Buster’s had been loc-testing a brand-new video amusement from Adrenaline Amusement – with ‘Hot Wheels: Victory Lap’ – a racing motion seat cab. The Hot Wheels license will be a popular one for D&B, with the announcement of themed food and beverage to compliment the branded game across the national chain. We are also seeing the toy brand in the redemption scene with the Costal Amusement ‘Hot Wheels Ultimate Speedway’. The Hot Wheels brand not only looking at stunt shows, amusement and Eatertainment space partnerships – the property is being deployed into the luxury fashion scene. Announcing a rage of female apparel based on the property from Maje. 

LE’25 had a major showing from the studios and streaming services looking to establish their properties. News coming to the trade at the same time as the licensing expo saw continuing movie theaters looking at association with popular videogame IP, sees an agreement with IMAX screens at AMC Theaters screening ‘Fortnite Championship Series (FNCS) Pro-Am 2025’ – the promotion partnered with BLAST and Fandango will see live broadcasts screened at theaters. The event taking place at the Galen Center in Los Angeles. 

Major shakeups in the movie and streaming business cementing increased IP investment. The Paramount Global and Skydance Media $8b merger deal, expected to finalize by mid-2025, will birth the Paramount Skydance Corporation, a formidable entity poised to redefine global film distribution. Part of this will also seeing Paramount Global, partnering with Advent Allen Entertainment to create and launch a fully immersive experience based on its Top Gun franchise – a combination of rides and storytelling, utilizing advanced technology and jet simulators – located on the site of the Strat Hotel in Las Vegas.

This Vegas project is the latest IP laden immersive experience scheduled for the area – with the already launched ‘John Wicks Experience’, the ‘Universal Horror Unleashed’ and others. Interesting to see immersive jetfighter simulators as part of the Top Gun experience, igniting memories of some 30-years-on from the optimistic Magic Edge venue concept. That saw via a partnership with NAMCO two venues in California and Tokyo opened with multiple networked jetfighter simulators – only for the operation to close and go bankrupt in 1996. 

Warner Brothers Discovery, exhibiting at LE’25 was promoting their library of IP which has also been recently promoting their LBE environment. In a collaboration with Immersive Gamebox, who have licensed the Warner Discovery ‘Batman’ property. This seeing a unique game experience for their immersive game platform based on the iconic detective. In other news, Immersive Gamebox announced their move into the “Retailtainment” sector in signing a multi-million-dollar master franchise agreement with Apparel Group. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region agreement will see Apparel Group open the interactive social gaming experience in high-profile mall and shopping destinations throughout the region. The group currently runs 2,300 stores, representing some 85 brands, in UAE, Saudi Arabia, and India.

Another LE’25 exhibitor with a major interest in attractions and entertainment venues was Sony Pictures Entertainment. At the show
pushing properties such as franchises, including ‘Jumanji’, ’Ghostbusters’ and ‘Karate Kid’, along with their television properties. The operation was one of the early entrants in this wave of physical entertainment space development with their discussed ‘Wonderverse’ single venue in Chicago. With rumors speaking of the operation looking at other attraction applications of their properties. Netflix also were present at the Vegas expo, with many in the LBE sector eager to see the results of the operations investment into the sector with their soon to open ‘Netflix House’ chain of entertainment sites. Netflix have also partnered again with Sandbox VR on attractions based on their properties, launching ‘Stranger Things: Catalyst’ – the third title for the chain based on the IP.  

NBCUniversal corporation presented large at LE’25, their division Universal Studios, undertaking an aggressive expansion of their entertainment operation, seeing plans to open the ‘Universal Studios Theme Park and Resort’ in Bedfordshire, UK, scheduled to open in 2031. The theme park and resort giant were in the news with the first private viewing held for selected guests round the new ‘Universal Epic’ addition to the Orlando theme park, opened in May seeing vast interest. Universal Studios was also linked to plan to open in India their latest theme park at a 3 million sq.,ft., retail development, close to city of Delhi, and their Indira Gandhi International Airport. The location set to incorporate a vast covered area. Reported by local news media, the agreement was yet to be confirmed by Universal, but were in talks with Bharti Real Estate, part of Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Enterprises, with a 2027 completion date was proposed. 

Walt Disney Studios attended the LE’25 event with a showing of properties; the entertainment corporate giant had been in the news regarding their resort business. Already reported news on the announced plans to develop their seventh site – seeing The Walt Disney Company develop their latest theme park resort, on Yas Island, in Abu Dhabi, in collaboration with entertainment company Miral. Other promotional partnerships for the brand included the news that Formula 1 and Disney signed a new collaboration that will begin in 2026 – “Mickey & Friends” emblazing cars as well as through experiences, content, and merchandise around the globe. Formula 1 has seen a huge surge in growth with younger fans and data revealed that more than four-million children aged 8-12 now actively follow the sport across the EU and US. With social media stats revealing 54-percent of followers on TikTok and 40-percent on Instagram are now under 25 years old.

