Kelly Schwartz may say it best: “What is this Meow Wolf thing? It’s so hard to explain.” As the general manager of Meow Wolf’s Grapevine, Texas, exhibition, Schwartz is often asked to define the attraction.
“Come curious. And the more you explore, the more you’re going to love it,” says Schwartz while comfortably curled up in an oversized upholstered chair found in the attraction’s multipurpose art studio.
Part art gallery; part selfie museum; part escape room with its immersive, play-as-you-go storylines; part proactive community partner dedicated to promoting the arts; and 100% its own genre of attraction, Meow Wolf operates much like a museum or family entertainment center.
“I think that fundamentally—at its base—we’re operated very similarly. We have team members that are helping to sell retail, scanning your tickets, greeting you into the exhibit, and helping you out. So, I think at a very basic level, yes, we are location-based entertainment,” Schwartz says. Yet, that’s where the components of a traditional attraction end and mind-bending experiences begin.
“I really encourage people to be careful and remind them that we’re not liable for expanded thinking and consciousness that you may experience if you’d leave this dimension and travel beyond,” hints Kent Caldwell, creative director of Meow Wolf’s Las Vegas location.
Hidden portals—like a walk-in refrigerator (as seen above)—transport visitors into immersive spaces lined with art that challenge conventional thinking.
Meow Wolf gave Funworld the key to unlock its creative doors, where insight to design, operation, and staffing await.
Starting With a Blank Canvas
A relatively young brand, Meow Wolf’s origin dates back to 2008 when a group of artists used junk to create immersive art spaces (and threw some boisterous warehouse parties). Legend has it that the collective of artists based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, each tossed two words into a hat. The first two words pulled from the hat formed “Meow Wolf,” and the moniker stuck.
“They wanted to change our reality and give us all new possibilities,” says Meow Wolf CEO Jose Tolosa of the attraction’s founders. “Our artists are in the business of creating unique worlds that transform people’s minds.”
The team responsible for Meow Wolf’s first permanent attraction, House of Eternal Return, successfully applied for B Corp Certification—a distinction that indicates a business is operating with transparency, demonstrating high social and environmental performance, and maintaining a corporate governance structure that is accountable to all stakeholders (not just shareholders).
Today, Meow Wolf operates Denver’s Convergence Station (opened 2021), Grapevine’s The Real Unreal (2023), Las Vegas’ Omega Mart inside immersive entertainment venue AREA15 (2021), and Santa Fe’s original House of Eternal Return (2016). The attraction also partnered with Elitch Gardens theme park to design Kaleidoscape (2019), a dark ride at the Denver facility.
Crafting Creative Chasms
Like at a theme park, the guest journey is nonlinear inside Meow Wolf. Guests all start at the same entry point, then disseminate into different corners. Each exhibition opens as a familiar setting: Las Vegas resembles a convenience store; Grapevine appears as the exterior of a suburban home in Illinois; Santa Fe welcomes guests into an unassuming yet peculiar kitchen; and Denver has the appearance of a train station. As guests take a closer look, their perceptions of the world around them begin to warp.
“Through this unassuming doorway awaits the Real Unreal—a pocket dimension, a space between time where creation and imagination have met in warped reality,” explains Connor Gray, public relations manager of the Grapevine attraction.
At his attraction, adults get on their knees to crawl into the fireplace, while kids scurry feet-first into a clothes dryer.
In Las Vegas, visitors disappear into a convenience store freezer case, while ducking into a camping tent on display sends explorers into a desert-like setting.
At Meow Wolf facilities, visitors find non-traditional galleries of all sizes in interconnected worlds. Pieces of art may appear in the open or behind closed cabinet doors designed to be opened. Tolosa calls this the “dynamic interplay between art and entertainment.”
The overall effect is convincing. Getting lost in a Meow Wolf facility is encouraged, according to Schwartz, who admits that becoming lost can even happen to staff members.
“I happened upon a room that I had never been in before—and I had been on-site at that point for six months,” she tells Funworld. “I realized this is what our guests are going to experience; they’re going to come back and be like, ‘I’ve never seen this room before!’”
While some dioramas are located behind glass, no art installation is behind a velvet rope.
“When you’re encouraging people to touch and slap and smack things around, things are going to get a little worn out. So, we have a full exhibitions team that comes in every single morning to touch up the space,” explains Gray. That includes everything from printing new paper props, like faux newspaper articles, to painting scuff marks. While constantly performing maintenance is currently a necessity, the operator routinely holds internal conversations on whether continued upkeep or replacement with stronger materials makes more sense.
“We’ve said, ‘We probably need to find a better solution because [the exhibits] see a lot of traffic and a lot of issues,’” reveals Caldwell in Las Vegas. “But, if we can continue to make space for amazing materials … fragility—just like art—is a beautiful, authentic expression. And we’re going to try to preserve that wherever possible.”
Merchandise as an Attraction
Ask Caldwell in Las Vegas what he wanted to be when he grew up, and the answer is immediate.
“A Power Ranger. I was always drawing a lot and flipping a lot,” he says. A love of gymnastics led to an early career as an acrobat with Cirque du Soleil’s “Mystère” show. Today, he blends his passion for fine arts as Omega Mart’s creative director, where he is responsible for art and merchandise.
More than 100 tangible products are on the shelves and for sale at Omega Mart, just like a real convenience store.
“It’s very important that our products—like our art—do have that subversive element to them,” he says.
From aluminum food cans wrapped in a label proclaiming a tattooed chicken awaits inside to a sprayable cleaning solution that appears to be liquid butter, some of the eccentric products have practical uses.
