Ramble: Pitching my own LARP hotels

This might just be the Pacific Northwest girlie in me, but if you had a bit of land in a reasonably temperate climate, an Animal Crossing themed resort sounds totally doable! You could landscape the grounds similar to the game which wouldn’t be too hard in say, Northern California. (I think you’d have enough similar trees that thrive in that climate, and it’s pretty outdoor friendly year round I think?) But yeah you could have a pretty sprawling grounds and garden to wander around, and then some freestanding structures that look like the main buildings in the game, to serve as gift shops/arcades/clothing shops/restaurants. And then just have a normal hotel on the property like you said, but you can charge resort prices so ppl can also wander around, and feel like they’re visiting the world of the game. Win/win!

I went to OmegaMart last summer, and I have a lot of thoughts! tl;dr: It's rather unique and ambitious, but I felt like it had a lot of issues, too. I feel like it's designed to have gameplay at 3 different levels: Level 1: Vibes. This part works great. It's a big environment, with a lot of art, and you can just kind of explore it, and there's a lot of fun stuff to look at and interact with, and you get a general sense without a deep story. Level 2: Badge-based mostly linear scavenger hunt. This part is a bit meh. It's the most curated experience. You pay like an extra $3 for an RFID badge, and you can use them at various computers and consoles, which then have a clue to the next location. It's very linear, with maybe one branch, and it has a clear ending. The main problem I had with it is capacity. There are multiple steps that require you to get a clue from one specific computer. So if someone's using it, you have to wait. But often there will be like multiple 2-5 minute long videos, which are basically flavortext that aren't actually necessary to progress. So if there's someone waiting, I feel pressure to just get what I need and move on. And vice versa if someone's just sitting there watching those, it's kind of annoying to wait. I feel like they need to provide at least multiple identical computers for these steps. The other problem is that the overall story is pretty straightforward and ultimately not that interesting.. and it also wasn't that much of a scavenger hunt.. like it was maybe too easy? Level 3: Deep lore. This part maybe works well if you spend your whole day there, but there's just too much to explore in, say, a 2-3 hour visit.. without enough guidance on what's important and what's not. There's a TON of stuff to read. So I guess again this part maybe is good if you live in the area or are willing to dedicate a ton of time.. but otherwise it leads you to feel a lot of FOMO about what you might be missing. Still, maybe that's by design and gives it some re-visitability. Again though, I'm not convinced about the payoff, as the bits of story I did gather were only okay.

I remember a while back somebody made a video about how dumb it was that the hogwarts houses slept in different dorms. Like, you'd think you'd want an even distribution of these personality types rather than have all the evil kids stuck under a lake So if you did want to have people "pick" their house, maybe a better idea would be that the different rooms all have different combos of beds, and being in a house doesn't actually affect your itinerary? Like they can say "Potions: gryffendor/ravenclaw", but actually anybody can go to it. You're basically being given 4 default schedules if you choose to be one house, but you can just go to whatever classes you want. That way you could mitigate the distribution problem? I dunno i just like the idea of the fancy beds lol

The discussion of indoor outdoor spaces reminded me of that underground doomsday bunker house in Las Vegas with the swimming pool, trees, and landscape murals. Truly the perfect location for building a magical fairy forest and surviving the apocalypse.

The feminine urge to create a Rhino or Sketchup 3D model of everything Jenny describes…

The whole “Why am I getting up in the morning to go to a class?” Followed by “Well you’re paying for it so might as well go” was the college experience Lol just love the idea of just needing a new coat of paint to change harry potter into a scooby doo theme. Been loving the reoccurring theme of Jenny saying “I’m just going to do a quick video on …” then not seeing it or maybe still working on it. Never change Jenny.

Very late to this but a Mario 64 themed hotel with painting doors and a penguin slide would be sick. Or a haunted themed Luigi’s mansion hotel would be cool too

I would listen to Jenny design her ideal inside-outside dream house interior for hours.

Realizing the hunger games themed Girl Scout camp program I attended in my young teens (harrowing) was a LARP hotel, and then being hit by a second, somehow deeper realization that I really attended a hunger games themed camping excursion.

I’m extremely belatedly realizing that going to NASA Space Camp when I was a kid was a LARP hotel.

