When Fast Becomes Fashion

The people behind the wackdoodle Area15 immersive experience are creating a “John Wick Experience” in Vegas.

Guests will step through the doors of the Las Vegas Continental and into the fantastical world of the billion-plus grossing franchise movies, where they will navigate a high stakes adventure as well as visit a themed bar and retail shop open to the general public.

Cool.

This is another step in normalizing Gun Culture 2.0 in American society. 40 years ago, no one freaked out over a copy of Field and Stream or Outdoor Life in the doctor’s office because Gun Culture 1.0 (hunting, et al) was an accepted part of society. Today, no one freaks out over someone playing first person video games with body counts that rival the Spanish Flu, yet for some reason, a copy of USPSA’s magazine or our humble efforts at Shooting Illustrated is off limits in today’s society.

Then came the John Wick movies, where Chad Stahelski combined 3 Gun with gun fu, and a new style of cinematic violence was born. But is this interactive experience a good thing?

Yes. Consider the Star Wars Galaxy Hotel at Disney’s Hollywood Studio, where guests were given “missions” to work on during the course of their stay as a way to increase the feeling that they were actually in Star Wars..

“But wait,” you say, “didn’t that fail, and fail spectacularly?”

Yes, it did, but it failed because Disney failed to manage expectations. The cost to stay in the hotel was outrageously expensive, and the juice of feeling like you’re in Star Wars just wasn’t worth multiple thousands of dollars for most people. If they had integrated the “missions” into Galaxy’s Edge (the Star Wars-themed “land” at Hollywood Studios) as, say, a $200 add-on, I’m absolutely positive it would have done better, as the missions themselves seemed to be a big hit.

This promises to capitalize on that experience, and because it’s not tied to a hotel, it’ll be cheaper, too. Very interested in seeing how this turns out.