Harry Potter: A Forbidden Forest Experience is an outdoor, nighttime trail walk experience inspired by the iconic Forbidden Forest seen in the Harry Potter films. Guests will journey through an outdoor trail full of interactive surprises and illuminate some of their favourite Wizarding World moments as they come face to face with magical creatures and other enchanting forest wonders.
Thinkwell Group worked closely with Warner Bros. Themed Entertainment to bring this experience to life alongside UK partners, Unify, and ticketing/marketing partners, Fever.
The experience opened October 16th, 2021, and runs nightly on the grounds at Arley Hall & Gardens, a private estate in Cheshire, England.
Featuring more than 20 different moments of visitor engagement from classic scenes, creatures, and characters from the blockbuster Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts films, guests will explore the wooded trail for more than an hour of interactive enchantment.
Guests will:
- Encounter majestic Centaurs
- Cast a Patronus
- Pay their respects to a Hippogriff
- Cross paths with the infamous flying Anglia
- Discover a Niffler burrow
- And come across a variety of other surprises, from small to epic!
After their experience, guests can visit the Harry Potter: A Forbidden Forest Experience Village. There they can get savory, hearty British fare and sweets – including Butterbeer! – and warm up with house scarves, robes, wands and more in the Emporium.
Google BrandLab is a collaborative space for Google to host workshops and various sessions with clients focused on continuously improving their brand’s digital presence. Working in conjunction with the Google BrandLab stakeholders, Thinkwell designed a tech-forward expansion that included developing operational upgrades and design refinements to the interior spaces for BrandLab New York.
Expansions and new designs for the facility’s interior spaces turned what was a once standard meeting space into a creative, immersive, and interactive environment that showcases the latest in Google hardware and software to customers and partners. Custom projection mapping was also installed on the exterior walls of the BrandLab facility, creating a unique and distinctly Google introduction to the space for first time guests.
Following previous work with Google in Tokyo, New York, and Mountain View, Thinkwell designed a first-of-its-kind corporate briefing center that could host a range of customer and partner focused events for Google.
The Grove is Google Experience Studio’s latest and largest space to host customers and partners in Redwood City, California. The concept and design of the space was inspired by the nearby redwood forests that give the site’s city its name, and the thematic story of the redwoods is expressed in the architecture, technology, and hospitality touch points throughout The Grove.
The facility was designed as an authentic, flexible, and innovative space that showcases Google’s position at the cutting edge of technology while also delivering engaging, user-focused design to immerse guests into the Google experience.
From the Digital Campfire, a Google Assistant-powered gathering place created with the latest Google Pixel devices, to the Redwood Trail, an interactive tunnel that uses machine learning algorithms to improvise and play music live, there are countless moments of magic throughout The Grove where Google technology seamlessly enhances the guest experience. Storytelling and guest-centric designs throughout the center provide interactive and playful moments for customers, partners, and Google employees alike.
Sun Life Financial, a multinational insurance company, asked Thinkwell Studio Montréal to design and develop a collection of “digital canvases” that would integrate engagement points and interactive technologies throughout its corporate headquarters in Toronto.
The digital canvas project pushes the boundaries of art and design in a corporate space, creating a unique and engaging environment for Sun Life employees. Nine separate interactive digital installations work together to channel the intangible essence of day-to-day connections that make large-scale, positive change possible around the world throughout Sun Life’s operations. The installations made use of furniture design, high-impact visual displays, ambient reactivity, and creative use of audio-visual technologies to present content that educates, surprises, and sparks conversation in their corporate headquarters.
The goal was to create digital installations to answer Sun Life Financial’s needs: to showcase employee and guest interactions in different spaces throughout and allow them to come together through collaborative use technology. Some of the key interactive and digital canvas installations include:
- The Wefi Wall: Take a selfie with a co-worker and have it added to an array of projections on the wall. Visitors need to work in a team – hence the name “WEfi” – and the resulting collage of employee group photos spells out words along the wall of a main hallway in the office. The wall also had the capability to be reskinned for various events.
- Sun Life Interactive Wall: Projectors cast a variety of information on an interactive wall, giving users the ability to select and move information such as social media posts, news or weather reports around as-needed to present to colleagues.
