Entrepreneur and engineer Bushnell has pivoted Two Bit Circus to digital
Since its launch in 2012, Two Bit Circus has aimed to bring people together “elbow-to-elbow to play, eat, drink, and generally experience life at the highest resolution.”
Now – at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic means that elbow to elbow socialising is a long way from most people’s realities – the team behind Two Bit Circus have pivoted to an online model which enables them to continue to bring the Two Bit community together.
“It’s really been a weird, hard, traumatic time,” Brent Bushnell, the son of Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, told Attractions Management.
“Our doors have been closed since March, but we’ve learned that we’re not just a location-based entertainment company, we’re a social entertainment company. Online was always on our roadmap, but it just wasn’t a priority yet. Closing the park made it a priority; we pivoted instantly. With our new Remote offering, we now have a whole online product line that’s so much fun.”
Launched by engineers Brent Bushnell and Eric Gradman, Two Bit Circus started by creating interactive experiences and brand activations for festivals and corporate events. STEAM Carnival followed, a touring, pop-up-style event with the aim of creating a positive narrative around the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths) with the addition of art (the A in STEAM), which helped to combat the ‘boring’ stigma of traditional STEM subjects and encouraged “creative, out-of-the-box thinking necessary for engineers and future inventors”.
The event, which reimagined the traditional carnival using “robots, fire and lasers,” kicked off in Los Angeles and San Francisco, before expanding worldwide in 2019.
In 2018, Bushnell and Gradman launched the first of a planned series of micro amusement parks in Los Angeles, providing a permanent home for a range of immersive entertainment games and experiences. Attractions at the 40,000sq ft entertainment complex include a range of immersive adventures such as story rooms, arcade games, private gaming lounges, a games arena and Club01 – described as a “100-seat interactive game show theatre.”
TWO BIT REMOTE With the park closed and the Two Bit team working from home, “the crew went a little stir crazy and channelled their excessive energy into building a platform full of fun games that could bring people together,” says Bushnell.
The Remote offer is a play-from-home show emceed live by an experienced Two Bit Circus human host and “state-of-the-art GameShowBot3000”.
Together they lead players through a variety of games with “hilarious commentary and special guests, selecting lucky players to join live on the air alongside the at-home audience.”
“We built the whole thing from scratch, using some existing tools including Youtube and Amazon’s Cloud, but the software and the game experience is all of our original creation,” said Bushnell. “As well as the public shows – which run every Thursday on a variety of themes – we’re running private shows for teambuilding, birthdays and conferences.”
Two Bit Circus has also created Remote White Label so the software can be used and customised by others, and recently signed its largest white label customer, US family entertainment centre company Main Event.
The company is also scouting possible locations for more micro amusement parks across the US.
“As we perfect the one in LA, the opportunity to move fast with our expansion will become very real,” he said. “Ultimately, I could see room for 100 Two Bit Circus micro amusement parks in the US and 200 in Asia.
“This is a tragic moment for the locations based entertainment industry, but for those that survive there will be unbelievable opportunities on the other side.”
Read more from this issue of Attractions Management magazine
View contents of Attractions Management 2021 issue 1
Editor's letter: Doing better
The Black Lives Matter movement has challenged museums professionals to ask testing questions about their role in reparative history and the way we display and interpret racist and colonial collections
People: Brent Bushnell
Two Bit Circus has pivoted to an innovative online model aimed at keeping its community in touch
People: Michel Linet-Frion
After decades creating for Disney, Grévin and Center Parcs, Linet-Frion has launched his own consultancy
People: Anthony Rawlins
The Digital Visitor CEO explains a new whitepaper on how attractions can survive 2021 and beyond
Interview: Sarah Roots
Warner Bros’ Sarah Roots shares exciting details of the second Harry Potter Studio Tour, set to open in Japan in 2023
Inspired: Alone with Vermeer
The Mauritshuis in The Hague has allowed visitors one-to-one time with Vermeer’s <i>View of Delft</i>, ‘the most beautiful painting in the world’
Aquariums: Into the deep
Merlin and the Sea Life Trust share the highs and lows of the epic journey to get two whales to their new home in the world’s first beluga whale sanctuary in Iceland
Innovation: Sea change
Edge Innovations’ incredibly
life-like robot dolphins could spell the end of marine mammals in aquariums, says CEO Walt Conti
Interview: Bob Rogers
As BRC Imagination Arts celebrates 40 years in business, its founder celebrates his team’s achievements
Sponsored: Technically Creative
With clients including the Xplore
Family Entertainment Centre in Athens,
Technically Creative provides a one
stop, in-house solution to create
memorable and magical experiences.
