From Initial Concept to Arena Floor: Bringing the Gladiators Experience to Life
- Katapult Team
- 1 day ago
- 2 min read
The past few months have been full throttle as we helped deliver the world’s first Gladiators Experience — and now we can finally share a look behind the scenes.
At Katapult, every project is a balance of creativity, collaboration and problem-solving. The Gladiators Experience was no different. Leading the charge was our Project Producer Jenny, working alongside Art Director Hayley and 3D Guest Experience Designers Amelia and Alice to turn an iconic TV format into a fully immersive live experience.
Within our team, the project producers are the engine behind complex projects. They manage timelines, coordinate creative teams, anticipate challenges, and ensure ideas translate seamlessly into reality.
On the Gladiators Experience, this meant overseeing graphics, guest experience touchpoints, fabrication details, and stakeholder collaboration - all while protecting the energy and authenticity of the brand, and transforming a beloved TV IP into an immersive live experience.
One of the biggest challenges came through graphics production. With more than 100 individual graphics created across the experience, the process quickly became a major project in itself.
Every asset needed coding, revision tracking, approvals and coordination with suppliers to maintain consistency across the venue.
Alongside IP approvals, the team worked closely with Operations and Health & Safety to ensure every graphic worked not just creatively, but practically too.
Operations and Health & Safety played a key role throughout the project. In the early stages, before specialist teams became fully involved, the creative and production teams had to build the experience framework independently — making informed assumptions around capacity, circulation and guest behaviour.
As the project evolved, those ideas were refined collaboratively to strike the right balance between spectacle, practicality and safety.
Another unique challenge came from the venue itself. Rather than working around restrictive site conditions, the team faced the opposite problem: an open hall with very few limitations.
While complete freedom sounds ideal, it created its own complexities. Walls, scenic elements, and structures had to be carefully positioned to shape the guest journey and maintain immersion throughout the experience.
Behind the scenes, the production team managed an extensive scope of work, including:
Graphics production
Master asset and elements list management
Approval processes
Vendor and RFP coordination
RFIs and stakeholder communication
Quality control and brand guardianship
Capacity and guest flow planning
Operational and health & safety support
Site restrictions and technical coordination
Managing scope changes and evolving project needs
The Outcome
Through detailed planning, creative collaboration and hands-on production expertise, the Gladiators Experience successfully transformed a globally recognised TV show into a real-world attraction.
From large-scale graphics and scenic environments to the smallest guest touchpoints, every detail was designed to feel immersive, energetic and authentic - delivered by a collaborative team working tirelessly behind the scenes.
Images and videos courtesy of Live Nation Entertainment, MGM Studios, Patrick Doherty Design, NEC Birmingham and Katapult.
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