London, Thursday, 30 October 2025.
Last Wednesday Wake The Tiger confirmed plans to open a permanent, bookable attraction inside Westfield London, occupying about 7,432 m² and billed as Europe’s largest immersive art experience. For retail professionals, the most striking takeaway is the scale: a high‑capacity, IP‑driven leisure asset replacing traditional leasable space to drive dwell time, family visitation and ancillary spend. The move highlights a growing landlord strategy of integrating branded, revenue‑diverse experiences that blend attractions engineering, thematic design and retail operations into turnkey offerings. Expect shifts in tenant mix, guest circulation patterns and spend‑per‑visit dynamics, plus new programming and F&B integration models that prioritise cross‑promotion and bookings over passive footfall. Competing mall operators and attraction suppliers will watch for commercial model details, capacity management, and operational interfaces that balance entertainment throughput with retail conversion. This development signals a measurable acceleration in experiential retail thinking — a practical test case for mixed‑use centres recalibrating income streams beyond pure rent.