A few years ago, “immersive experience” mostly meant one thing: a big-city warehouse full of projected Van Gogh paintings and a long line outside. In 2026, the format is everywhere — inside suburban malls, at theme parks, on the National Mall, and in a growing chain of art spaces that keeps opening new venues. The question isn’t whether immersive entertainment is growing. It’s why it keeps showing up in places nobody expected.

Here are five reasons, each backed by reporting from at least two independent sources.

1. Malls have empty space, and immersive experiences are happy to fill it

One of the clearest patterns of the year is immersive attractions moving into shopping centers. Smithsonian Starstruck, a VR tour of the universe built with the Smithsonian, set up at The Florida Mall in Orlando, according to the Orlando Sentinel, with later coverage on MSN confirming its run there. Ars Technica reviewed the experience separately, describing a 40-minute headset tour through planets, stars and telescopes.

The logic is easy to follow. Department stores keep shrinking — JCPenney has been closing more suburban locations this year, as both the California Post and MLive reported — and a mall with a dark anchor store needs something that gives people a reason to walk in. A ticketed experience does exactly that, and it doesn’t need a stockroom or a checkout line to work.

There’s a design shift hiding in that pattern too. When an immersive experience becomes modular — a VR rig, a set of themed rooms, a story that fits inside a rented unit — it can travel to where people already are, instead of asking them to make a special trip downtown. That portability is what lets the format follow the vacancies.

2. The big players keep expanding

At the top end, Meow Wolf is still growing. The experiential art company is developing a new Los Angeles venue built around storytelling and the city’s film industry, and it partnered with Emmy-winning animation studio Titmouse on the project, according to both Animation Magazine and Yahoo.

Pairing with an animation studio is a telling move. It treats an immersive venue less like an art installation and more like a piece of media — something with characters, writers and a production pipeline. That’s the direction the whole category is heading: away from “look at this pretty room” and toward “step inside this story.”

3. Horror went immersive, and theme parks noticed

Halloween has become the format’s biggest annual stress test. Six Flags announced its largest-ever lineup of licensed horror franchises and immersive haunted attractions for 2026, according to the company’s own release carried by Nasdaq. At the smaller, stranger end, story-driven shows like Delusion have built a following by blending haunted house, theater and murder mystery, as both the Daily Trojan and Gizmodo have covered.

Horror is a natural fit: fear is easier to feel when you’re physically inside the story, and nobody wants to watch a haunted house on a phone. It also explains why horror tends to be where immersive formats get tested first — the audience already expects to be startled, so the boundary between performer and visitor can collapse without anyone feeling ambushed.

4. People keep paying for fun, even as fun gets pricier

The economics underneath all of this are surprisingly resilient. Bank of America Institute data showed spending on hobbies and recreation rose 7.9% year over year in August, even as prices climbed — a trend now nicknamed “funflation” — according to both Fox Business and eMarketer.

That’s the sweet spot for a mall-based VR experience or a local haunt: it feels like an outing, costs less than a trip, and doesn’t require a flight. When people trim budgets, they tend to cut the expensive, once-a-year treats before the small, repeatable ones — and a two-hour experience down the road is about as repeatable as going out gets.

Immersive experiences aren’t competing with movies or museums anymore. They’re competing with the empty storefront — and winning.

5. Prestige institutions want in

The format has also gained a kind of cultural legitimacy it didn’t have a few years ago. The Smithsonian presented media artist Refik Anadol’s “Smithsonian Dreams,” an AI-driven immersive public artwork projected onto the Smithsonian Castle on the National Mall, according to the Smithsonian’s own announcement and Live Design, which honored it in its 2026 Excellence Awards.

Put that next to the Smithsonian’s own VR experience showing up in a shopping mall, and the old line between “entertainment” and “art” isn’t doing much work anymore. The same institution is now doing immersive work at both ends — a free public artwork on the National Mall and a ticketed headset tour next to a food court.

Frequently asked questions

What counts as an immersive experience?

Broadly, any attraction where you step inside the story rather than watching it — escape rooms, walk-through art installations like Meow Wolf, VR experiences like Smithsonian Starstruck, and immersive horror mazes or theater.

Why are immersive experiences opening in malls?

Malls have vacant space as department stores shrink, and ticketed experiences bring in foot traffic without needing traditional retail inventory. Smithsonian Starstruck’s run at The Florida Mall is one example of that pattern.

Are people still spending on experiences when prices are rising?

So far, yes. Bank of America Institute data reported by Fox Business and eMarketer showed hobby and recreation spending up 7.9% year over year in August despite higher prices.

Immersive experiences are, at heart, a grown-up excuse to play — which is why we keep arguing that play matters well past childhood. For more on where play and culture are headed, browse Perspectives.