The idea of Inside Water being inside an Inside Outside Room is blowing my mind. Also that hat... is so good.

i know i'm WAY late to this one... But, can't we ALL AGREE; that the most best LARP hotel would be China Beach? You could be a new nurse, or a chopper pilot.. Or, just another spent shell

the best harry potter hotel would be the one that emulates the fanfiction trope in which, post-war, the staff wake up to the fact that the massive level of house division is causing very real problems, so they mix up students from different houses and make them live together. you could keep the common rooms and the point system and other house-specific stuff, but this would demolish most of the logistical problems, *and* improve immersion for *me* by having the universe respond in a logical way to witnessing just how bad stuff got with slytherin

I think that the Santa Fe Meow Wolf, House of Eternal Return, is the best in terms of the story. Omega Mart was slightly disappointing to me since the story didn't seem like it actually ended. Out of all the meow wolfs, HOER has the most contained story and Denver's Convergence Station is a close second, but I also felt that CS had a weak ending. Omega Mart didn't even feel like it ended at all which was really anticlimactic and made me feel like I did all this work to uncover the story for nothing. I do recommend all the Meow Wolfs though. I recommend starting with Omega Mart and then the other 2 are interchangeable in terms of which order you visit in.

I think Star Trek would be very easy to do and i'm surprised it hasn't been done (to my knowledge.) If you can make the show in the 60s you can make a LARP hotel now.

That animal crossing one sounded mad comfy n chill.

Okay so hear me out for the keys for the ghost hotel: everyone gets a smart skeleton key (like the magicbands, but looks cool and comes on a necklace or a chatelaine) and they can tap it to the glued down key to add it to their keychain. Still less immersive, but they get to find keys and it's aesthetically fun

I feel like picking your house could work for Hogwarts. Like when you make your reservation you choose your house and the staff just puts different colored bedding and drapery in the room and switch the "window" tv to the appropriate screen. Alternatively it would be fun to not get be able to choose your room and instead the first activity of the stay is sorting with a puppet sorting cap, but they'd need to figure out how to deal with multiple guests in a single room.

I had a dream that I went to Jenny's house and she showed me a tapestry she had to cover a big window and the side facing the street showed a night forest scene with owls n trees

Jenny have you been to the House of Eternal return in Santa Fe? it's one of the coolest places ive ever been and ive never seen anyone talk about it! its got some crazy cool environmental/immersive storytelling

Ugh I love your idea of the inside outside room. Best I've got rn is just a lot of plants and a tapestry on the wall that looks like a forest

Jenny would have been the kid who actually liked getting their room redone on Extreme Home Makeover

Towards the end of the video Jenny just starts talking about pitching theme park lands, and I'd be MORE than happy to have a video of that as a sequel to this one. Jennyland, here I come! Also I'd love to see Jenny talk about Omega Mart.

This was delightful and I'm now looking into what it would cost to operate a haunted mansion hotel, because like what a fun sort of daydream to run a haunted mansion/clue-like larp hotel out of some old victorian

Not gonna lie, I totally expected you to pitch a Winx-themed hotel. You can split the guests up into fairies/witches/heroes (although everyone would be able to do every activity) and have a bunch of magic stuff, foam swords, that sort of thing. The story would probably be some kind of unrelated threat, so people could pick their side and not feel pushed into one just based on their random room assignment. There could even be an indoor-outdoor Magix where guests can eat fairy pizza and talk on fairy payphones!

Have you ever been to Punchdrunk's Sleep No More in NYC? It might be different with COVID, but they do the environment stuff well. It's a choose your own adventure theatre performance that's in a 10k sq ft warehouse turned mansion, and you can rifle through the desks in rooms and talk to actors and follow the story you want. It just seems really up your alley.

You're so right about rooms decorated like outdoor settings. I've been dreaming for ages about the day that I get to build an uncanny fake beach in my basement. Hopefully someday.

somehow this is the first time I've heard of omega mart having a narrative to it. this whole time I thought it was just a weird joke shop/art installation. dang, now I want to go!

While I was on my college program in Orlando I went through this month long phase where I was OBSESSED with escape rooms lol it was great

I love the animal crossing idea I want it to be real so bad :,)

Jenny’s “Inside outside” living room is just an excuse to make her McDonalds apple pie tree aesthetically cohesive

My friend's kid goes to a Percy Jackson themed day camp already ..... I'm guessing not officially licensed.

Loved all your ideas especially the Haunted Mansion idea! As for next videos, I definitely support working on whatever energizes you the most. And your hat looks AMAZING!!!

To your sentiment at the end, I think you should focus on what video entices you the most, and you shouldnt feel guilty for jumping around/taking too long. I think thats the healthiest mindset, and youre going to produce the best shit because its what you want to do.

