“America’s Playground” has a new addition, and this one’s built for pleasure and business.
Play Playground, the 15,000-square-foot “playdate” venue that’s just opened at Luxor, is tapping into our childhood memories by combining beloved favorites such as musical chairs, parachute, and “Red Light, Green Light,” with life-sized versions of the board and block games that kept us occupied as kids.
There’s Perfect Popper, a timed competition in which large shapes are placed in their corresponding holes; Biggle Ball, a jumbo version of that game in which you move a pinball through a tilting maze; and the sure-to-be-popular Bullseye Bounce, in which you suit up in Velcro and get catapulted against a wall, à la Most Extreme Elimination Challenge.
What the makers of Play Playground, New York-based Play Social Inc., hope will separate their venue from the competition is its appeal to the convention and meetings crowd. Much of the Play Playground marketing emphasizes team-building, the concept of “corporate recess” and PTO, “Played-Time-Off.” It’s not terribly risky to bet on business travel, as the LVCVA’s 2022 Visitor Profile Studyfound that nearly two-thirds of convention and meeting-goers were more interested in doing business in Las Vegas because it’s Las Vegas.
Dr. Marta Soligo, director of tourism research at UNLV’s Office of Economic Development, has a word for the trend: “Bleisure.”
“When I started studying tourism 20 years ago, business travel was boring, it was being stuck with your boss for eight hours a day,” Soligo explains. “Now, business travel is less about hours in a conference room and much more experiential.
“It’s about hands-on, playful activities; going on a business trip but having time to engage in these leisure activities.”
The pursuit of “bleisure,” she adds, extends beyond the playgrounds of the Strip and includes sporting events, nightlife, and an increased emphasis on health and wellness at resort spas and fitness centers.
“[Business travelers] who come here from large urban settings, they’re tired of traffic and burnout,” Soligo says. “If you want to see the big trend right now, it’s healing the body and the mind together.”
Las Vegas didn’t create spas or nightclubs or ginormous board games, but one could argue that we perfected them. Other cities may try to copy the trends—just look at NHL pregame shows—but as that visitor profile study proves, you can’t out-Strip the Strip. And with Play Playground joining the likes of Area15, the $2.3 billion Sphere, and a multitude of escape rooms, among other attractions, the city continues to distance itself from its gambling roots, placing increasingly expensive bets on collaborative experiences that boast eye-catching visuals, oversized stimuli, and repeated use of the word “immersive.”
“Diversification is the key to everything, it’s the backbone of the experience economy,” Soligo says. “I’m in Italy right now, on the other side of the world, and everyone is talking about the Sphere.
“Look at Area15. Talk about trendsetting. The next generation will be progressively looking for these kinds of experiences.”
PLAY PLAYGROUND Sunday-Thursday, noon-midnight; Friday & Saturday, noon-2 a.m. $37+, Luxor, playplayground.com.
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