West Hartford's level99 opening this fall, announces job fair. Level99 is working to complete their West Hartford venue in the Corbin Collection for a fall 2026 opening. Level99 and Two Roads Kitchen and Tap Room should be ready to open this fall in The Corbin Collection. Photo credit: Ronni Newton (we-ha.com file photo) By Ronni Newton The immersive entertainment venue Level99 will be opening later this fall in West Hartford, and has announced that the process of hiring roughly 100 employees will begin in late September. Level99 will bring a first-of-its-kind business to the area - combining both dining and entertainment geared toward adults and teens in a sprawling 43,000-square-foot space on the second floor of The Corbin Collection at 1427 New Britain Avenue in the Corbin's Corner area. This second-floor space - which has an entrance next to Crumbl Cookie - has been vacant since the shopping center that replaced the former Sears store opened eight years ago. Level99 is exactly the type of occupancy the Town Council envisioned when it adopted an "experiential" zoning ordinance back in 2017 to accommodate changes in the national market, and with the hope of attracting businesses that combine recreation and dining to large vacant spaces. The West Hartford location will be able to accommodate up to 600 players in the gaming arena, which features more than 50 real-world, interactive physical and mental challenges and mini-games. "Teams of 2 to 6 Players will dodge axes, crack puzzles, and outsmart timed physical and mental challenges," states an announcement from Level99. "West Hartford will feature 44 Challenge Rooms and 6 Player-vs-Player Duels all designed by Level99's in-house game design studio." "Axe Run" is the most popular of the games in Level99's other locations, and the entire space is an immersive and artistic environment, highlighted by Level99's "Hunt Art" game, which features dozens of original and locally-crafted art pieces with hidden Glyphs to be discovered. Playtime can fuel an appetite - which can easily be satisfied at the adjoining Two Roads Kitchen and Tap. Level99 has partnered with the Connecticut-based Two Roads Brewing for the 250-seat restaurant and bar, which will feature "award-winning Detroit-style pizza, wagyu burgers, handcrafted cocktails, and local craft brews on tap," according to the announcement. "Want to work where you play?" Level99 asks. In advance of the opening, Level99 is looking to hire "approximately 100 competitive-wage positions in West Hartford spanning entertainment and food and beverage roles," and is beginning the hiring process with four consecutive weeks of in-person job fairs, beginning Sept. 28. The job fairs will be held at the hiring center, headquartered at the former Saks OFF 5th space, around the corner next to World Market in the same building in The Corbin Collection. Job fair events will run from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. on the following dates: * Sept. 28-Oct. 2 (Monday through Friday) * Oct. 5-10 (Monday through Saturday) * Oct. 12-17 (Monday through Saturday) * Oct. 19-24 (Monday through Saturday) According to Level99, "job listings and hiring event details will go live on the company website and Indeed on Sept. 18. Candidates can also view roles and apply directly at level99.com/careers. Level99 is led by CEO and founder Matt DuPlessie, an engineer who attended MIT and Harvard Business School and worked for Disney and Universal Studios before forming the company 5 Wits. He later founded the Massachusetts-based production company Box Fort, which is now part of Level99, which is headquartered in Natick, MA. The business is backed by Act III Holdings, led by Panera founder and former Chair and CEO Ron Shaich, who is currently the chairman and lead investor of Cava, and a significant investor in other leading restaurant and entertainment businesses. Level99 continues to expand across the East Coast and nationally, and currently has four other locations - Natick, MA; Providence, RI; Tysons Corner, VA; and Disney Springs, FL. Plans are to open in Paramus, NJ; Raleigh, NC; and King of Prussia, PA in 2027. More information about Level99 can be found here.