I donno why watching this made me wistful and sad.... it's almost as if discussions of the cost of enjoyment, the impossibility of really imaginative and enjoyable experiences...

So a frontier SW LARP experience. What if they went scoundrel with the idea? Everyone is a criminal. The environment is wild cantina and fugitive hideout. Build it in Montana or Wyoming. Go country. I want folks to pick their own faction. I can use "fugitive bar" as the design aesthetic. So I don't have to redress. Guests upload a criminal record from options including Smuggler,Bounty Hunter,Assassin,Bodyguard,Entertainer,Royal,Sith and Jedi. Based on that profile,quest lines ding in the app. They are advised to check their "Cantina Comlink" regularly. Infiltrations,Sabbacc and turf wars.

Can’t wait for the day Jenny inevitably buys a house and designs her own indoor outdoor room, the only house tour video I’d want to watch

“Why are you here?” Jenny channeling her old Disney Customer Service self

I want a Hollywood Tower of Terror experience. Like doors open up to a room that's completely upside down. Or you can crawl through a cupboard and enter a broom closet. Mah-Jong games in the lobby. All staff wear the bell hopper uniforms. Maybe we get elevator operators who speak with a Trans-Atlantic accent. We can keep the characters from the movie and have them walking around...

Got so excited at the length of this. 10/10, although I'll admit I don't give a damn about immersion and want a my little pony themed hotel, not larping really but I just like the idea of an overly complex pony hotel. Almost meow wolf style yk

Merida could show all the little girls how to shoot bows and arrows and Mulan could teach them to sword fight

My mother has. So many fake plants and branches she hot glued flowers and lights to in our midwestern 'frunchroom'. This was uncanny to hear you describe what her vision might have been hahahaha

Side note, there are Percy Jackson themed summer camps. They do archery and swordfighting lessons.

Yeah, I think having a storyline that guests have to follow in a LARP hotel is, for the most part, too hard to pull off. It's hard to make it interesting for everyone and it adds a lot of logistical issues. Now you got me thinking about an X-Men one. Like, it could take place inside the X-Mansion, and the premise is that you're a student. There's a Danger Room area where you do obstacle courses. Your power is that you can copy the abilities of other mutants, so each activity (or, X-Men training session!) gives you a chance to try out different powers. With Wolverine, you slash paper targets with claws. With Cyclops, you get augmented reality goggles where you attack virtual opponents with eye beams. You can have acrobat training with Nightcrawler. With Storm, you get a video game where a giant screen "window" allows you to see outside and you control the weather to fend off opponents trying to attack the mansion. A mix of physical and sedentary activities, and you can pick your class schedule. Evening performances by Dazzler, and when you're not in training, you can hang out and talk with various X-Men characters at the mansion. It's probably not big enough for Disney to actually do, but a Doctor Strange hotel experience would be pretty rad. You learn magic and stay in the Sanctum Sanctorum. Animatronics and projections could be used for demons, monsters, and spirits. Since it takes place in modern day, regular clothes don't break the immersion, but you can still dress like a wizard if you want. And it's not IP-based, but my final idea is a mermaid experience. It's basically a hotel with a huge pool complex, but like, most of the pools are designed to look like natural environments so you really feel like a mermaid when you swim around. There are different features to explore, and there are swim-up bars so you can eat and drink without having to leave the pool. There could even be a saltwater pool with real fish, for scheduled sessions. Underwater photography sessions would be available too. Mermaid swim and modelling lessons are offered before and during the stay for those not experienced with swimming in a tail, but a tail isn't required for stay.

Alton Towers in the UK had a Sonic the Hedgehog themed room that was…truly something.

An MCU-themed hotel could work - though it wouldn't be LARP. It would mostly be based around Spider-Man and other "street level" heroes. The main area would be a New York street, with turn-offs at each end. The lower floors on each side of the street would be the hotel rooms; above this, forced perspective is used to make the buildings look taller, and at the top the sky and various effects can be projected onto the ceiling (this would have to be housed in a long, tall building). Periodically there would be shows in this street area, with characters appearing at various windows, balconies and fire escapes, and swinging/gliding from one side to the other on wires. This would basically be a stunt show, so a lot of the voices would be prerecorded or done by off-stage actors. The audience could watch from the street or from their hotel rooms; the hotel might also have group rooms for this purpose. Apart from this, visitors could look at various businesses on the street, most notably The Daily Bugle building. Here they could take the elevator up (or "up" but actually down) to the Bugle news room, where they can hear JJ Jameson rant and throw stuff within his frosted glass office - and to the observation floor, from which they can observe this alternative New York either on screens or in miniature form. Periodically a flying battle would take place outside, with explosions that make the floor shake. If you yell "You mess wid one of us, you mess wid all of us!", you win a free drink.

