Artainment continues to expand

In the last issue we had an article about all the new and different types of community leisure venues (CLVs) competing for consumers' out-of-home leisure time. One was artainment, cultural institutions adding entertainment and art-based experience venues.

Art Course

Well, one has popped up in our home town of Kansas City at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art - art inspired miniature golf. Art Course features nine holes designed with a fresh interpretation of works of art in the museum's permanent collection, including pieces by Edouard Manet, Wayne Thiebaud, and Vasily Kandinsky.

After playing a round, guests can also go on a treasure hunt inside the museum to find the original artworks that inspired the golf course and learn more about the artists. Art Course is a limited-time experience open through Labor Day weekend. The cost per round of golf is $14 for adults and $9 for children aged 4-12. Children aged 3 and under are free.


Otherworld, an artainment experience, has opened in Columbus, Ohio. The attraction features large-scale interactive art, mixed reality playgrounds, puzzles, and secret passageways. It describes itself as an art and storytelling experience where visitors are encouraged to freely explore and interact with a surreal world of science fiction and fantasy.

Thrillist rated Otherworld as one of the best new attractions worth traveling for. This is how they described it:

“What sets Otherworld apart, is the combination of art, sculpture, and tech elements in a way that hasn't been done anywhere else.” Every aspect of Otherworld - the tactile floors and walls, the sound, the rave-meets-Kusama lighting - are designed for total immersion.

“Visitors enter Otherworld not so much as viewers, but as characters in a surreal choose-your-own-adventure story. A loose thematic narrative centers around Otherworld Industries, a shadowy tech entity that discovers an alternate dream realm. As you progress through the rooms, corporate offices and labs gradually give way to some wonderfully weird adventures -- you might find yourself crawling inside of a giant, fuzzy creature; touring a Dada-esque seascape; or hacking into the fictional corporation's computers to piece together what went wrong with their experiments.”

General admission is $22 and children 3-12 is $18.