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After opening its fourth exhibition in Texas last year and with another planned to launch in the Lone Star State later this year, Meow Wolf said Friday it's headed out to the Golden State for its sixth immersive venue.
Meow Wolf, the Santa Fe-based immersive art and entertainment company, said the permanent exhibition is set to open in Los Angeles in 2026. It'll be located in a movie theater in California's most populous city, according to a news release from the New Mexico company.
Kate Daley, director of sales and marketing for Meow Wolf, said the exhibition will be located in West Los Angeles but didn't provide an address. Meow Wolf didn't give more information on the exhibition Friday, noting in its release, "Additional details about the L.A. exhibition's grand reveal, theme, and more will be announced in the coming months."
A Friday morning LinkedIn post by Meow Wolf Co-founder and Director Vince Kadlubek includes more background on the planned L.A. exhibition.
"For years we've made trips to Los Angeles, dreaming of creating something in its layered and ever-changing network of creativity," Sean Di Ianni, Meow Wolf co-founder and senior creative director of Meow Wolf Los Angeles, said in a statement. "L.A. is more than a physical place; it extends deep into the global landscape of human imagination, constantly pushing its own bounds.
"Meow Wolf Los Angeles will stretch these cinematic horizons by weaving together an unpredictable tapestry of art, story and interactivity," Di Ianni's statement continued.
Meow Wolf, a Certified B Corporation, said its Los Angeles exhibition will include "a decidedly Angelino twist," which includes "cinematic mythos, mysterious eggs, absurd glitz, the fantastical spells cast by Hollywood, and novel connections to their existing Meow Wolf worlds in other cities, all … under an overarching cosmic Meow Wolf Universe."
"The House of Eternal Return," Meow Wolf's inaugural permanent exhibition, opened inside an old bowling alley in Santa Fe in 2016. Its first expansions outside New Mexico both came in 2021, with "Omega Mart," an immersive grocery store, opening in Las Vegas, Nevada, in the first half of 2021 and "Convergence Station," an immersive art museum, opening in Denver in the second half of that year.
News on the company's fourth and fifth exhibitions came in May 2022, when it announced a pair of planned locations in Texas — one called "The Real Unreal" in Grapevine, part of the Dallas-Forth Worth metro area, and one yet-to-be-named exhibition in Houston. "The Real Unreal" opened last summer, and the Houston exhibition broke ground in May 2023 and is set to open in the second half of 2024. Although Meow Wolf is yet to announce an official opening date, it has shared a few sneak peeks for the Houston venue on its website.
But Meow Wolf's expansion hasn't come without some bumps. The company laid off around 200 employees at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and, in April, made another round of 150-plus layoffs, in addition to 10% expense cuts.
The "Convergence Station" exhibition in Denver saw the highest number of employees laid off, and more than 50 bargaining unit positions with the Meow Wolf Workers Collective, part of the Communication Workers of America, are in ongoing negotiations with the company in Las Vegas.
CEO Jose Tolosa said shortly after Meow Wolf enacted those staff and expense cuts the company's continued expansion plans are "unaltered" by the moves. Tolosa has previously said Meow Wolf could expand at a rate of one new exhibition per year.
"Being in Los Angeles, the entertainment capital of the world, we're humbled to add to the dynamic interplay between art and entertainment here," Tolosa said in a statement. "Meow Wolf Los Angeles will blur the lines between reality and fantasy, inviting everyone to become part of a living, breathing spectacle."
The company employs over 1,000 people across its four exhibitions and Santa Fe corporate office and is currently hiring for 11 positions in Houston. April's expense cuts included closing an office in New York City and scrapping plans for a new office in Los Angeles, reducing executive team compensation by 10% for the remainder of 2024 and other cost reductions.