UPDATED: 'Marvel Experience' Slated For McCormick Place Unexpectedly Cancelled
By Jim Bochnowski in News on Jul 6, 2015 6:40PM
The organizers of the "Marvel Experience" interactive pop-up theme park, slated to come to McCormick Place from July 11 to August 2, have quietly canceled the event. [Ed.note: See the end of the post for an additional statement from event organizers stating the tour is postponed, and not canceled.]
The attraction, which reportedly cost $30 million, was on the first leg of a summer-long tour in Philadelphia when the show's producers abruptly announced Monday that it would not be making any more stops, according to the Associated Press. No reason was given for the cancellation of the tour, but refunds are available for those who bought tickets already, organizers say. The show passed through Phoenix, Dallas and San Diego before being "retooled" for the summer tour.
While the producers didn't give an explanation, we can speculate that it had to do with money. Much like Avengers 2, the "Marvel Experience" was an expensive, bloated affair that some said took all the fun out of your favorite comic book characters.
Early reviews from the Phoenix event were brutal, including one-star Yelp reviews.
"We were there for two hours and did not partake in one thing because we were in one line, to the next line, to the next line," one Yelp review reads, and another says, "They handled it all wrong from the very beginning... everybody was just basically filing out like it was a bad movie," according to a local Fox affiliate.
The producers chalked it up to "growing pains," but bad reviews persisted.
One reviewer from San Diego said, "I don't think I could justify the cost of $35 on a ticket. There is a lot of promise in the concept and the experience itself, but as it exists now I just feel it is slightly over priced, especially considering most people will be bringing children, and kids' tickets are only $5 cheaper compared to adults."
Even after the retooling, Philadelphia audiences weren't overly impressed. Plagued with technical issues, the Philly debut was delayed for several days, and even after it opened, the Philadelphia Inquirer said, "Despite everything being physically and thematically connected, very little of the experience feels cohesive or even fun. Rather, the result is often somewhat slapdash."
A review from Pennsylvania's Morning Call said the event was "somewhat entertaining, but overall underwhelming."
But maybe we shouldn't be that surprised after all. The producers of the event were also the brains behind another technically impressive, ultimately underwhelming experience: the infamous Spiderman musical.
UPDATE: Event organizers reached out to clarify that the tour is not canceled altogether, but it has been postponed. According to a spokesperson, "The planned engagements in Chicago, New York, and St. Louis will be rescheduled." However no firm new dates have been set. Refunds for the original dates are available.