LOS ANGELES — The wisteria drips from the arch as classical music plays through the speakers. Powder-covered attendants present champagne to guests who gaze at Empire-waist dresses, peek into a room full of makeup and accessories, or take to a stage for a quick oil portrait (basically a digital photo with a Regency England-esque filter).
This is The Queen’s Ball: A Bridgerton Experience, an immersive, Instagram-ready confection in the ballrooms of the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles and tailor-made for die-hard fans of the worldwide hit Netflix. The 200 to 300 guests can’t meet Regé-Jean Page, the breakthrough star of the first season of ‘Bridgerton’, who refused to return to the 19th century drama. But they can bow to an actress who makes her best impression of Queen Charlotte (down to the haughty look), learn a dance set to a string quartet version of Taylor Swift’s “Wildest Dreams,” participate in a Lady Whistledown scavenger hunt, and possibly even the coveted honor to be called the “diamond of the evening”.
The 90-minute experience — which opens to the public on Thursday and lasts at least two months before traveling to Washington, Chicago and Montreal — is Netflix’s most ambitious real-world event yet. (A similar version opened in London this month.) The streaming giant hopes it will serve as a marketing tool for “Bridgerton,” whose second season will be released on Friday, and appeals to the show’s mostly female fans, who are often ignored as it’s about the fan culture.
It’s also an effort to amplify the kind of water cooler buzz that was elusive for streaming shows. Because their episodes are usually released in one batch, the week-to-week anticipation that fans of traditional network television are familiar with can be watered down.
“This really aligns with my vision of what I’ve always wanted us to do,” “Bridgerton” creator Shonda Rhimes said in a Zoom interview from her New York home, before starring two of her hit ABC dramas. brought up , “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal† “People who watched ‘Grey’s’ weren’t just watching ‘Grey’s’ on Thursday nights — they were trying to find other ways to consume it. ‘Scandal’ wasn’t a show that people watched on Thursday nights and didn’t watch it for the rest of the week. talked more about it.”
In its 18th season, “Grey’s Anatomy” continues to become the No. 1 show on television in the critical 18-to-49-year-old demographic. “Scandal” ended in 2018 after seven seasons.
“Being at Netflix allows us to capture that desire for the fans and create something where you allow them to be a part of the experience, more than just one night of the week or one hour a week,” added Ms. Rhimes. to. , which recently extended its lucrative Netflix deal for another five years, bringing in additional revenue streams such as podcasts and video games.
In addition to The Queen’s Ball, which costs between $49 and $99 to attend, Netflix has partnered with Bloomingdale’s for a pop-up store, both online and at its flagship store in Manhattan ($995 lilac Malone Souliers floral appliqué pumps, anyone? ). There is also a line of cosmetics from Pat McGrath, a British makeup artist whose makeup was used in the production of “Bridgerton”; a soundtrack of pop hits played by a string quartet; and a Netflix book club, whose pick in March is “The Viscount Who Loved Me,” the second book in the series, by Julia Quinn, which serves as the show’s source material.
Traditional Hollywood studios have been playing this game for a long time. For example, as soon as one of its shows or movies is a hit, Disney starts pumping out related products. But it’s a relatively new strategy for Netflix. (The streamer rolled out “Squid Game” tracksuits in partnership with South Korean brand Musinsa late last year, shortly after the series kicked off.)
In the world of “Bridgerton”
The Netflix series, whose second season is due out in March, infuses period drama escapism with modern sensibilities.
In recent years, Netflix has placed an emphasis on live, out-of-home experiences. First there was a Covid-aware drive-through event “Stranger Things” in 2020, then an event where participants searched for a bank vault in a robbery experience related to the “La Casa de Papel” series. Recently, the company held a virtual reality event for Zack Snyder’s zombie movie “Army of the Dead.”
What is all this doing for Netflix’s profits? The company says more than a million people attended the live events, a number that is expected to increase significantly as Covid-19 subsides.
Netflix declined to discuss the economics of the events, but Ted Sarandos, the co-chief executive, referred to the ‘Bridgerton’ live experience during the company’s January earnings call as part of its effort to create franchises from ” complete substance’. He predicted that “fans will flock to and flood their social media feeds with” photos of The Queen’s Ball.
