By Michaela Gordoni
The first Netflix House is officially open as of Wednesday, Nov. 12.
The “house,” formerly a 100,000 sq ft Lord & Taylor department store at the King of Prussia Mall in Pennsylvania, boasts Netflix-content-themed restaurants, a mini-golf course, a TUDUM movie theater and lots of selfie props, NPR reported Nov. 12.
“This is the first permanent physical manifestation of Netflix for our fans,” said Netflix chief marketing officer Marian Lee. “They’ve been inviting us into their homes for years and years.”
It includes an experience called “Eve of the Outcasts” based on WEDNESDAY and a “One Piece: Quest for The Devil Fruit” escape room experience. Netflix Virtuals allows fans to use VR to transform into their favorite main characters, Fox 29 reported.
Feature experiences start at $39, The Hollywood Reporter said. Prices vary depending on the time, date and experience. There’s also a Netflix Shop merch store, with most items exclusive to the house.
Related: Everything You Need to Know About Netflix’s Live Experiences
“We believe that, you know, this will be a great reason for folks from all over the Philadelphia area, to come and come again repeatedly, because the accessibility makes it so easy,” Netflix co-CEO Greg Peters said at the House’s opening ceremony. “But we also see it as yet another reason for fans from out of town to travel here, to eat in local restaurants, stay in local hotels and enjoy everything that not only this mall, but this whole area has to offer.”
The second Netflix House will open in Dallas next month. It includes a massive virtual SQUID GAME experience.
“What they’re trying to do is blur the lines between their content, your home experience, your small screen experience, and an interactive, fully immersive, tactile, in-person experience,” said Paul Dergarabedian, head of marketplace trends for research firm Comscore.
The houses follow hundreds of pop-up experiences in 350 cities worldwide.
“It’s given us so much information about what fans in Korea love versus the fans in Madrid,” Lee said. “It gives us a lot of local information.”
“I think the key factor will be: do people see this as worth the expense,” Dergarabedian said. “It’s free to go in and to explore. But then, they want to upgrade you. They want to upsell you for these multimedia experiences, immersive VR games, mini-golf and the like.”
The third house will be in Las Vegas. “I would love it to be in every major city around the world,” Lee said.
These first few Netflix Houses will be a proving ground to see if they have global potential.
Read Next: What to Know About Netflix’s New Immersive Experiences
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