Dallas, Monday, 1 September 2025.
Merlin Entertainments is expanding its Peppa Pig footprint with a purpose-built theme park in the Dallas–Fort Worth market, a US second location designed to capture multigenerational family spend and increase dwell time through licensed children’s IP. The new US park—the third global Peppa Pig park and a $40 million site—pairs age‑appropriate rides, themed playscapes and certified autism‑friendly facilities to broaden accessibility and repeat visitation. Crucially, Merlin announced a strategic partnership with RWS Global to outsource high‑production live entertainment across multiple resorts, with RWS developing more than 100 experiences in 2025. For retail and park operators this signals a dual play: localised IP-driven attraction growth to boost merchandising and F&B revenue, combined with outsourced creative capacity to scale premium, seasonal programming and lift per‑capita spend. Practically, expect tighter integration between IP, live production and retail assortments—opening timing in 2025—creating new merchandising windows and operational models for third‑party services and licensing partners.
A strategic expansion built on children’s IP
Merlin Entertainments has opened a purpose-built Peppa Pig Theme Park in the Dallas–Fort Worth market, marking the company’s second U.S. Peppa Pig location and the third Merlin-owned Peppa Pig park globally; the project is described by Merlin as a $40 million site featuring age-appropriate rides, themed playscapes and Certified Autism Centre facilities designed to broaden accessibility and repeat visitation [1].
What the new park signals for retail strategy
A dedicated, standalone Peppa Pig destination in a major U.S. metropolitan market changes the commercial calculus for retail assortments: Merlin’s announcement explicitly ties the Dallas–Fort Worth park to multi-generational family appeal and themed experiences that drive merchandising opportunities, with the park’s rides and nine themed playscapes creating clear product windows for licensed goods and seasonal ranges [1].
Live entertainment outsourced to scale production
Concurrently, Merlin confirmed a strategic partnership with RWS Global to act as its preferred entertainment production partner across six global resorts — three in the UK and three in the U.S. — with RWS contracted to develop more than 100 experiences in 2025 alone; Merlin frames the alliance as a way to scale premium, seasonal programming and year-round live offerings that complement in-park retail and F&B revenue streams [2].
How outsourced production affects operational models
For park operators and retail partners, outsourcing high-production live entertainment to a specialist like RWS changes the operational model: it shifts creative capacity and talent management to a partner that supplies production resources, enabling Merlin sites to run more complex shows and seasonal programmes without proportionally increasing in-house headcount — an approach Merlin positions as complementary to its core in-house entertainment offering and useful for sustaining higher-throughput guest experiences [2].
Integration of IP, live shows and merchandising windows
The combination of a purpose-built children’s-IP destination (Peppa Pig) and a large-scale entertainment outsourcing agreement suggests tighter integration between IP storytelling, live production and retail assortments — a strategy Merlin is advancing globally through broader ‘celebration of play’ programming, exemplified by multi-resort festivals and franchise-led events that create cadence for new product launches and promotional retail periods [1][3].
Timing and global context
Merlin places the Dallas–Fort Worth Peppa Pig park within a wider 2025 push of experience-led programming: the company cites earlier Peppa Pig openings (Florida and Günzburg, Germany) as background to the Dallas–Fort Worth launch, while the RWS deal is scoped to deliver experiences across key Merlin resorts in 2025, indicating synchronized investment in both built attractions and staged entertainment throughout the year [1][2][3].
Bronnen