I support star wars hotel video! also very excited for the video about the newest fantastic beasts movie shit looked so bad lol

I think a Fallout Vault is perfect for a hotel. You give everyone the suits which are also a souvenir. You give a wristband you can slot your phone into and it's a Pip-Boy. The app is now part of the LARP. You can do quests, get caps, get XP, level up, pass skill checks, hack terminals for lore, pick locks, etc. The overarching story is like some vault problem like the plants are withering but then you can figure out it was planned to fail as one of the experiments. You don't even need windows!

I'm also obsessed with novelty rooms and I stumbled into the opportunity of co-owning a home bc my partner bought a house few months into our relationship. My partner gives me like 90% of the decor power based on the fact that I'm a professional designer/illustrator, but he regretfully had to make his case against me turning the "formal living room" into a recreation of an early 00's era Burger King (stupid).

Scooby doo hotel hallways would have to have a looping design.

Marvel hotel would basically be "an embassy suites but there's a non-zero chance you will die because of demigods fighting"

I love your haunted hotel idea, but to expand on that: what if it was Corpse Bride themed, and all the guests were new arrivals to the world of the dead? And then the big event at the end could be similar to the wedding at the end of the movie?

Thank you for mentioning Omegamart. I encourage you to check the other meow wolves in santa fe and denver!

After working in a resort that had kid aimed events from a certain group of IPs I have a couple thoughts: The thing about kids is, they will make their own fun. You just have to give them the right environment to make it. All parents want is a photo op and to not have to worry about or entertain their kiddos. If you build a cool environment with supervision and maybe even a way for parentals to keep track of the kiddos, you’ve already won. So to my mind I think it should be a scaled theme. Like tinkerbell or bugs life. Everything is a huge version of outside. You could do a borrowers type inside area. Eg chairs in the dining area are big spools of thread.

The idea of the HP houses being randomly assigned fills me with instant anxiety. I have worked in hospitality for too long. The thought of the amount of Karen meltdowns that would spawn gives me hives.

put this viedo on to sleep and remembered nothing the next day. excited to watch it consciously!

lol jenny, if you can do the starwars hotel video faster than you can finish evermore, then you should if you're dying to do that. lol my one dumb vote for whatever it counts. i just want a new main channel video, i dont really care if it's evermore or not. lol it's like the bronycon video, it came out at the perfect time and you had been talking about that for over a year as well

I would be all over the Pokemon and Animal crossing ideas. They sound like a lot of fun. Also Omega Mart is a lot of fun~ It was the best interactive experience I've ever had.

is there any updates on Barbie? (sorry if this has already been discussed )

Omegamart is next on our list! We've done the other two MeowWolf installations and loved both of them.

My unreasonable pokemon idea is genetically modified animals to be closer to pokemons and it’s just a petting zoo

I think I have found an IP that would work for something on the level of what Starcruiser was doing, but make a lot more sense: Ace Attorney! Guests are encouraged to come as their own original colourful character, but you aren't a lawyer (or if you are making yourself an attorney character, you're not working on this case, all guests are witnesses/npcs). The murder happens on the first night during dinner. Phoenix Wright and various characters from the games are walking around as actors. Guests can help gather evidence for the side of their choosing. There's an ARG where you can "scan for fingerprints" or "apply luminol" via app. You can send your evidence to the side of your choosing like starcruiser's missions to Baatuu. Other rooms inside the hotel have clues, of course, but there are also things from the show going on over the next two days - a Gavinner's concert, a ramen (or burger if its in the US) bar, a seance with Maya chanelling spirits, etc. The next two/three nights have the trial show which could be dinner theatre or could be longer shows with intermissions and such. The performers could call guests to the stand, maybe? It would be like a lottery thing probably. Since this series isn't exactly little-kid focused what with the murders and the tons of reading, it would probably attract a crowd of adults who pay attention to details and such, as opposed to kids too young to get it and/or parents who dont get it all but just want to entertain a kid. Also it wouldn't be THAT expensive since it's set in a city to begin with and you can do things like "themed law office" and "themed parking lot" with clues and such. They could have different "season" or something where it's a different case and different point in the timeline, too, so if you come once a year you're not going to get the exact same case, but they still don't need to have 500 different variations. ETA: The story doesn't have branching paths for individual guests like Starcruiser, instead the courtroom scenes operate on a contingency system where if enough guests brought evidence to this or that side, the outcome changes. With several HOLD IT!! Dramatic entrances that can be adjusted as needed so neither side wins too fast.

i would ADORE the haunted manor experience

I love all of these ideas, but especially the Animal Crossing one! Also, my hot take on the Star Wars hotel: a lot of thematic confusion could have been avoided if they made the story of the hotel into high-end volun-tourism (“you’re going to Batuu to have a once-in-lifetime experience…and also save lives”) rather than a space cruise.

