The five years since have seen the company jump onto a superhighway of growth almost as surreal as its artistic creations, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported.<\/p>\n
A half-decade ago, it was still a scrappy, quirky arts group from New Mexico that somehow managed to pull off a mind-bending, attention-getting, ticket-selling experience in a onetime bowling alley.<\/p>\n
Since then, explosive, exponential growth: Meow Wolf attracted 87 investors to commit $158 million for expansions to big-time locales like Las Vegas, Nevada; Denver; and Washington, D.C. From six original founders, the company expanded to 500 employees, though the pandemic forced a cut to about 270.<\/p>\n
Meow Wolf even got big enough and did well enough that employee unrest led to the establishment of a union.<\/p>\n
But last week, the mom and pop era ended for good. As the company begins a new chapter in Las Vegas with the opening of Omega Mart, officials acknowledge the expansion now sets the foundation for the company\u2019s long-term future \u2013 with a chance to become a national and even international developer and operator of large-scale, multimedia, interactive art installations.<\/p>\n
Co-CEO Jim Ward said that in addition to giving Meow Wolf its first dedicated revenue stream since New Mexico public health orders shut down the House of Eternal Return last year, the Las Vegas outlet will be a test of how a startup can multiply many times over in new markets.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you can make it in Vegas, you can make it anywhere,\u201d Ward said. \u201cThis is a good validation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Company officials caution that while the Las Vegas location might point the direction for the future \u2013 Omega Mart is a clear sibling of the House of Eternal Return \u2013 it\u2019s unrealistic to believe things will be the way they were when the company found resounding success in Santa Fe.<\/p>\n
The converted bowling alley on Rufina Street, they suggest, was something special, and the way it was created is far different from the methods used for the Las Vegas location and those that will follow.<\/p>\n
\u201cSanta Fe was a string of continuous miracles that are not repeatable,\u201d said Corvas Brinkerhoff, one of Meow Wolf\u2019s six founders and senior vice president of experience design and executive creative director at Omega Mart. \u201cThis show (in Las Vegas) is using repeatable methods.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Meow Wolf grew, so did its structure, including its executive-level platform.<\/p>\n
When original CEO Vince Kadlubek stepped down in October 2019, the company elevated a trio of vice presidents \u2013 Ali Rubinstein, Carl Christensen and Ward to become co-CEOs with specific duties \u2013 Rubinstein as chief creative officer, Christensen as chief financial officer and Ward as content chief.<\/p>\n
Rubinstein, brought in from Disney in 2019, ditched the old way of one-off art installations, which is what the House of Eternal Return essentially is, and built an organizational structure akin to a factory: an artistic crew able to create Meow Wolf installations one after the other.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say we are a company that can execute multiple large-scale projects while being true to who Meow Wolf is at its core,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is about reaching many more people with our art at the same creative level,\u201d Ward added.<\/p>\n
Still, the company\u2019s growing pains are just that \u2013 pains. With the early years of Meow Wolf largely unstructured, the installation of a new way of operating sparked employee unrest, which led to a unionization movement last year.<\/p>\n
The three CEOs resisted the unionizing efforts by the Meow Wolf Workers Collective collaborating with the Communications Workers of America until a majority employee bargaining unit vote in favor of the union required acceptance by management.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is absolutely an opportunity,\u201d Ward said last week when asked about working with a union. \u201cWe look forward to collaborating with them. Negotiations have not yet begun (for union contracts).\u201d<\/p>\n
Getting from New Mexico to Nevada didn\u2019t happen overnight. Executives from Las Vegas\u2019 Area15, a development of experiential entertainment, approached Meow Wolf in summer 2017, just a year after the House of Eternal Return opened to international acclaim.<\/p>\n
The Nevada opportunity, Ward said, \u201cjived with what we were doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Meow Wolf team that opened the House of Eternal Return in 2016 was not equipped or structured to replicate the Santa Fe success that took form in 20,000 square feet of a former bowling alley. Omega Mart is 52,000 square feet and five years later on with technological advances. As the new creation took shape, company officials said they had to adjust quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to restructure the company in a very dramatic way,\u201d Ward recalled. \u201cWe did it early enough to get to the point to open in Las Vegas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meow Wolf started as a group of artists who functioned outside the local art mainstream. That spirit was still in place with 70 employees when the House of Eternal Return opened.<\/p>\n
After joining the company, and with the Vegas opening approaching, Rubinstein corralled the loose-knit way Meow Wolf operated.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe established how we define each role of each individual in the company, task to talent and talent to task,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is a clarification of roles and responsibilities. Every role now has a focus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ward added: \u201c(Before,) everybody was working on everything. Now everybody is not working on every project.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each new Meow Wolf installation will be unique, but the Las Vegas and Denver projects established the methodology on how to create installations on order.<\/p>\n
A free-standing Meow Wolf exhibition in Denver is expected to open later this year, Rubinstein said.<\/p>\n
Denver and Las Vegas were both announced as expansion sites in January 2018, with initial opening dates for Las Vegas in mid-2019 and Denver in 2020.<\/p>\n
Expansions also were announced for Washington, D.C., and Phoenix, both partnerships in larger projects like the one in Las Vegas. But Ward said Meow Wolf is still \u201cexploring\u201d that relationship in D.C. while talks have been halted for the Phoenix collaboration with a hotel development.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hotel concept in Phoenix, we\u2019re not moving forward with that,\u201d Ward said. \u201cThat\u2019s off. But Phoenix is a market we plan to be in.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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