Meow Wolf is ditching the experience economy for the ‘transformation economy.’ Wait, what?

When the art collective Meow Wolf opened the doors of its very first immersive exhibition, House of Eternal Return, on March 18, 2016, it had roughly 100 employees, less than $1,000 in its corporate bank account, and a dream. Ten years later, the company employs more than 1,000 people, operates five permanent exhibitions (with two more on the way), and has welcomed more than 13 million visitors.  Meow Wolf’s early history reads like a tale of cosmic fortune: In 2008, a group of New Mexico-based artists got sick of the local art establishment; founded their own collective to host parties, rock shows, and art installations; and eventually parlayed that experience into a series of massive, surrealist fun houses backed by A Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin.  As of 2022, Meow Wolf had amassed more than $200 million in investment capital. The company has undergone two rounds of layoffs since then—one in April 2024 and another in December of that same year—while moving forw