Have you heard about The Marvel Experience? Our friends at The Marvel Experience invited us out to the opening weekend of their live event here in Dallas, TX and asked us to share what we thought.
The Marvel Experience Review
My husband and I have been following the details of The Marvel Experience since we learned that it was coming to Fair Park here in Dallas for the last few months. I worked in live events in a previous life, so the idea fascinated me. Tack on the fact my Dad use to own a comic book store, and that we have 3 boys obsessed with super heroes – this was definitely something we were looking forward to experiencing.
Tickets for The Marvel Experience can be purchase thru TicketMaster and are priced at $34.92 each (includes fees) and children under 4 get in free. You choose the date and time you will be attending the tour when purchasing your ticket.
Let me preface my Marvel Experience review with this…. I am a 30-something mom. Yes, I love the Marvel movies and I KNEW my family would love it. I will do anything for them, even if that means I am bored out of my mind.
Watch our Marvel Experience Review Video on YouTube.
Here, I WAS SO NOT BORED. I totally was into all of the activities and the overall experience. This event really is for the whole entire family, littlest to oldest. That said, let me walk you thru what we experienced:
When you walk into The Marvel Experience (TMX) you will be handed a wrist band and directed to the recruit sign-up area where you fill in your information and take a photo.
From an ex-live event stand point, this is a BRILLIANT way to do name collection and build a list. You will get an email with a printable ID. Here is my son’s badge:
The whole idea behind TMX is that you are a recruit and this is your training. I have heard the event coined as you are stepping into hyper-reality. Hyper-reality is the perfect description.
Once you are done filling out your recruit information, you proceed to the training area. First you will go thru an orientation and then you will move thru a series of fun recruit activities. There are 8 areas (a few are just videos – #4 is the main area.)
The Marvel Experience takes up 3 acres. From the outside it looks like a group of white domes or tents that resemble igloos. From the outside, sure they look interesting – but when you see why they are using the domes inside, you will be in awe of the experience.
We took all 4 kids with us. Our kids are 11, 9, 4 and 3-years-old. I wasn’t sure how this whole thing would play out with the toddlers, but HELLO – showing a toddler a superhero is like showing a teenager One Direction. My boys were obsessed. From the minute Zeke saw Spider-man and Izaiah saw Wolverine – they were in awe. The crowd was an interesting mix of Marvel fans – young to old.
We went on Sunday, opening weekend and arrived at 5:30 pm. The event closes at 8:00 pm. The 2.5 hours was the perfect amount of time for us to keep everyone happy. From what I hear though, you should a lot more time if the event is busy.
Out of the 6 activities we did, the longest wait was 20 minutes in line (which is short if I were to compare this to some amusement parks.) The crowd control, from what I can tell – for the most part is very well thought out so you aren’t feeling overwhelmed with people (though, there were a lot of people there – the space is used wisely.)
As we worked our way thru the event, the graphics and entertainment just got better. There were plenty of activities for all ages. One activity had my kids summoning the superheroes via augmented reality. My son still is so amazed that the Hulk came and stood by him on the screen.
Another activity had my kids climbing a wall like spiderman. It was funny to watch the kids dive and try to work their way around lasers in a laser room.The shooting game had all of us together, shooting the bad guys (and working on our aim.)
Here my kids were practicing flying like Iron Man.
The activities after this were really where the use of video, the domes and graphics have you appreciating the whole Marvel Experience concept. You are ushered to a large room, handed 3D glasses and watch this video happen just above your head. The 360-degree, 3-D stereoscopic theater will blow your mind. It was quite amazing!
The finale of The Marvel Experience is a 4D experience where you are sitting in chairs, experiencing a battle fighting the bad guys with the on-screen super heroes. The chairs are equipped to move you to nearly lay down and have built in air jets in the front and back so that you really get the 4D feel.
The final movie was definitely worth it and was the only time my kids kind of freaked out – but it wasn’t too bad and I was sitting next to them and able to reassure them that everything was okay.
In my 4-year-olds defense, he is HIGHLY sensitive when it comes to sensory overload so I am sure with the air, music, and chair movement – it was totally overwhelming for him. But again, it really wasn’t that big of a deal – he stayed in his seat the whole ride. And proceeded to talk non-stop about it for the next few hours before he went to bed.
Would I recommend The Marvel Experience, YES! As I was looking around at the various activities, I kept thinking to myself – for us to go to the movies it is around $12 each. To go to the local amusement park its $40. While this isn’t full on amusement park, you do get a totally unique experience and hello… super heroes, did I mention those?
I had 4 happy kids walking out of the place, though they did want to go back after the finale (which isn’t an option – so don’t move on from station 4. After station 4, you are looking at about 40 minutes more until you are done.
Dallas, TX – if you are wanting to experience TMX – you have until February 1, 2015. The Marvel Experience will be touring through-out the country, check out their complete schedule.