We talk to CEO, Marc Broadbent
Sponsored: Fun Spot: Providing turnkey solutions
Industry innovator, Fun Spot, is on a roll, with a new EMEA
office and a range of innovative new products to help operators
deliver excellence to the family fun market. We find out more
Interview: Phil Hettema
The Hettema Group president on weathering the pandemic and creating powerful experiences
An opportunity to reimagine one of the UK’s most recognisable towers has been formally
opened by Rivington Hark, as St Johns Beacon invites operators and partners to shape its
next phase. [more...]
Entrepreneur and engineer Bushnell has pivoted Two Bit Circus to digital
Since its launch in 2012, Two Bit Circus has aimed to bring people together “elbow-to-elbow to play, eat, drink, and generally experience life at the highest resolution.”
Now – at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic means that elbow to elbow socialising is a long way from most people’s realities – the team behind Two Bit Circus have pivoted to an online model which enables them to continue to bring the Two Bit community together.
“It’s really been a weird, hard, traumatic time,” Brent Bushnell, the son of Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell, told Attractions Management.
“Our doors have been closed since March, but we’ve learned that we’re not just a location-based entertainment company, we’re a social entertainment company. Online was always on our roadmap, but it just wasn’t a priority yet. Closing the park made it a priority; we pivoted instantly. With our new Remote offering, we now have a whole online product line that’s so much fun.”
Launched by engineers Brent Bushnell and Eric Gradman, Two Bit Circus started by creating interactive experiences and brand activations for festivals and corporate events. STEAM Carnival followed, a touring, pop-up-style event with the aim of creating a positive narrative around the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and maths) with the addition of art (the A in STEAM), which helped to combat the ‘boring’ stigma of traditional STEM subjects and encouraged “creative, out-of-the-box thinking necessary for engineers and future inventors”.
The event, which reimagined the traditional carnival using “robots, fire and lasers,” kicked off in Los Angeles and San Francisco, before expanding worldwide in 2019.
In 2018, Bushnell and Gradman launched the first of a planned series of micro amusement parks in Los Angeles, providing a permanent home for a range of immersive entertainment games and experiences. Attractions at the 40,000sq ft entertainment complex include a range of immersive adventures such as story rooms, arcade games, private gaming lounges, a games arena and Club01 – described as a “100-seat interactive game show theatre.”
TWO BIT REMOTE With the park closed and the Two Bit team working from home, “the crew went a little stir crazy and channelled their excessive energy into building a platform full of fun games that could bring people together,” says Bushnell.
The Remote offer is a play-from-home show emceed live by an experienced Two Bit Circus human host and “state-of-the-art GameShowBot3000”.
Together they lead players through a variety of games with “hilarious commentary and special guests, selecting lucky players to join live on the air alongside the at-home audience.”
“We built the whole thing from scratch, using some existing tools including Youtube and Amazon’s Cloud, but the software and the game experience is all of our original creation,” said Bushnell. “As well as the public shows – which run every Thursday on a variety of themes – we’re running private shows for teambuilding, birthdays and conferences.”
Two Bit Circus has also created Remote White Label so the software can be used and customised by others, and recently signed its largest white label customer, US family entertainment centre company Main Event.
The company is also scouting possible locations for more micro amusement parks across the US.
“As we perfect the one in LA, the opportunity to move fast with our expansion will become very real,” he said. “Ultimately, I could see room for 100 Two Bit Circus micro amusement parks in the US and 200 in Asia.
“This is a tragic moment for the locations based entertainment industry, but for those that survive there will be unbelievable opportunities on the other side.”