Level99 at Disney Springs just made it easier to play with new in-game Instructions feature. August 25, 2026 If you have not yet checked out Level99 at Disney Springs, it just jumped even higher on the list of things to try on your next Walt Disney World trip. The venue, which features more than 50 life-sized mini-games packed into one massive entertainment space, just rolled out a helpful update that makes it easier than ever for first-timers to jump right in and start playing. Michele's Top 10 Tips for Walt Disney World. We won't send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time. As of August 24, Level99 announced that Instructions are now replacing the old Hints feature across all of their game entry screens. Here is how it works: when you step up to any game, just look for the lightbulb icon in the bottom right corner of the entry screen and tap it. A quick popup will appear giving you the Goal, the Rules, and the Star info for that particular game, so you know exactly what you are going for before you start. It is a simple but genuinely useful addition, especially for guests who are visiting for the first time and want to make sure they are getting the most out of every challenge. That said, Level99 is quick to point out that using Instructions is completely optional. If you are the kind of person who loves figuring things out on your own and discovering what each game is all about through trial and error, you can absolutely keep doing that. The feature is just there for guests who want a little extra guidance before diving in. Either way, with 50+ challenges to tackle including team-based Challenge Rooms, head-to-head Duels, and a Hunt Art experience featuring locally created art installations hidden throughout the venue, there is no shortage of things to explore. They are inviting guests to share their feedback and experiences over on their social channels at @golevel99. Level99 is located at Disney Springs at the Walt Disney World Resort. You can find hours, pricing, and ticketing info at level99.com. Have you had a chance to check out Level99 yet? Let us know what you thought in the comments below! Scott Atwood Co-Owner, Writer, Webmaster Scott Atwood is the Co-Owner, Co-Creator, and Webmaster of The Main Street Mouse, one of Florida's leading Disney and theme park news sources. With an 18-year background in technical support and systems management, Scott brings a detail-oriented, research-driven approach to everything he does - from managing the technical infrastructure of TMSM to covering the latest Disney news, Marvel updates, and technology developments. As Project Planner and Business Relations Manager for TMSM, Scott works behind the scenes to ensure the site runs smoothly while also contributing articles on topics he's passionate about - including Star Wars, Marvel, Disney Parks, and the latest in tech and pop culture. What started as a hobby alongside his wife Michele has grown into a full-time labor of love, reaching Disney fans across the country every day. Scott is also Co-Host of the TMSM Weekly Podcast and Co-Owner of the House of Mouse Expo. He feels blessed to spend his days doing what he loves alongside his best friend and partner in all things Disney. Walt Disney World Marvel Star Wars Disneyland Movies Disney Parks Mouse Fan Travel(R) an Authorized Disney Vacation Planner, has been planning and creating magical Disney vacations since 2005. Their mission is to provide premium service and expert advice to help you get the most for your vacation time and dollar. Their Disney Travel Agents operate with the highest degree of integrity and will handle your family vacation, reunion, honeymoon, corporate incentive trip or getaway, as if it were their own. They pride themselves on expertly representing and advocating for you - their client. The next time you and your family are planning a Disney vacation, visit Mouse Fan Travel for your no obligation quote or to answer any Disney vacation questions you may have. Are you looking for a beach vacation, tour or cruise to destinations across the globe? Visit MEI-Travel for exceptional expertise with ZERO agency fees.

Competitive socializing has a repeatability problem. For the sector to succeed in the long term, operators need to solve one critical challenge: giving guests a reason to come back As I've spent more time thinking about competitive socialization, and listening to people building businesses in this space, I keep coming back to a slightly uncomfortable conclusion. We have proven that people want these experiences, but I'm not sure we've proven that we know how to make them last. There is a lot to be excited about in this category. The growth signals are there, and they are not insignificant. JLL 2026 Entertainment Tenant Study indicates competitive socialization venues are growing at 84% annually, almost eight times the growth of FEC venues in the same 2023-26 period in the US. New concepts are appearing at pace, capital is starting to move in (for example, Level99 announced a growth financing round of $100M in July), and the format itself is beginning to feel more recognisable - all signs that something real is happening. But that is precisely the point at which it becomes important to ask a different question. Not "is this working?" but "will it keep working?" In my conversation with Rick Briggs, CEO of FuzionGamz, and Matt DuPlessie, founder and CEO of Level99, Matt answered that question more directly than I expected. He didn't talk about creativity, or storytelling, or even guest experience first. He said that in location-based entertainment there are two things you have to solve: throughput and repeat And then he made the point that matters commercially: if people only come once, there is a limit to how long any concept can last. Creativity and guest experience are mechanisms, and the proof of good design choices is the repeat rate. Throughput and repeat. That's a troubling thought because it reframes the entire category. It shifts the focus away from how compelling something is on first exposure to what happens after that. And when you start looking at competitive socialization through that lens, there are indicators of concern. Rick Briggs described many concepts as feeling like a collection of individual games without a real sense of continuity. You move from one activity to another, enjoying each in isolation, but without a thread that pulls the experience together into something that evolves, or accumulates, or carries forward. The result, even if well executed, doesn't yet add up to something people feel compelled to return to. That in itself is not a problem if your goal is to deliver a great day out. It becomes a problem when your business model depends on people coming back. Matt made a similar observation, but from a different angle. He talked about the number of concepts in the market that are essentially reimagined versions of familiar social games- bowling, darts, minigolf but enhanced with technology, better design, and more polished environments. