Two Bit Circus

Two Bit Circus is a Los Angeles-based experiential entertainment company that designs and builds interactive games, immersive attractions and technology-driven spectacles. It describes itself as an entertainment incubator and exhibitor, with featured projects including Dunk Tank Flambé, the Micro Amusement Park, Tequila Cloud, DreamPark, STEAM Carnival, DanceBreak, Button Box Battle, OpenCade, Space Squad in Space and Dr. Botcher's Minute Medical School.

In 2018 the company opened a permanent "micro-amusement park" in the Los Angeles Arts District, described as the world's first micro-amusement park and spanning 38,000 square feet. The venue combines high-tech carnival midway games, a re-imagined arcade, multi-person and single-player virtual reality (including Hologate, Star Defence, Ping!, Birdly and Battlezone), story rooms and escape-room style adventures (Space Squad, The Lost City, Dr. Botcher's Minute Medical School, Escape from the Werewolf Village, The Raft), private gaming cabanas, a game show theater (Club01, The Artsy Fartsy Game!, Under the Big Top) and a robot bartender. Attractions and games are built and operated by an in-house team of engineers, welders and roboticists.

Alongside the venue, Two Bit Circus produces custom fabrication and branded activations for other companies, tours its Button Box Battle game show at conferences and corporate events, and spins client work into products such as OpenCade, an open-source arcade cabinet. The founders also chartered the Two Bit Circus Foundation, a Los Angeles 501(c)(3) nonprofit that creates STEAM learning experiences for children through STEAM Lab and makerspace installations, project-based curricula, teacher professional development and STEAM Carnivals.

Founding story

Brent Bushnell, an engineer, and Eric Gradman, a roboticist, met in 2008 at Mindshare, a monthly art-and-technology meetup in Downtown Los Angeles, and began building interactive games in their spare time. After seeing adults at events set aside their phones to play with interactive social art, they left their day jobs. Following years of running a consulting agency building activations for clients such as Google and Intel, they decided to work on their own projects and launched Two Bit Circus in 2012. Bushnell is the son of Atari and Chuck E. Cheese's founder Nolan Bushnell.

Business model

Two Bit Circus operates as an entertainment incubator and exhibitor. It earns revenue from its own location-based entertainment venue, from custom fabrication and branded experiences and events built for corporate clients, from touring its Button Box Battle game show at conferences and corporate events, and from productized spinoffs of client work such as OpenCade and DreamPark.

Consumer admissions and play at its micro-amusement park venue, plus fees from client-commissioned branded activations, custom exhibits, corporate events and touring game show experiences.

Traction

The micro-amusement park spans 38,000 square feet in Downtown LA (reported at 50,000 square feet ahead of opening), and STEAM Carnival drew more than 5,000 people a day in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The company had 42 employees as of 2017 and had raised $21 million from investors at that time. The affiliated Two Bit Circus Foundation reports STEAM Lab makerspaces in more than 500 schools, 7,500 educators trained, 460,000 students taught, 2,000,000 children impacted and 900 tons of material diverted from landfills.

Latest developments

The company continues as an entertainment incubator and exhibitor, building branded experiences and events for clients, touring the Button Box Battle game show, and deploying DreamPark, its downloadable mixed-reality theme park spinoff, for pop-up immersive experiences.