If Star Cruiser is deemed successful/profitable would you say it's likely Universal would try to implement the Harry Potter hotel idea? I'd like to believe JKR has poisoned the franchise too deeply to make the risk worth it but i'm also not very knowledgeable in the logic of risk/benefit

I want a Nancy Drew hotel like that one train game you played where there are a bunch of puzzle games everywhere and all the furniture is antique and animal themed and everything is cryptic and there are a ton of secret compartments and maybe even secret passageways to get between certain areas and basically I just want a big ol' mystery house.

I have lived in the US almost my entire life, lived in several states, and I have never heard of family room vs. living room.

Yessssss! Animal Crossing was the first thing I thought of for this. I feel like the aesthetic would perfectly suit an inside outside room like you described. I think it really could work pretty well. The Pokemon idea would be totally unworkable I agree. But also totally amazing omg I wish there were a way to make it possible. Did i catch a subtle hint about the subpar room sizes in galactic starcruiser? Those church plays look incredible. I'm hoping for an extended clip of iron man solemnly singing Tubthumping as he's crucified. Also, that Ouanni hat is amazing!

I was just at OmegaMart a couple weeks ago as an unplanned activity, so I only had ~2 hrs to spend there and I want to go back (and to the other locations) ASAP

I'm 100% sold on the Animal Crossing idea. Not sure how you would decide which villagers get to make it into the experience though.

I absolutely know I’m wrong but I’m going with Max Rebo for the costume.

Spaceballs: The Hotel

GYROID ANIMATRONICS

The haunted mansion idea sounds really fun. During that part I was thinking about how a character was murdered before the events your stay and you could have one or two detectives roaming the estate and trying to interrogate other cast members or guests. Could even have some drama where one character hired a detective to prove X and another one to prove Y. Could at least be an excuse to have both a Sherlock Holmes and a Columbo-esque character investigating the same incident.

Living room/family room terms have always been confusing to me cause my house only has one and we call it the "living room." Most of the time I hear the one without the tv be called a "sitting room" or a "formal living room" and the one with the tv called living or family room, depends entirely on the family, not really a regional thing. Omg but yes please outside spaces inside

I love Toontown too!! You always have such fantastic insight into things I’ve never even thought about. I think a Half-Life laboratory-hotel would be super cool.

Can't believe I used to be one of THOSE guys that thought owning a Tesla was the height of luxury. No this ramble corrected me. It's all about having a themed inside-outside space in your home with animatronic talking trees that's the real dream. Thank you Jenny May the 4th be with you!

The creators of Omega Mart are an artist collective from my home town Santa Fe. They are total weirdos and I love them. Definitely check out their Santa Fe and Denver locations (House of Eternal Return and Convergence station) if you have a chance.

I love this ramble! Animal Crossing larping sounds like a really chill holiday and haunted mansion would be so popular! Also… don’t assume you have no patreons in Tokyo! It is expensive but bookings open 6 months before desired check-in date so it might not be impossible? There’s very few tourists around and even the longest queue doesn’t go above 75mins these days.

You book your Hogwarts house when you buy your ticket (you can still have a sorting hat event, but you or your parent knows in advance what you're going to get). Sell fixed number of tickets into each house or just make Gryffindor super expensive. This would make it more immersive as Gryffindor and Slytherin have all the smug/rich assholes in-universe as well.

My pitch: Fallout-themed getaway. You'd have to build a vault, but that would be almost the only expense, since you build it on decrepit industrial land, and then once it's up and running you don't have to provide food or even water - the lack is all part of the experience. Guests trade in their dollars for bottle caps at the entrance (1=1) and then most of the activities involve mock battles, gambling and trading in a desperate attempt to get together enough bottle caps to pay for transport out of this zone you've gone to for some reason.

