F.Y.I.

The Park Playground opens in Australia

February 21, 2023 9:50

The Park Playground, an immersive VR experience provider, has secured its first venue in Australia at Arena 21 in Brisbane.

The announcement:

Immersive VR experiences provider, The Park Playground, has announced its partnership with an Australian entertainment venue owner Arena 21, as it expands its footprint for the first time outside of Europe. As part of the commercial agreement, The Park Playground’s current and future free-roam VR experiences will be available at Arena 21’s venue, Drone-Games, in Brisbane, Australia, from 23 March 2023.

With a 100% mobile and wireless VR set-up, The Park Playground’s experiences are designed for broad audiences of various ages, interests, and group sizes.

Paired with Arena 21’s offering of drone racing, the Australian public can now experience premium location-based entertainment in Brisbane. The license agreement signifies demand for innovative and more engaging forms of entertainment in the region and marks growth potential in both companies as they set their sights on expansion.

“We believe in the potential of the APAC market when it comes to location-based entertainment, and Brisbane is just the starting point for us as we plan to create more partnerships with franchise partners across the region in 2023,” said Peter Vindevogel, CEO of The Park Playground.

“Arena 21 shares the same mission as us in bringing more immersive forms of entertainment to a wide variety of people. Together, we’ll set the stage for location-based entertainment in the continent.”

“We’re excited to host The Park Playground for the first time in Australia,” said Wessel Brughuis, head of operations at Arena 21.

“We currently welcome over 600 visitors monthly for (p)leisure and business reasons. The Park Playground’s offering is, therefore, the perfect fit for our current audience base as it’s suitable for team-building and school visits, while also having the ability to entice groups of people who are simply up for having a good time with friends and family.”

“Arena21 offers the world’s first and only location for everyone – regardless of ability – to come and try the latest technology in a safe and fun environment” said Darren Stone, managing director at Arena 21.

“Teaming up with The Park Playground enhances this offering and adds significant value to our business. We are excited to offer this amazing service for all customers and add it as part of our corporate team building packages.”

The Park Playground will provide a turn-key installation with a 9m-by-9m (8-player) playing field, supported by The Park’s staff for onboarding, training, and ongoing tech support.

In this space, Arena 21 visitors can experience The Park Playground’s full mobile IP library, which includes the family adventure, Mask of the Pharaoh, spine-chilling haunted escape room, Don’t Scream, and apocalyptic space adventure game, Mission Planet X. While exploring a host of immersive worlds, players can experience The Park Playground’s game-changing technology, including the first-of-its-kind VR headset – created in partnership with HTC VIVE – that requires no extra heavy hardware for even more freedom of movement.

The new location in Brisbane follows the launch of The Park Playground’s first UK venue in Leeds, which opened its doors in December 2022. With long-standing industry partnerships to help drive the future of location-based VR entertainment, including the leading VR technology provider HTC, The Park Playground has gone from strength to strength, building all of its own VR experiences and operating 12 successful owned and franchised venues globally.

From the beginning of March, tickets will be available to book via Arena 21’s website.