Yahoo Lifestyle Step Inside Dubai Mall’s New Social Media-driven Theme Park
DUBAI — Step into House of Hype and you’re immediately transported into what feels like a living, breathing social media feed. Neon-lit corridors pulse with rhythmic beats as visitors pose in front of shape-shifting digital walls. Groups compete in augmented reality games, their movements tracked by sensors and transformed into dazzling visual displays, while others meander through a garden of color-changing flowers and trees surrounded by mirrors offering hundreds of selfie angles.
This sprawling 100,000-square-foot experiential playground, nestled in The Dubai Mall, is the brainchild of Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez, founders of HyperSpace, a Dubai-based future-forward entertainment company.
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Their latest venture, House of Hype, is designed to be a mirror of the digital world, blending cutting-edge technology, immersive storytelling and social media engagement.
“We’re not just building an amusement park, we’re creating a new kind of entertainment ecosystem that speaks to how consumers, especially younger generations, want to experience the world,” Heller, who serves as chief executive officer, told WWD. “Everything is purpose-built to constantly evolve and reflect current culture, whether that’s the latest TikTok trends or new video game releases.”
Add to this House of Hype’s food and retail offerings and the results are a content creator’s paradise. The food stations, created in collaboration with acclaimed Dubai-based chef Reif Othman, feature Instagram-worthy dishes designed to be as visually striking as they are delicious, with everything from nitrogen-frozen desserts that smoke to a handroll sushi bar.
Merchandise Is Key
The merchandise also goes beyond traditional theme park souvenirs with its own streetwear line, limited-edition collaborations with local artists and tech accessories that integrate with the park’s digital experiences.
“We wanted the food and merch to be part of the story, not an afterthought,” explained Gonzalez, the company’s chief operating officer. “When you’re in House of Hype, even grabbing a snack or shopping becomes part of the content creation experience.”
The founders of HyperSpace saw a gap in Dubai’s entertainment landscape, despite the city’s reputation as a global retail and tourism hub.
“Dubai has done an amazing job building large-scale theme parks and attractions, but there was an underserved market for more intimate, digitally driven experiences,” said Allen, who serves as the chief creative officer. Both Allen and Gonzalez relocated to Dubai from New York during the COVID-19 pandemic. They previously ran an agency that designed immersive experiences for brands ranging from Nike to Spotify.
Together with Heller, who came from the art world, they identified the need for short to medium format entertainment built within shopping malls. Their vision is clear: to serve an evolving retail ecosystem, where 73 percent of Millennial and Gen Z audiences value experiences over purchasing physical goods. Add to that the United Arab Emirates’ high per-capita consumption of social media and gaming, and the region was ripe for a new entertainment format.
With its high footfall of 111 million annual visitors, The Dubai Mall presented an ideal canvas to bring the House of Hype to life. The team secured a prime 23-unit retail space in the mall, making it the second-largest tenant.
The price point to enter the park, $40 for a two-hour experience, is designed to bring people back over and over.
“We have ‘lean forward’ and ‘lean back’ visitors,” Gonzalez said. “The ‘lean forward’ are the Gen Z and Millennial guests who want to play and interact with everything to win free stuff. The ‘lean back’ just want to exist in the world we’ve created. Everything you see, from the merch to the food, was designed and executed entirely in-house. We didn’t outsource anything — every pixel, every line of code, every physical element was our own.”
A Social Media Paradise
Social media and content creation are central to the House of Hype experience. “We really wanted to create a space that mirrors the digital world, where you can be a content creator, an explorer, a performer — whatever you want,” Allen said. “The idea is to make everyone feel like a star and give them the tools to share that experience with the world.”
This focus on social media generates millions in free marketing value from influencer collaborations. “Our product is purpose-built for content creation, so everyone wins — the creators, the brand, the consumer,” noted Gonzalez.
Allen emphasized the concept’s adaptability. “We strategically build our parks so they can be updated very quickly to reflect culture,” he said. “Our idea is to constantly be a mirror and an amplifier of what people actually want. Whether it’s a social media trend or a new video game, we can reflect it.”
Dubai-based content creator Karen Wazen was so taken with Heller, Allen and Gonazalez’s business concept she became a seed investor.
“I have been in the field of content creation for over 10 years now and sometimes I feel like I can’t even keep up with the trends in technology,” she said.
Wazen and her husband Elias Bakhazi invested in HyperSpace through their investment firm KE Partners. “I felt like putting my hands in the industry, without necessarily me having to be a part of it as a creator,” she said. “It’s a way to give me longevity in this business.”
House of Hype is the company’s third theme park immersive project in the region and its biggest yet.
“We built a 100,000-square-foot entertainment park in the largest shopping mall in the world that also happens to be in the downtown of one of the busiest cities,” Heller said with a smile. “So yeah, connect the dots. We’re very optimistic about what this could be.”
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