Read more from this issue of Attractions Management magazine
View contents of Attractions Management 2021 issue 1
Editor's letter: Doing better
The Black Lives Matter movement has challenged museums professionals to ask testing questions about their role in reparative history and the way we display and interpret racist and colonial collections
People: Brent Bushnell
Two Bit Circus has pivoted to an innovative online model aimed at keeping its community in touch
People: Michel Linet-Frion
After decades creating for Disney, Grévin and Center Parcs, Linet-Frion has launched his own consultancy
People: Anthony Rawlins
The Digital Visitor CEO explains a new whitepaper on how attractions can survive 2021 and beyond
Interview: Sarah Roots
Warner Bros’ Sarah Roots shares exciting details of the second Harry Potter Studio Tour, set to open in Japan in 2023
Inspired: Alone with Vermeer
The Mauritshuis in The Hague has allowed visitors one-to-one time with Vermeer’s <i>View of Delft</i>, ‘the most beautiful painting in the world’
Aquariums: Into the deep
Merlin and the Sea Life Trust share the highs and lows of the epic journey to get two whales to their new home in the world’s first beluga whale sanctuary in Iceland
Innovation: Sea change
Edge Innovations’ incredibly
life-like robot dolphins could spell the end of marine mammals in aquariums, says CEO Walt Conti
Interview: Bob Rogers
As BRC Imagination Arts celebrates 40 years in business, its founder celebrates his team’s achievements
Sponsored: Technically Creative
With clients including the Xplore
Family Entertainment Centre in Athens,
Technically Creative provides a one
stop, in-house solution to create
memorable and magical experiences.
We talk to CEO, Marc Broadbent
Sponsored: Fun Spot: Providing turnkey solutions
Industry innovator, Fun Spot, is on a roll, with a new EMEA
office and a range of innovative new products to help operators
deliver excellence to the family fun market. We find out more
Interview: Phil Hettema
The Hettema Group president on weathering the pandemic and creating powerful experiences
Experience design company, BRC Imagination Arts, has completed a transition that sees founder
Bob Rogers pass ownership of the business to four long-serving senior executives, while
remaining actively involved with the company.
Movie Park Germany has opened a new Paramount Pictures-themed attraction as part of its 30th
anniversary celebrations, using immersive storytelling and adaptive reuse to reinforce the park’s
longstanding “Hollywood in Germany” positioning.
Therme Manchester’s 28-acre development, which will include interconnected glass pavilions
that measure 65,000sq m, will be the largest bathing and wellbeing attraction in the world once
complete, according to prof David Russell, CEO of Therme UK.
Efteling has opened Hooghmoed, a new family drop tower designed to broaden the appeal of its
recently launched Sirene Island themed area and introduce younger visitors to thrill attractions.
A proposed Puy du Fou development near Bicester and Universal Destinations and Experiences’
planned resort in Bedford are emerging as part of a wider transformation of the Oxford–
Cambridge Growth Corridor into a major centre for UK leisure and tourism inv
Shedd Aquarium has opened the Immersion Theater developed in partnership with SimEx-
Iwerks, as part of a wider strategy to enhance the guest experience and create additional
revenue opportunities.
The UK government has announced a temporary reduction in VAT on visitor attractions and
children’s meals as part of a summer cost-of-living support package designed to stimulate the
visitor economy and encourage family days out.
As designer Yinka Ilori prepares for his first solo gallery show in London, he speaks exclusively
to CLADmag about his mission to spread joy, the power of play, and his bold approach to using
colour (including the colours you won’t see in his work).
The government of Thailand is exploring plans for a THB300bn (£6.3bn, US$8.3bn)
entertainment complex in the country’s Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC), with officials
proposing a large-scale theme park and sports destination as part of a broader tourism and
economic development strategy.
Royal Caribbean has revealed its Hero of the Seas cruise ship, home to the most pools at sea
(nine), and a record-breaking 28 dining venues, as well as attractions including a waterpark
with two new family raft slides.
An opportunity to reimagine one of the UK’s most recognisable towers has been formally
opened by Rivington Hark, as St Johns Beacon invites operators and partners to shape its
next phase. [more...]
