“With Netflix House, you don’t have to hop on a plane,” Lombardo says. “You can come day in, day out [and] experience something new throughout the year. “We want to be a local destination. We want to be something you can come again and again throughout the year, whether it’s with your family or as a date night.”
At the Philadelphia location, a theater will stream Stranger Things season 5 finale on Dec. 31. In 2027, Netflix also plans to open a third House location in Las Vegas. Lombardo teased additional programming coming to Netflix House locations, including trivia nights, screenings, and live sporting events, some ticketed, others free to enter. At Galleria Dallas, customers can enter via giant Red Envelope or access the venue from inside the mall.
Although the venues are permanent, Lombardo says the offerings will continually evolve as new shows rise in popularity. The concept is modular by design and ready to be tweaked, even before the grand opening. The team rushed to include nods to the breakout sensation KPop Demon Hunters inside Netflix Bites. To that end, Lombardo hopes each visit feels different from the last, meaning the Netflix Houses will adapt alongside the platform’s original programming. For fans who might not have time for the full Squid Game or Stranger Things experiences, Replay, an arcade with customized games featuring various Netflix IP, such as The Floor is Lava and an NFL Blitz type button masher for Happy Gilmore 2, was a standout at Netflix House.
“We have to be able to move at the speed of the stories that come on service,” Lombardo says. “We have to be able to follow what fans love. You’ll see the space change throughout the year, whether it’s the featured experiences, the atrium, retail or the menu at Netflix Bites.”
While Stranger Things: Escape the Dark was the clear winner amongst the attendees of the VIP night, I’ll chalk winning red light, green light inside Squid Game as my own personal highlight. We didn’t just survive the trials, we thrilled.
“If we can give fans their hero moment in these experiences, then we’ve done our job,” Lombardo says.