The State of the Themed Entertainment Industry

A Panel of Industry Leaders at the 30th Annual THEA Awards

Friday, March 14, 2024, Hollywood

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Moderator: Al Cross, PGAV Destinations

Panelists:

Andreas Andersen, Liseberg Group

Yoshi Maruyama, TOCA

Molly Murphy, Universal Creative

Inessah Selditz, Superfly

Kirin Sinha, Illumix

Bruce Vaughn, Walt Disney Imagineering

The following discussion points are among those that stood out to this attendee:

Yoshi Maruyama, who started at Universal, doing business development and then worked at DreamWorks animation under J. Katzenberg , developing themed entertainment using animated content, shared his key learnings:

1. Whatever experiences you build have to be enduring. A significant amount of the value of a business is packed in the terminal value, a.k.a. in the longevity of the business.
2. You can’t cut corners. At the end of the day, when you cut corners, you don’t deliver on your brand promise. And…