I would pay top dollar to visit or work at a hotel based on A Scanner Darkly. And how about murderous-innkeeper themes, like Motel Hell or H. H. Holmes at the Chicago World's Fair?

oh my god the ghoul school house system immediately gave me Percy Jackson vibes in a funny but deeply uncomfortable way. “Wait all of us are Dracula’s kids?” EDIT: ok Jenny brought up Percy Jackson literally a minute later lmao

I could see Pokemon working if you made it like the Lavender Town ghost tower or the Silph Co. Building. Move up and down the floors, have some escape room type puzzles, and some Rocket grunts doing mischief. Maybe.

Ten years ago I would have done anything to go to the hogwarts hotel. Now the scooby doo ghoul school sounds like a much more appealing time. I was always afraid as a kid of what being an adult meant, and if it meant I would fall out of love with all of my interests....I never considered the possibility that I would fall out of love for a good reason...

Reacting to real estate listings with outside-inside rooms would be a fun ramble topic. Requires curating a list but there are blogs that cover weird listings that could be mined. Defector’s “Zillowing Out” series covered an incredible one with an extensive water feature that had clearly damaged the room.

Thats such a cool hat it looks just like her!!!!!!!!!!

When she began naming fictional extravagances that couldn't be realized in hotel form, and I had to cross out anything werewolf-themed for myself because that's always expensive FX, I also started thinking along the lines of my interests that would work. Then I thought, Voyager. Not just Star Trek, because that's too close, but there's a reason that 'spaceship' seems to be a running functional theme. If we are specifically thematically stranded in the Delta quadrant, then that's a fine excuse to really isolate from the outside world. It might take a lot of soundproofing to convince me I'm that far out in space, but then not leaving the building and so only needing to keep the theme going within one building is working with the theme and not against it. And it sounds very relaxing when it's voluntary.

Hate to step on your toes here, but to me the obvious Harry Potter move is that it's your "first day" and then you get assigned the House at the very end (and you can select it). If anything, your 'route' is lowkey you doing the tasks that are clearly leading to being assigned a specific House (maybe even color-coded!)

I am super hyped for the church plays video.

For some reason when I sign in on the Patreon app, it doesn’t show me this post. The latest thing it shows is the Tinkerbell video. I have to do a search for “larp” to find this.

Awesome ideas! I think it would just be fun to have a Medieval castle LARP. Like if all else fails, turn Hogwarts into generic Medieval castle and learn about Medieval life. And like you could learn how to ride a horse, learn sword fighting and archery, learn medieval dances, eat medieval food, etc. There could be some story going on like a knight challenges another knight to a duel and that's the climax of the experience or something. But it could all be campy like Medieval Times. I'm also a big history nerd so maybe that wouldn't be as appealing as I think. My fiance thinks a murder mystery train hotel a la Orient Express would be cool, but it would be hard to have emersive rooms.

i gasped when i saw your Ouanni hat- adorable!!

I feel like for harry potter the guests are at an orientation weekend. ( also explains why adults are there) Your rooms could be generic rooms but you get to visit all of the common rooms and a few classes. For robes they could sell the ones with the hogwarts chrest on like the first movie. This removes the guests being upset about there house issue.

I was actually at that Animal Crossing themed booth at PAX, it was very cute and *immersive*

Love all your ideas! Your haunted gala idea made me think of a web series I watched called Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party. I'd like something like that where I can interact with different historical writers/figures or famous literary characters. Even if they aren't contemporary with each other haha. Did anyone else watch this web series lol

All of WB World in Abu Dhabi is an inside outside land: https://youtu.be/Pnb3H5Zt4kM

The ouanni hat is incredible

Holy cow Jenny, you finally solved it... how to get trapped IN an island!

I've always loved ToonTown's aesthetic to the point of telling myself that if I could, I'd build my home to look like that. Now I know to combine that with an inside-outside front room. Jenny the architectural consultant! PS One of my favorite inside-outside places is a row of shops at the House on the Rock in Wisconsin. As a kid I was completely fooled.

Jenny all of your Haunted Mansion idea is lacking a very essential ingredient- chocolate chip-eyed GHOST PANCAKES for breakfest. Actually, none of your ideas offer pancakes for breakfast, shame on you.

Easiest idea would be Star Trek themed. Trek is mostly adults sitting around trying to solve problems. So just decorate the rooms, get everyone dressed up, and give them homework to solve in groups with some actors moving the story along.

Grandmother Willow animatronic tree as an inside outside set piece would go all the way off

Very long shot, but has anyone here visited Hotel Charles Lindbergh at Phantasialand? It's a steampunk themed hotel inside a roller coaster in Germany, but I am not sure if there are any LARP or lore elements. The marketing mentions joining an explorer society and there are some interesting photos of old-looking newspapers. I am super curious about it, but the internet has been pretty light on specific details about lore

I feel like, after this haunted mansion bit, I want you to design escape rooms!

