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Author | Yang Feng

Editor-in-Chief | Yang Ming

Editor | Liu Kaiye

As of today, nearly two years have passed, how is Pop Mart Park doing?

In the first half of this year, Pop Mart City Park quietly added green fences, which once made people think it was a sign of closure. However, in fact—

At Pop Mart's mid-2025 performance conference held on August 20, founder Wang Ning stated, Although about 50% of the park area was closed for upgrades in the first half of the year, both visitor traffic and revenue exceeded last year's full-year figures. Pop Mart City Park version 1.5 is expected to debut next year (2026), and the second phase of the park will be twice the size of the first phase.

It is evident that Pop Mart Park not only "survived" the traffic dividend period but also launched a second phase. Although it has gained experience and lessons, it is exploring its own development path. Wang Ning said that the city park achieved profitability within one year of operation, which is not easy, but at the same time, the team has a deeper understanding of the city park. "There were some mistakes in the previous planning due to lack of experience, and we will make adjustments and plans soon."

Pop Mart Park General Manager Hu Jian further explained that previously the company learned from large parks, but these parks are mostly located in suburbs. "City parks are in city centers, a park you can visit after work." Hu Jian said this means the operation ideas, amusement facilities, hardware investment, etc., differ from large parks, requiring us to explore our own operation path. "The current park is still far from our ideal state."

From the case of Pop Mart Park, I want to discuss a truly important issue: how to break through the "bias" in thinking to understand the new consumer language—those consumption grammars reinvented by young people. Rejecting it means rejecting new customer groups and new waves, possibly causing theme parks, commercial real estate, and even the cultural tourism industry to miss a thinking iteration and business evolution that should belong to them.

The bias discussed here is more of a fixed mindset. From the perspective of traditional park operation, being pessimistic about Pop Mart Park seems very natural and reasonable for the following reasons:

The combination of these five "defects" makes Pop Mart Park look like a "traffic floodgate"—harvesting the online blind box popularity offline once again, then quickly fading: Pop Mart = traffic product, traffic product offline = accelerated monetization & depreciation.

Unexpected Success

Facing many doubts, in October 2023, Pop Mart Park's first month operation report was released: Visitor Traffic 10 Ten thousand visits, average stay duration 4.32 hours, secondary consumption ratio over 70%。

In fact, Pop Mart Park's core strategy is not relying on large amusement facilities but creating immersive IP experiences. The park features themed areas of well-known IPs such as MOLLY, DIMOO, SKULLPANDA, creating a tangible trendy toy world through scene restoration, interactive experiences, and limited edition products. This design not only reduces operating costs but more importantly highlights Pop Mart's IP advantages.

"Looking forward to co-creating with fans, being the most attentive official" said Pop Mart Park General Manager Hu Jian before the opening.

It is not hard to see that behind Pop Mart Park's success operates an efficient "experience economy" and "fan economy" system. Contemporary consumers, especially Generation Z, are no longer satisfied with simply purchasing products but seek more unique identity recognition and social experiences through products. The park provides a physical experience that online blind boxes cannot replace, meeting fans' needs for deep interaction with IP. The core fan group forms an important support for Pop Mart Park. Meanwhile, Pop Mart uses membership systems and big data analysis to accurately grasp fan preferences, providing personalized experiences to maintain high revisit rates and secondary consumption levels.

Pop Mart regards the park as part of the entire ecosystem rather than an independent business. The park, as the ultimate scene for IP experience, in turn promotes blind box sales and IP development, forming a virtuous cycle. In terms of operation mode, Pop Mart Park adopts a combination model of "park + retail + dining." Visitors not only purchase tickets but also consume limited edition products and themed dining within the park, creating a diversified revenue structure and enhancing the park project's independent development capability.

The industry needs a "demystification"  

Over the past decade, the narrative of theme park success or failure seems confined to the Disney and Universal Studios models. However, in my view, there is no unchanging textbook template. The industry needs a "demystification" action to liberate thinking. "Demystification" does not deny the classics but restores them to methodologies rather than dogma.

Only after demystification can we see that traffic, internet celebrities, and cross-industry elements are essentially new factors of production—they, like capital, land, and technology, can be deconstructed, reorganized, and redesigned. From this, we should at least understand the following points:

Let fresh blood flow in   

Today's theme parks and even the cultural tourism industry are most scarce not in land or money, but in "atypical practitioners" who bring new models and new tactics.

Pop Mart Park does not overturn anyone; it only reminds us:

When the supply side is still measuring the new world with old rulers, the demand side has already written the answer with new grammar. Don't rush to mock "internet celebrities," nor rush to mythologize the "classics." Treat traffic as a consumer language to be compiled and cross-industry as an iterative product experiment. Only then will the industry grow more Pop Marts and iQiyis.

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