LE’25 having a dedicated category covering the Attractions sector of the market. Attraction news regarding IP usage was thick on the ground. Exhibitors such as Sally Dark Ride, with an extensive history working with high level IP came to the show with one of their high-end property attractions just down the road from the expo. The Circus Circus Casino Resort housing their ‘SpongeBob’s Crazy Carnival Ride’ family dark ride, developed in partnership with Paramount, Global Nickelodeon.

The attraction developers breaking down the available offerings in ride experiences too mini, small, medium and large installations. Not all IP being used on large E-ticket experiences, but now available for smaller installations for venues of all sizes. Those available IP based attractions include the new Godzilla experience that will debut in flying theatres worldwide this summer, with Brogent and Toho Co., partnering on the ride development.

In Conclusion – The licencing extravaganza represented an estimated 5,000 brands across the 380-exhibitor expo floor. Attracting some 12,000 registered industry professionals. The licensing merchandise and services industry valued at some $349b following the Licensing International’s 2025 Global Study. The brick-and-mortar entertainment location business now playing a significant aspect of this business. It was clear across the expo show this year, that many exhibitors and license owners were thinking on how they could maximise their presence in the LBE sector. Those that do not already have active projects were looking to start them, and 2026 is expected to include news of even more launches of IP based experiences. 

RetailTainment and Licensed Properties

While Licensing Expo was taking place developments in the shopping mall and retail sector continued to grow with news as social entertainment and IP turned towards embracing brick-and-mortar locations.

Westfield Mall operation, owned by Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, revealed that their White City London site would be expanding their entertainment offering. In a unique partnership, the mall will see the installation of a joint Sandbox VR and TOCA Social site. This will be the first time that the two active entertainment chains have worked together. In the planned 30,000-sq.,ft., facility Sandbox VR UK & Ireland – the UK franchisee, will be install their VR arena and cocktail robot, while parent company TOCA Football will be installing 24 of their digital soccer boxes. The announcement came just before the news that parent company had secured $35m in new funding, including $15m in equity – to be spend across growing the TOCA Social operation, as well as the football training business. 

The Westfield mall has become a mecca for social entertainment investment. The site was the launchpad for the ‘Puttshack’ chain, with their first venue opening at the mall in 2018 – finding a home only a stone’s throw from the previous opened ‘All Star Lane’, boutique bowing venue, also developed by those linked too ‘Puttshack’. Along with that, the mall has a ‘DIVR Lab VR’ arena. At the mall it has been recently expanded by the ‘SIXES Social’ being redeveloped into the chains new ‘Moonshot Social’ – baseball social entertainment space. More recently the mall also saw the appearance of a ‘GiGO’ crane arcade, the first appearance of GENDA in Europe. For a full report on this new partnership, and the impact it will have on the market, please check out the latest Entertainment Social Arena newsletter. 

Brick-and-mortar location based in established brands have increased their investment into Retailtainment. We have reported on the news of the first ‘SEGA Store’, opened both in Shanghai, and the pop-up in Tokyo. The merchandising and promotional aspect of the chain mirroring much of what re reported on the BANDAI NAMCO Cross Store operation. Along with this we have seen ‘GASHAPON BANDAI’ opened in Dallas, Texas. The facility comprising 400 gashapon machines, operated by Happinet America for BANDAI NAMCO JP – Happinet operating some 137 capsule stores in the States.

Other brands are turning to a retail representation, the ‘NBA Store’ opened at the Mall of America, New Jersey – 20,000-sq.,ft., of immersive retail store, with a selection of merch and several “Retailtainment” attractions. This follows the aborted attempt to enter the market with an attraction space, with the failed Walt Disney ‘NBA Experience’ that only survived 12-months after opening, closing permanently in 2021. Even consumer electronic brands are looking at a retail presence with news of Meta plans to start opening more retail stores – after experimenting with temporary pop-up retail experiences. Their first store opened in California at their head office campus in 2022, with a dedicated Quest 3 demo space. The new Meta brick-and-mortar location investment suggested more to promote the Meta Ray-Ban AR glasses, as they look to sell 10m units by 2026.

The ability to generate revenue and market recognition from applying a brand in the physical space has worked well for some entertainment properties. Licensing Expo held in May, marked the 48th anniversary of the opening of Chuck E. Cheese’s first facility. And the chain announced plans to grow their CEC Media Network – the service spans more than 3,000 digital screens across 500-plus venues, strategically placed in high-traffic areas. Chuck E. Cheese confirmed this network reaches families in all 210 Nielsen-rated designated marketing areas. Along with welcoming over 40 million guests annually to their venues, with each visit averaging 1.5 to 2 hours — this generating some 2 billion impressions last year. The operation now looking to expand the advertising and promotion deployed across the CEC Media Network offering another vertical for revenue generation. The DOOH (Digital Out-of-Home) advertising business an aspect of future revenue generation across all LBE operations.