On the idea of a Harry Potter hotel, maybe they could allow you to choose to book rooms in the 'dungeons' (placing you in Slytherin) or the 'tower' (placing you in Gryffindor) at the same place you would choose how many beds you need in your room, with different price points depending on how popular/costly the different styles are. That way they could simply say 'booked out' at the booking page if there are too many Slytherins or Gryffindors in a given weekend. They could also have a cheaper price point for a 'randomised' house which would be whatever has the lowest occupancy rate at that time to help manage any short-term unevenness.

I feel like we got away with something on this one. Top tier ramble. I squeed when you put on the ouanni hat that's so cool!

An obvious idea would be a Star Trek hotel that would essentially be a complete rip-off of the Star Wars one, you're travelling on Kirk or Picard's Enterprise, there's alien ambassadors around for photo ops and to provide the story, activities can be visiting places like the bridge, engineering or holodeck, and the second day you can get a shuttlecraft down to some planet or other (Risa would be ideal, but not for kids!) Or the hotel could be Deep Space Nine and the second day you go down to Bajor.

Haven't ever been to Vegas but the MeowWolf (same people behind OmegaMart) in Santa Fe, NM, is sooo cool, it has some ARG elements but is mostly just an absolutely wild and fantastical series of environments to explore, connected by a loose narrative thread. Highly recommend if you're in the area. I would love to check out OmegaMart some day, seems right up my alley.

I was today years old that I, a non-American, thinking I had a firm grasp on American culture, having stayed in American houses before, even having watched HGTV a couple times, realized, that Americans have two living rooms?? I’ve learned English since I was a toddler and I never even heard the word family room before? It really took a Jenny ramble about Larping to learn about this huh

The animal crossing idea is great! It doesn't need that many activities but having a few for the kids to chill, or really anyone to chill, when not out at the rest of super nintendo land is fantastic. Animal performers speaking Animalese means there's not any barriers for international guests either. Give it an Able Sisters too to sell not only clothes that look like iconic outfits from the game but also like, merch. And of course, it needs Brewster's cafe. Chill vibes FTW

you KNOW people would go crazy for a Twin Peaks murder mystery, staying at the great northern hotel. You could have a talent show where the guests get to perform, or have outdoors excursions in a real forest where you get to have a picknick and even enter the black lodge. Building a great northern would cost a pretty penny though, but it wouldn't have to be a direct replica. It could be like some sister hotel built in the same time period by the same owner.

I had to look up what LARP meant. Jenny I think you should provide a glossary designed for the non-groovy.

I wonder if a pokemon one would work if the concept was a) it's pokemon go and b) you're battling the elite four. everybody gets a pogo starter+plush in the beginning, then you divide the guests and have each group battle different e4 members at different times with downtime in between. each group does each battle together as a pogo raid. different floors are themed as e4 chambers or gyms with a few interesting things sprinkled in rooms throughout the hotel + pokemon center restaurant and bar. then at the end everybody regroups and battles the champion. never been to one of these things though so maybe that's way too much or too little, idk.

If they made the Haunted Mansion hotel the way Jenny described it, with escape room mysteries and Haunted Mansion ghost effects everywhere, I would stay there twice a year. I would have to be coerced into going other places. But then I love escape rooms and just a few days ago my friends and I considered ending a day at Disneyland by riding Haunted Mansion three times in a row, so... I'd be the demographic. Maybe the new Haunted Mansion movie, somehow not titled "Haunted Mansion But Not That Other Haunted Mansion Movie," will spark interest? As for upcoming videos, I think Evermore is going to be great, and after a year of work Jenny deserves to have it seen, but the church play video is giving me Hallmark DIY energy, and the Hallmark DIY video remains one of my favorite things on the internet, so, wouldn't mind getting the church play video first. I've been tormenting a friend with the clips Jenny tweeted, and he hates me for it, but his wife is excited for the video on them. Calling that a win.

okay hear me out: Kingdom Hearts hotel. Super easy to license since it's mostly Disney stuff already, super easy to think up plots and storytelling elements for because KH is totally incoherent, appealing to kids, teens, and nostalgic millennials... god I don't even like Kingdom Hearts and I would go in a fuckin heartbeat.

The Scooby-Doo hotel seems neat because an animatronic Fred or Shaggy or Velma doesn't fall into the uncanny valley the way an animatronic Harry or Hagrid would. An animatronic Velma doesn't have to look "real," it just needs to look like cartoon Velma. They can do that.