“I think, as America’s most exceptional grocery store, we have a mandate to always be at the cutting edge of giving customers what they don’t even know they want,” Caldwell says.
The Muscle Fresh Toothpaste box promises “clean teeth and sick abs.” Inside awaits a real miniature-sized tube of toothpaste.
“We find white label opportunities that are willing to work with us because we’re emulating a big box store, but we’re not always ordering large quantities,” Caldwell says. “We literally use retail as an element to this art mechanism.”
The tactic works. Caldwell says the average length of stay at the Las Vegas location is two to three hours. For adults, The Datamosh Bar is tucked away inside the exhibition and features cocktails composed of unique flavors.
Producing Shrimp (aka Human Resources)
Ambassador. Associate. Cast Member. Team Member. Model Citizen. The attractions industry has many names for frontline employees. Meow Wolf’s creative nomenclature? “Our employees are called ‘Shrimps!’” explains Schwartz, sharing that the title of Shrimp dates back to Meow Wolf’s original founders. “It’s a badge that we carry with pride, and we have a ton of fun with it.”
That extends to team meetings known as “shrimp cocktails.” Grapevine’s employee of the year award is also appropriately named, “Shrimp-ly the Best.” (A trophy created by the exhibition and facilities teams is adorned with shrimp.)
Schwartz also had a lot of fun with her initial hiring event.
“How are we going to show up?” she asked. The answer? A neon rodeo.
“We were at one of the local Grapevine hotels using one of their ballrooms, but we completely made it over—into a Meow Wolf, which was awesome,” she recalls. “We were all dressed up to the nines in neon.”
The interview process Schwartz used was anything but ordinary. Potential Shrimps were asked to play games, display teamwork abilities, and answer questions.
“It was rad. No joke, I think we even wowed the people who came. It gave them that high energy feeling,” she says about the creative employment process. The onboarding process before opening took on a train theme. “It was like, ‘Choo choo, all aboard!’” she says.
Developing Employees, Guests, and Communities
Now a general manager, Schwartz began her attractions industry career in 2005 at Legoland California in public relations, rising through the ranks under retired Merlin Entertainments CEO Nick Varney.
“I think I’m really lucky that I’ve grown up in this industry. And I think I was really lucky that I grew up working for Merlin and having the leadership that I had,” Schwartz says.
Today, she is dedicated to developing the next generation of attractions industry leaders.
“What keeps me up at night is probably knowing that our goal is to ensure that whether their future is with Meow Wolf—or not—that they’re getting the skills and the development they need to go have the career that they want,” she says.
Her aim aligns with CEO Tolosa’s own vision for Meow Wolf.
“Our mission is to open portals and policymaking for visitors for the communities in which we operate—and certainly also for employees,” Tolosa says.
Knowing the experience could become overwhelming for autistic and sensory-sensitive guests, all company-owned Meow Wolf locations received accreditation as Certified Autism Centers by the International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards (IBCCES). Sensory tool kits, which include noise-limiting headphones, are available at check-in.
In the meantime, a smartphone app named Aira allows the visually impaired to connect with Meow Wolf’s environments through a live interpreter at no charge. Using a smartphone camera and a live connection, interpreters will verbally describe surroundings and the artwork for a guest with vision loss.
In addition, each location is ADA accessible. In Grapevine, that includes an elevated treehouse.
“The artist here had to build out the treehouse, making sure the space was fully widened to accommodate a wheelchair,” explains Gray, where a nearby elevator features art displays inside the passenger cab.
Following their commitment to support their local markets, Meow Wolf commissions in-market artists whenever possible. The new Houston exhibition includes installations from more than 50 local artists.
Like the end of a film, the attraction’s website provides a credit roll naming each artist involved in creating art for an exhibition.
“We want people to come curious and leave knowing that they experienced something that changes their perception of art because it’s more accessible … their perception of inclusivity because they’ve seen all the amazing people that come here—and that work here,” Schwartz concludes with a confident smile.
The Wolf Howls into Houston and Hollywood
Meow Wolf adds second Texas location and Los Angeles as newest markets Meow Wolf plans to open portals in Houston and Hollywood as its next two markets.
Currently in expansion mode, the “hard to describe, [but] easy to enjoy” (Meow Wolf’s own slogan) attraction is at work to open its fifth and sixth exhibitions.
“For years, we’ve made trips to Los Angeles, dreaming of creating something in its layered and ever-changing network of creativity,” says Sean Di Ianni, co-founder of Meow Wolf and senior creative director of Meow Wolf Los Angeles. “L.A. is more than a physical place; it extends deep into the global landscape of human imagination, constantly pushing its own bounds.”
Di Ianni hints the Los Angeles location will incorporate a cinematic theme together with what a press release calls “cinematic mythos, mysterious eggs, absurd glitz, and the fantastical spells cast by Hollywood.” In addition, connections to the storylines found at existing Meow Wolf attractions will bubble up in an overarching narrative.
“We want it to be a part of the city’s ongoing narrative of growth,” says Jose Tolosa, CEO of Meow Wolf. The Los Angeles location will take up residency in a preexisting movie theater near the well-traveled Interstate 5 freeway later this decade.
Currently, the Art Team Task Force and Meow Wolf’s Artist Development and Production team are on-site in Houston’s Fifth Ward. At press time, 60 full-time professional installation artists are at work to open the Houston location later this year.
- This original reporting from IAAPA News first appeared in Funworld magazine. For more stories and videos covering the global attractions industry and to read a digital version of Funworld magazine, click here.
