The Review - Las Vegas Report
LAS VEGAS - Where the Future is Always On
There’s always been something about Las Vegas. A city that doesn’t just look to the future, it hurtles toward it. A place where reality softens at the edges, and where the improbable is given room to become real.
My recent trip for the launch of Swingers at Mandalay Bay wasn’t just about opening a new venue. It felt like a pivot point in how we think about experience. A moment that crystallised how far the landscape of brand and entertainment design has come and where it’s going next.
Because here’s the truth:
The way we experience spaces is changing - and Las Vegas is already living in that future. The most successful places no longer ask us to sit back and consume.
They invite us in - they, want us to feel, to move, to connect - they turn audiences into participants.
Las Vegas-loud, layered, and ludicrously bold-has always understood this. It’s not just a city of lights. It’s a city of sensation.
And that’s why it still leads. Because it keeps asking:
👉 How can we make people feel something?
From Swingers to The Sphere, PUMA to Fontainebleau, what’s emerging is a new kind of thinking - one that places experience at the centre. Not just as a backdrop, but as the actual offering. In this new landscape, emotion is the deliverable.
What struck me most wasn’t the tech or the budget (though both are mind-bending).
It was the intent. The clear desire to build spaces that resonate, not just impress. To mean something.
THE SPHERE - Resetting Expectations
Photo: by Sphere Entertainment
There are moments when a space doesn’t just impress, it stops you in your tracks.
The Sphere did exactly that.
Towering over Las Vegas at 112 metres tall, its exterior pulses with animated illusions that look almost too real to believe. But what truly stunned me wasn’t what you see from the outside. It was what happens inside.
Because stepping into The Sphere doesn’t feel like entering a venue.
Make it stand out
It feels like entering a new reality.
The sound isn’t just loud, it’s precise. Directional. Every note hits exactly where it’s meant to. The visuals don’t just play - they wrap around you, climb above and below you, consume your peripheral vision.
It’s not a screen. It’s an atmosphere.
Everything is engineered to blur the lines between audience and performance. There’s no “front” to face. No passive place to hide.
You’re not watching the story - you’re in it.
The Sphere isn’t just innovative. It’s a reminder that venues, spaces, and experiences are no longer bound by old formats. Once you’ve felt this kind of immersion - once you’ve been surrounded rather than seated - it’s very hard to go back to traditional design.
This isn’t just about showmanship. It’s about what happens when technology, architecture, and emotion work together.
The environments of the future won’t be built around static stages or shelving. They’ll be built around mood. Reaction. Momentum.
Design isn’t just about form anymore. It’s about feeling.
Photo: by Sphere Entertainment / Photo: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images
PUMA LAS VEGAS - Retail That Invites You In
Photo: Joey Ungerer | Key Lime Photography
Retail without experience is fading.
Transactional spaces are being replaced by emotional ones, and in Las Vegas, that shift isn’t just underway. It’s already here.
isn’t just underway. It’s already here.
Step into the new PUMA flagship on the Strip, and you’ll get it immediately. It’s not a shop. It’s not even a showroom.
It’s a sports-themed playground dressed up as a retail space.
The second you enter, it pulls you in:
🏁 Formula 1 simulators let you race down the Las Vegas Strip
🕹️ A fully interactive arcade where you compete and play
🎨 A customisation studio where you can design your own kit
You’re not there to browse. You’re there to participate. To move. To create. To engage. And that’s where the magic lies.
PUMA hasn’t just added “a bit of fun” to a retail space - they’ve flipped the model entirely. Shopping becomes something social, active, memorable.
It taps into what we call competitive socialising-that intersection where play meets community, and where experience is the draw.
Photo: Joey Ungerer | Key Lime Photography
FONTAINEBLEAU – The Art of Emotional Hospitality
Photo: Courtesy of Fontainebleau Las Vegas
Las Vegas doesn’t do things by halves.
It’s loud. Flashy. Unapologetically over the top.
And then there’s Fontainebleau, a space that whispers when everything else shouts. A hotel that doesn’t need to grab attention, because it holds it. Effortlessly. From the moment you step inside, it’s clear this is something different.
Yes, it’s luxurious. Yes, it’s massive. But it’s also incredibly intentional.
Every material. Every colour. Every corner.
This isn’t design for display. It’s design for emotion.
Fontainebleau Las Vegas borrows its soul from its iconic Miami Beach sibling - but here, it’s been scaled up and dialled in for the Vegas crowd.
Photo: Courtesy of Fontainebleau Las Vegas
The interiors are washed in deep blue and soft silver, cool tones set against the warmth of the desert just outside. It’s calm in the chaos. A sensory reset. But the real statement? The art collection.