- Executive Table: Two tables and the integration of the interactive system (projection and sensors) were designed by Thinkwell Studio Montréal. Projectors inside each table project on a spherical screen in the center, one of which displays motivational content, quotes, or historical photos, the other displaying news about the Sun Life headquarters around the globe. There is also a camera inside the table for automatic projector alignment and user interactivity (it detects and tracks fingers when touching the screen). The installation also includes an overhead projector and an additional camera that detects people passing and automatically activates the table when someone is nearby.
- Projected Skyline: The projected skyline is a display wall that activates a variety of images from employees and guests as well as images of the Toronto Skyline through the movement of people as they pass by the wall.
- Sun Life Timeline: This is a wide multi-touch screen that allows users to scroll through the history of Sun Life Financial. Highlights and events that defined the company are displayed on a long screen that also provides the opportunity to click and dig deeper into key corporate events and milestones.
Located in New York City’s Times Square, NFL Experience is a high-tech attraction that lets visitors immerse themselves in America’s favorite sport. In partnership with the NFL and Cirque du Soleil Entertainment Group, Thinkwell provided a wide range of creative, design, and production services to bring the NFL Experience to life.
With more than 20 interactive touch screen stations representing 32 NFL teams, the innovative design uses technology and interactive media elements to take visitors on a complete journey through the football experience—from being a fan to being a player on the field at the Super Bowl.
Notable attractions include the Super Bowl Celebration Room, which uses augmented reality to bring visitors on the field for the biggest celebration of the year; Huddle Up, an immersive point-of-view experience that puts visitors inside the huddle as the quarterback; and the NFL Game Plan Challenge, which uses elaborate special effects and a unique projection system to let visitors meet former Oakland Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Jon Gruden and get ready for the big game. Thinkwell Media also contributed editing and production services, in conjunction with NFL Films, for the Immersive Media Tunnel that concludes the attraction as well as other media elements in the experience.
To read full press release, click here.
Hello Kitty becomes an entirely new kind of children’s destination in this indoor development featuring experiences, activities, and events that bring the world and characters to life in a new way for children and their parents.
Guests are given an opportunity to expand their notions of what Sanrio is. The Destination imparts the cultural context of the brand that has captured the world’s imagination. And, within the different experiences, guests have the chance to dive deeper into the world of characters they know and love.
Unlike traditional retail, dining, and entertainment, the Sanrio Center is tailored to allow groups of friends to have fun together.
Thinkwell was hired by CORE Media Group to design a new guest experience for Graceland, the living memorial to the prodigious talent and vivacious spirit of the one and only King of Rock ‘n’ Roll: Elvis Presley.
This new, unparalleled experience was designed to allow each and every visitor the opportunity to make an emotional and personal connection to the life and legacy of Elvis.
By creating a more unified guest experience, providing a more cohesive and space-efficient layout, and increasing the potential for longer dwell time, Thinkwell developed an even more impactful and rewarding Elvis experience.
Samsung Oasis is a digital destination unlike anything in the world—a must-see landmark experience featuring totally immersive environments, next-generation attractions, and state-of-the-art interactives.
It is a totally immersive state of the art branded experience focused on the concept of “connection.” Here guests can connect to the Samsung brand, the city of Singapore, and each other in extremely engaging, highly innovative, and deeply rewarding ways.
In celebration of the 75th anniversary of DC Entertainment’s Batman, Warner Bros. VIP Studio Tour opened a new exhibit featuring the authentic artifacts from the films. Thinkwell worked closely with Warner Bros. and DC Entertainment to create this permanent exhibit, which is a featured addition on the studio’s historic backlot. This immersive experience reveals the exceptional creativity and craftsmanship that brought the films to life.
The exhibit is set in two locations: the Warner Museum and the Picture Car Vault. Guests are able to get up close to the iconic costumes, gadgetry, and vehicles used in all seven Batman movies. Expert tour guides accompany guests to iconic locations from the movies and to the museum, in which the entire ground floor is dedicated to the Caped Crusader. This display marks the first time that artifacts from all seven films have ever been exhibited together.