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, but he questioned whether it is genuinely creating something new. At one point he described it as adding digital scoring and LEDs to existing formats, and that phrase landed because it captures the tension very well. It is improvement, but is it transformation? That distinction matters when it comes to repeat behaviour. Something that is easy to understand and satisfying to participate in can still be something you feel you have "done." And once you have done it, the question becomes: why would you go back? Many of these venues perform extremely well as occasion-based experiences. They are perfect for birthdays, for corporate events, for a planned social outing where the objective is to do something new together. In that sense, they solve a very real problem. But occasions are finite. They are planned, intermittent, and rely on active decision-making. Habit is different. Habit removes friction. It is what people default to without active decision-making thought. Habits make better business models. So, the challenge for this category is to create venues and attractions that aren't 'one and done' but pull you back in; if they become habit-forming, those would be healthy venues! Refreshing competitive socializing experiences. Part of that comes down to how the experience refreshes to drive repeat visits. The need for content refresh is widely understood; Rick made the point very practically that in many concepts, changing the experience means rebuilding physical space. Physical refreshes are slow, capital-intensive, and difficult to do frequently enough to keep an experience feeling genuinely new - making novelty hard to deliver at the necessary pace to drive habit-forming repeat visits. To solve this footprint and capital bottleneck, the industry is shifting toward "scaled-down, high-impact versions" that lean heavily on software and digital flexibility rather than raw real estate. As hospitality analysts point out, by replacing 20,000-square-foot traditional layouts with modular tech, operators are trying to unlock superior unit economics. According to Capital Growth Fund, emerging, well-executed, tech-forward venues are reaching 20% to 30%+ EBITDA margins, significantly outperforming the 8% to 15% margins of traditional real estate because software can be patched instantly, while physical walls cannot. Layer on top of traditional physical refresh limitations the realities of throughput and capacity, and the competitive venue model becomes more constrained again. These are physical environments with limits on how many people can participate at any given time. Efficiency matters. Utilisation matters. The economics are grounded in space and time, which is why we are seeing more digital-based games in FECs, like Conductr, FuzionGamz and Beat the Bomb. This is where Matt's earlier point about solving throughput and repeat becomes more than a neat summary. It becomes how you can assess whether a concept is truly viable. It is not enough to be interesting; nor even enough to be popular at launch. The challenge is whether the experience's design encourages behaviour that sustains itself over time. Level99 was specifically designed, from the very inception of the concept, to drive repeat attendance - Matt says in his 28-year career in location-based-entertainment, this is the strongest repeat concept he has encountered. Money talks, and according to the JLL 2026 Entertainment Tenant Study, location-based entertainment concepts have 16.5 million square feet of active demand in the pipeline across the US and Canada. However, the data highlights a major bifurcation: traditional, static Family Entertainment Centers (FECs) have seen growth flatten significantly, while modular, tech-enabled "challenge rooms" and replayable formats have exploded. Beyond the "first date" When I try to simplify all of this, I come back to a slightly inelegant but useful comparison. Right now, much of competitive socialization feels like a very good first date. It is engaging, it removes awkwardness, it gives you something to do and something to talk about. It works. But it does not always give you a clear reason to meet again next week. This is not a criticism of the direction of travel. If anything, it is a sign that the category is becoming more serious. Early-phase growth is always driven by novelty and curiosity. The next phase is driven by retention. This is where the difference between something popular and something enduring becomes visible. The growth trajectory of competitive socialization is strong and clear. The key test for our industry is helping it evolve from something people try once to something they build into their lives. Rick summarized it as: "We are building something that transforms a single visit into an ongoing community experience. Players come back not just to play, but to continue their story, improve their skills, meet friends, and be part of a living game or experience that is always evolving." Una de Boer Founder & Principal Growth Advisor Una de Boer has been building global brands and top-tier marketing teams for over 20 years across a variety of sectors from professional services to SaaS. From 2015 to 2026, Una was at the helm of WhiteWater and FlowRider's Marketing, and led the design and delivery of the Vantage and Endless Surf brands. Overseeing WhiteWater's brand portfolio gave Una a broad understanding of the attractions industry from water, theme, and surf parks to the software and services that support them. In the summer of 2026, she left WhiteWater to establish Sowena Growth Advisors and immediately announced Enchanted Parks as her anchor client, where she leads brand development, marketing, and sales operations as chief marketing officer of this new attractions group. Una de Boer remains active within the Attractions industry, supporting IAAPA on committees and the NA Regional Advisory Board. She is well known for speaking at industry educational sessions on sustainability and as an advocate of female leaders within attractions.