Not tucked away in a corridor, but embedded throughout the entire experience.
🌀 Oceans by Breakfast Studio - a kinetic piece that moves with mood and time
🗿 A towering 46ft sculpture by Urs Fischer
🎨 Dozens of others that catch you off guard, mid-stride, mid-thought
It’s not decoration. It’s dialogue.
Fontainebleau makes you feel held.
Not in obvious ways - but in subtle ones. The light. The materials. The movement.
It’s not just a place to stay. It’s a place to feel.
In a city that usually overwhelms, it invites you to slow down and reconnect.
Photo: Courtesy of Fontainebleau Las Vegas
AREA 15 - The Portal to Competitive Socialising 2.0
Photo: Courtesy of AREA 15
Las Vegas isn’t short on spectacle, but AREA15 offers something different.
Something stranger. Something deeper.
It doesn’t just ask for your attention. It demands your curiosity.
Tucked just off the Strip, AREA15 feels like you’ve stumbled into a sci-fi warehouse crossed with an art gallery, a festival, and a gaming arena.
But more than anything, it’s a portal into the future of competitive socialising. This is where the lines between entertainment, technology, and culture melt into one fluid, multi-sensory experience.
Photo: Courtesy of AREA 15
Step inside and it’s all motion and mood, Immersive VR arenas where movement is currency:
🎯 Interactive games that blend digital interfaces with physical play
🍸 Bars inside experiences, and experiences inside art installations
🚀 Anchor tenants like Meow Wolf’s Omega Mart, where even shopping becomes surreal storytelling
It’s part playground, part fever dream-and somehow, it works.
Because AREA15 isn’t designed around one central attraction.
It’s a modular playground, built for exploration, experimentation, and emotional activation.
What makes it special?
There’s no clear line between participant and performer. You are the experience.
It’s retail, hospitality, live events, and play - all orchestrated around the idea that people want more than a night out.
They want to be part of something weird and wonderful.
SWINGERS LAS VEGAS - A New Benchmark for Social Experience
Photo: Paul Winch-Furness
Because as I explored immersive spectacles, bold retail concepts, and futuristic playgrounds across the city, one thing became clear:
👉 We’re not just part of the trend. At Swingers Las Vegas, we’ve designed for it.
Located at Mandalay Bay, Swingers is a 40,000 sq ft celebration of energy, humour, and movement.
It's not just another entertainment venue - it’s a purpose-built world for competitive socialising.
💥 Four completely bespoke golf courses, plus dedicated old-school carnival games area
🎯 Bars woven into the gameplay flow
🪩 Lighting, music, and spatial choreography that keep the whole experience moving
🍸 And a design language that turns every guest into both player and protagonist
Photo: Paul Winch-Furness
At ZP, our goal wasn’t to design a gimmick. It was to craft a space that invites you in, keeps you playing, and sends you home talking. What sets it apart?
It’s playful but premium. Bold but beautifully balanced.
It has all the immersive energy we saw at AREA15, the curated emotion of Fontainebleau, the interactive vibe of PUMA, yet it remains utterly, unapologetically Swingers.
The real magic?
It’s designed for people to lead the experience. There’s no front row, no stage. The crowd is the entertainment.
What struck me - looping back at the end of this trip, was how much this venue encapsulates the direction Las Vegas is heading.
Where storytelling happens through movement.
Where every brand touchpoint is a feeling, not a fixture.
Where interaction becomes identity.
We didn’t build Swingers to follow the curve. We built it because we saw the curve coming, and ran with it.
So yes, it was the first place I walked into on this trip. And the last one I thought about, as every other venue seemed to reflect what we’d already brought to life.
THE FUTURE OF COMPETITIVE SOCIALISING - The Experience is the Product
These spaces aren’t about being seen.
They’re about being felt.
Because in this next wave of competitive socialising, experience isn’t a layer, it’s the product.
We’ve moved beyond passive spectatorship.
People want to co-create their night out.
They want to play, laugh, win, explore - and share it all in real time.
What’s more?
The best venues no longer look like venues.
They feel like stories you step into-branded worlds that respond to how you move, who you’re with, and what you want to feel.
And this changes everything for how we approach design, brand strategy, and physical space.
Because if experience is the value, then our job is to design for impact, not just function.
To create places that buzz with energy, that shift with the mood of the room, that make people linger longer, and remember more.
We’re not just building venues.
We’re building cultural catalysts.
And as Las Vegas has proven, when it’s done right-whether through surreal immersion (AREA 15), elevated play (Swingers), or interactive retail (PUMA), competitive socialising becomes more than a trend.
It becomes a movement.
Got a burning idea you want to explore? Get in touch to discuss how we can bring your entertainment / hospitality vision to life.