Westworld is a luxury theme park where guests go to live out their wildest fantasies. So, we decided to replicate that experience by recreating Westworld at a secret location outside of Austin, Texas during South by Southwest (SXSW). Our promotional campaign promoted the event not as an HBO activation but as a real-life trip to Westworld. Guests booked their reservations at DiscoverWestworld.com and completed a personality assessment to determine their character archetypes prior to visiting the park.

After a thirty minute drive from downtown Austin on luxury buses, guests were free to explore over 90,000 square feet of space and interact with the artificially intelligent hosts played by over 60 actors. A 444-page script drove the narrative of SXSWestworld and brought the park to life. No two guests had identical experiences, and fans of the show scoured the park to find hidden season two clues.

Recreating Westworld was no small feat. The three-day event ran at SXSW from March 9-11 between the hours of 2-10pm daily. It took four months of planning, five weeks of on-site construction, and nearly 60 vendors to bring SXSWestworld to life.

Guests entered the park through the actual train from the series and could explore 16 structures—including iconic establishments from the show—across 90,000 square feet of space.

Similar to the series, the technology worked behind the scenes to provide a personalized experience for each guest. Every individual arriving at the park had a personally-addressed letter awaiting them at the post office that leveraged the results of their personality assessment to direct them towards various unfolding storylines within the park. They also received a social share page via email with their letter, personalized “Wanted” poster, and an “Old West” photo GIF which glitched to reveal season two clues.

Along with being the most ambitious promotion in HBO’s history, SXSWestworld helped establish themselves as a force in experiential marketing and stand out from the clutter of over 600 scripted shows in the marketplace. In a conference filled with the latest technology meant to help us avoid human interactions, it was SXSWestworld’s emphasis on immersive, tangible experiences that made it the hottest ticket in town. Each day, tickets sold out in under two minutes and the standby line stretched over two city blocks. Westworld became the most discussed TV show on Twitter during the conference; social impressions reached 1.9 billion. Nearly 500 pieces of press were published from sources spanning the globe, with some touting SXSWestworld as "one of the best publicity stunts of the 21st century.” Elon Musk championed the experience as being “incredibly well done.” The activation ultimately won SXSW’s “Arrow” Award for Best Immersive Experience.

Viewers expect the highest quality programming from HBO. To experience HBO's premium content firsthand, we immersed consumers into the narrative of Westworld by building a real-life replication of the series’ thrilling destination park at South by Southwest. Whether arriving at the park via exclusive Delta and Lyft partnerships or on one of our bespoke luxury shuttles, no two consumers received the same experience at SXSWestworld. Fans and uninitiated viewers alike had the opportunity to explore and interact with over 90,000 square feet of space, 66 actors, and 444 pages of immersive theatre as if they were transported into the show.

To build the Westworld franchise and ensure record levels of season two viewership, our strategy was two-fold: excite and evangelize the existing fan base through an authentic experience while providing newcomers with an accessible yet adrenaline-pumping entry point into the show.

To accomplish this, we transported guests to the center of the story to generate an emotional and resonant connection with the series. The park became a massive content generator where thousands of guests could share their unique experiences with the outside world. While our AI hosts were armed with guns, our guests were armed with cameras, creating advocates for the series who could provide reach at a global scale.

More people tuned in to Westworld’s series premiere than any other series in HBO’s history, including Game of Thrones and True Detective. The series went on to average over 13 million viewers per episode in its first season. But with a 16-month hiatus between seasons, we needed to reignite and excite the fan base in the lead up to season two.

To build momentum and buzz, HBO wanted to kick-start Westworld fandom and generate awareness for the show among a broader audience. To do this, we developed an emotionally resonant experience that immersed guests into the center of the show’s narrative—igniting the fan base, introducing the series to new consumers, and demonstrating that at a conference focused on technology; there is value in tangible human experiences in an increasingly virtual world.