Meow Wolf

Meow Wolf is an American arts and entertainment company that designs, builds and operates large-scale immersive and interactive art installations. It began in Santa Fe, New Mexico in February 2008 as an informal artist collective and now employs full-time artists working in sculpture, painting, fabrication, digital art, writing and film, while also collaborating with local artists in each exhibition city. The company describes its mission as inspiring creativity through art, exploration and play.

Its permanent exhibitions are House of Eternal Return in Santa Fe (opened 2016, a 20,000-square-foot facility that also includes a concert venue), Omega Mart at Area15 in Las Vegas (2021), Convergence Station in Denver (opened September 17, 2021), The Real Unreal at Grapevine Mills Mall in the Dallas–Fort Worth area (opened July 14, 2023), and Radio Tave in Houston's Fifth Ward (opened October 31, 2024). A sixth location in Los Angeles is planned for 2026. Alongside exhibitions, Meow Wolf runs concerts and events, private events and group bookings, a mobile app, comics, education and foundation programs, and a merchandise shop selling apparel, plushies, stickers and other artist-created goods.

Meow Wolf is legally registered as a public-benefit corporation and is a Certified B Corporation. Earlier work included temporary and community projects such as The Due Return (2011), Glitteropolis (2011), Nucleotide (2013) and the original Omega Mart student installation created through its CHIMERA education initiative, which is no longer active. The company also produced a documentary about its origins, Meow Wolf: Origin Story, released in 2018.

Founding story

Meow Wolf formed informally in February 2008 in Santa Fe as an artist collective partnership among a group of friends including Vince Kadlubek, Matt King, Matt Smith, Megan Burns and Quinn Tincher, after they had been throwing music shows in a house basement and decided to rent their own space. The name was chosen by randomly drawing two words from hats at the collective's first meeting. Co-founder Vince Kadlubek, a Santa Fe native, has described the early years as seven years of unstructured collaborative work with no job titles or hierarchies, building maximalist environments from salvaged materials. The company's website lists co-founders Sean Di Ianni, Matt King, Corvas Brinkerhoff, Emily Montoya, Caity Kennedy, Benji Geary and Vince Kadlubek.

Business model

Meow Wolf operates permanent ticketed immersive art exhibitions in leased or owned venues, selling single-visit and annual unlimited-visit passes, and supplements admissions with concerts and ticketed events, private event and group bookings, and retail merchandise sold at its locations and online.

Revenue comes primarily from paid admission to its exhibitions, including annual passes for unlimited visits to one or all locations, plus concert and event ticketing, private/group event rentals, and sales of branded merchandise such as tees, plushies and stickers.

Traction

By 2019 the collective held works by 200 artists and employed more than 150 people; by 2024 it employed about 1,000 people across the country. It has grown from one permanent exhibition in 2016 to five open locations across New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Texas, with a Los Angeles location planned for 2026.

Latest developments

Radio Tave opened in Houston on October 31, 2024, bringing the company to five open exhibitions, and a sixth location in Los Angeles at 6081 Center Dr is announced as coming soon, planned for 2026. The company markets an annual pass offering a year of unlimited visits to one or all Meow Wolf locations. Matthew Henick is listed as CEO.