Bela Bajaria, Netflix’s head of global TV, added in a recent interview, “I love that we’re building these universes and making these consumer products that are all so much about female fandom.”
Organizers say demand for The Queen’s Ball in Los Angeles has been as manic as the early reception for “Bridgerton”: 88 percent of tickets had been purchased two weeks before it opened.
Michael Vorhaus, a longtime digital media consultant, said such events have increased interest in content that is consumed and discarded in the Netflix universe faster than a sparsely filled dance card.
“It’s Harry Potter for adults,” he said of “Bridgerton.” ‘You have eight books. And if the fuel consumption figures hold, they will probably reach all eight, and who knows? Every dollar they spend building a community now, every dollar that creates a buzz for them, will be paid off in eight seasons.”
Plus, with an audience mostly made up of women ages 18 to 45, Netflix appeals to a group that isn’t traditionally courted as rabid consumers of pop culture.
“It’s a very underserved fanbase,” said Greg Lombardo, head of experiences at Netflix. “In this space, there aren’t many offerings that are really aimed at a female audience.”
It was indeed a milestone when the cast of the first “Twilight” movie showed up at Comic-Con in 2008, introducing a new demographic to the mostly male skewed fan convention. “Fifty Shades of Gray” followed with an extensive merchandising line. “Outlander” and “Downton Abbey” have also proven the buying power of a largely female fanbase.
“It’s not revolutionary to suggest that women are huge consumers of products, and if they’re fans of something, they’re hard-core fans of something,” said Ms. Rhimes. “I’ve known that in the twenty years that I’ve been doing my job. The difference here is that we are now in an era where the people who create these universes are not strictly men.”
But more often than not, major mainstream franchises are still primarily aimed at young men, with spaces carved out for others to join in, said Katherine Morrissey, a professor at Arizona State University who studies fan culture.
“It seems like Netflix is well aware that audiences for ‘Bridgerton’ aren’t necessarily going to see themselves as a fandom the way we stereotype fandoms,” she said. “They are very aware that their consumers will be interested in similar things, but they want them to be packaged in completely different ways. They won’t necessarily identify themselves, like, ‘This is what I did at Comic-Con.’”
The soapy, sexy romance novels seem perfect for Ms. Rhimes’ streaming ambitions. Each book focuses on a child of the Bridgerton family and the attempts to successfully marry the child off (ie out of love) according to the customs of early 19th century England. Each has a storyline in its own right – a dream come true for Ms. Rhimes, who had to keep coming up with plot twists for her long-running network shows. Now she can tell several stories, plus a spin-off season dedicated to Queen Charlotte, who was the wife of King George III and may have been England’s first black queen, a character that Mrs. Rhimes has been obsessed with for years.
Netflix has already greenlit seasons 3 and 4 of “Bridgerton” and the Queen Charlotte spin-off, which is set to go into production soon.
“It’s an incredible gift,” said Betsy Beers, Ms. Rhimes’ production partner. “It really makes for an incredible fluidity of storytelling and is also very economically sensible, both practical and productive.”
It has also enabled Netflix’s six-person live events team to adapt the “Bridgerton” experience for future seasons. (An anthropomorphic bumblebee makes an ominous entrance on the new live show, something only fans who drank the entire second season will immediately understand.)
Back in Biltmore, after bowing to meet the Queen and learning their dance moves, the guests are escorted to a larger ballroom for a dance performance between a handsome duke and a flirty duchess. With a string quartet playing pop songs, guests are encouraged to join in while the Queen judges them on their diamond potential. (With bars strategically placed throughout the experience, Netflix realizes that reduced inhibitions magnify the event. For $16, you can get one of a range of cocktails, including the Whistledown & Dirty, which features Absolut vodka, mint, and San Pellegrino lemonata.)
From above, over Gloria Gaynor’s quartet playing “I Will Survive,” bellows the voice of Lady Whistledown’s protégé, Lady Heartell, who was made for the prom: “I don’t know about you all, but I have what I came for.”
If Netflix planned it right, so did the audience.