When you talked about wanting an inside/outside decorated house, I felt very seen 😂 I have several drawings from when I was younger of floorplans for houses based around like a Parisian street with little rooms branching off

What an awesome thing to wake up to on my birthday!

I know you mentioned it but a Nancy Drew LARP hotel could maybe work the same way an escape room can. Have smaller puzzle rooms that maybe only take half and hour to finish. Simple as the marble rolling games or slide puzzles. But it would be hard to feel like YOU are a young detective. Unless you are like working for Nancy and she tasks you with just certain stuff to solve the greater puzzle

I think in the same line as Omegamart; why not just make a LARP hotel that is not based on an existing franchise, or IP? Like with OmegaMart which did it's own thing in the same psychedelic style to be expected of MeowWolf; perhaps being able to craft the events and environments with absolute freedom not bound by staying in line with an existing franchise or IP will allow the quality of the experience to be greater than the alternative? I think this is why of all the ideas that Jenny put forth: the Haunted Mansion seemed the most interesting because of the vagueness of the setting, allowing so much room for creative expression and conceptual exploration for the design of the experience.

today I'm going to wrap myself in the warm blanket of jenny nicholson rambles and not think about current events

As soon as you said "pull out an app" when describing the Pokemon hotel I imagined a room full of Universal Studios Parks suits sitting around a big board table brainstorming the next Nintendo World expansion yelling at their assistants "WRITE THAT DOWN! WRITE THAT DOWN!"

I'm near the end of the video and I'm still stuck on Jenny suggesting the Percy Jackson experience as just an expensive day camp and moving on.

I've been having a rough month, and the several minutes long exploration (and defense) of turning living rooms into "Inside/Outside" rooms is just what I needed, lol. Jenny's rambles are worth every penny.

Your ideas for the Harry Potter hotel were all amazing and really feasible. I wonder if Universal is working on something like that. I really loved the Animal Crossing idea, I would love having a rotating cast of characters you can meet - you’d never be sure who is inside the house. As for the next videos, they all sound super exciting, don’t feel guilty!

Redwall Abbey could be a rad hotel with escape room elements, although I accept that it’s animal hosts will have to live in my childhood imagination :(

I would like to be hired as the gardening instructor at your animal crossing hotel. We could propagate so many succulents!

omg that hat is amazing!! All these ideas are great and I'd stay at all these places especially the Harry Potter/Scooby-Doo one. Never really been a huge Potter fan but everything Jenny described seems like it would be a fun family experience! Oh how about a Squid Game LARP hotel? Might not be super fun to stay at but it would be an experience!

Immersive Beastly experience where you stay in Kyle's house and get to visit thrillingly iconic locations like the Green Party party, generic expensive-looking high school, and... idk, maybe that alley where Lindy's dad shoots the drug dealer? Not really sure what the guests' roles would be though… Kyle can't have kidnapped ALL of them for the purpose of being love interests.

But Jenny, none of these hotels even had a storage room for me to access. What kind of experience are you trying to give these guests?

I love that, by the end of the main ramble, I found myself thinking, "it really sounds like Jenny's conclusion is that LARP hotels fundamentally aren't a great idea," seconds before you said exactly that.

For the Animal Crossing experience, if they built a replica of the museum, like a butterfly garden, and a small aquarium, throw in some dinosaur bones, with an attached The Roost, I would be in heaven. The aquarium would definitely have to be scaled back some, and it would be funny to spend LARP hotel prices to hang out in a coffee shop attached to a small museum, but still. :D

I'd love for someone to do a LARP hotel for one of these really dark,feudal settings. Something like Dune or Warhammer 40K. Meals are ration packs. Photo ops with survivalist covens that demand you frown in the photo. Your selected gender estimates your value to the imperium through a tiered, number scale. The Kids Korner is a concession stand that comes with a waiver for child labor laws. Everyone submits their yearly income so that higher amounts can qualify for a discounted rate.

For the Animal Crossing hotel, every room would have to a have frog chair and there would have to be a Raymond meet and greet or I can guarantee there would be riots

Ouanni hat! ☺️ can’t wait to see the full look; maybe some glam earrings?

So what if the Ghost Hotel idea was Scooby Doo themed and you were solving a mystery. Like you would show up to the hotel and would somehow be contacted by mystery inc, e.g. via an app, who help you solve the mystery.

For the Pokemon theme hotel, they could save a lot of space by having people sleep in balls.

Wooo! I get to wake up to a video!! Thanks 👍