If you feel like “Bluey” has taken over your home, this is your chance to bring your home inside “Bluey.”
Starting Nov. 6, the Camp store at Westfield Century City will host “Bluey x Camp,” a ticketed event that invites guests to venture inside the Heeler house for what is basically a live, interactive episode of the show.
The adventure takes place inside a 5,000-square-foot recreation of the “Bluey” house. There will be opportunities that will be familiar to fans of the show, including a two-story pillow fort, a cardboard box castle with slides, and opportunities to play Magic Asparagus and Keepy Uppy. Eagle-eyed fans will see Easter eggs everywhere: garden gnomes, tennis balls, and long dogs abound. You will have the opportunity to see a new “Bluey” animation created specifically for this experience and then see Bingo and Bluey in a big final match. (And take selfies with them, of course.)
Concept art showing children playing inside a recreation of Bandit's office as part of the “Bluey x Camp” experience.
(CAMP/BBC Studios)
A rendering of a bedroom in the Heeler house for the “Bluey x Camp” adventure.
(CAMP/BBC Studios)
“Bluey” premiered on Australian television in 2018 and in the United States in September 2019, just half a year before every parent in America unexpectedly found themselves at home with their children all day, every day. A wholesome cartoon about a family of dogs who love to play make-believe found a receptive audience.
Today, the show counts a considerable number of adults among its fans, including those who do not have children at home.
“I can't stop talking about 'Bluey,'” gushes a TikTok summary on new york magazine. Is “the best children's show of our time” says a Vulture reviewer. The “Bluey cult” is a “Bible for modern parenting” according to the guardian. How many shows that start out as children's programming deserve enough hype to earn a Macy's Thanksgiving Parade balloon and a satirical skewer in the New Yorker?
The “Bluey” balloon in the 2022 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
(Gotham/GC Images)
“Bluey x Camp” will take place behind the “Magic Door” hidden inside the Camp store at Westfield Century City. The front area of the Camp store is the retail area, called the “cantina,” which features merchandise and play areas, as well as the “Schmutz Schtation,” a do-it-yourself slime bar. The Century City location is one of nine Camp stores nationwide, the first of which opened in 2018.
As online retail has exploded over the past decade, brick-and-mortar stores like Camp are trying to tempt shoppers by offering them more than just a place to buy things. They want customers to come for the experience of being in the store: a chance to make memories, not just product sales. For Camp, part of that is these shows. Across the country, camps offer offerings themed around “Charm,” “Paw Patrol,” “Mickey and Friends” and other kid-oriented intellectual properties.
Kirk Larsen, creative director at Camp, explained how the “Bluey x Camp” program is different from some of the other “immersive” offerings that aren't much more than an Instagram backdrop.
“Sometimes people say 'immersive,' but really it's just 'there's a lot of stuff on the walls,'” he said.
Bluey outside Camp Los Angeles.
(CAMP/BBC Studios)
Not so with this, he says. The employees, known as “counselors,” “are fully versed and ready to put on an hour-long show for anyone who shows up,” Larsen said. A central component of counselor training: watching every episode of “Bluey.”
The spirit of the show is the beauty of collaborative play and improvisation between adults and children, Larsen said, and “Bluey x Camp” aims to bring that to life for guests.
“We really strive to put you in these environments and make you feel like you're completely in them and living in them,” he said. “We're trying to do something that's a little different and has a little more meat to it in terms of living up to the experience and making you feel like you're in a theatrical show”—a show where the counselors are “making sure Let everyone move, sweat and be silly.
The experience, like the show, is designed to be fun for everyone.
“We write to the parents and then we play for the kids,” Larsen said.
Larsen says visitors should plan to arrive at least 15 minutes early to allow extra time to park at the mall. Plan to get physical: Everyone in the family should dress as if someone is about to yell at them to “activate dance mode,” something almost certain in this scenario. And plan (both psychically and financially) for the gift shop at the end — the experience lasts an hour, but Larsen said to set aside extra time to explore BBC Studios and “Bluey's” exclusive collection of co-branded merchandise for young and old. in the shop. .
Tickets are available at camp.com/bluey and costs between $36 and $42. Guests ages 2 and up must have a ticket. The experience will be available in Los Angeles from November 6 to January 15.
