Entertainment is everywhere. That means good things for Thinkwell Design & Production in Burbank, a company that comes up with ways to add value to its clients’ properties by creating branded entertainment experiences. They have designed theme parks and rides and traveling museum exhibits; painted 100 people in an edible coating for the grand opening of an M & M; store in Times Square; installed a year-round indoor ski resort in the desert clime of the Middle East; and created a fountain exhibit in Atlantic City that coaxes passers by to dance. “Even going to the coffee shop now is an entertainment thing,” said Francois Bergeron, CFO and an executive producer who is one of the four principals at Thinkwell. Not that the workload has allowed the creative team to do any coffee shops recently. Among its new projects are a follow up to its successful Sesame Street Presents The Body, a traveling museum exhibit teaching young children how the body works; and a new amusement park at Coney Island. Their work is meant to be a unique story-driven guest experience; to win over the visitor in a branded environment. A measure of their success is their multiple Thea Awards which are given annually by the Themed Entertainment Association. Bergeron, Craig Hanna and Cliff Warner founded Thinkwell in 2001 after leaving Universal Studios’ Creative Recreation Group. Hanna, chief creative officer, compared their work to a military campaign while Joe Zenas, an executive producer and the fourth principal who joined in 2002, said its more like surgery. However it’s described, it adds up to fun for the participant be it a child interacting with a favorite Sesame Street character or an adult tossing down chips in the Pussycat Dolls gaming area at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. “They are guaranteed no two days are exactly alike,” said Kelly Ryner, vice president of new business development. Concept To Implementation The rides, the exhibits, the events all start in a large conference room in Thinkwell’s building on Glenwood Place. The atmosphere is one in which staff is encouraged to toss out their suggestions. The company employs a vertical model in which it controls everything from concept to implementation. It’s the way their clients like it, too, because they don’t have to deal with one company devising an idea, another to do the design, and another to put it all together. Besides, Bergeron said, he and his fellow principals are uncomfortable with coming up with ideas to be implemented by others or implementing ideas someone else came up with. “We decided we wanted to have the contributions of our teams and management,” Zenas added. Peter van Roden called the Thinkwell team the best brainstorming group he has ever worked with. As vice president of themed entertainment for Sesame Workshop, van Roden worked with Thinkwell on the Sesame Street traveling exhibit that is expected to be on the road for another two to three years. “There is very little ego in that group,” van Roden said. “When they put together a brainstorming session, they bring together a diverse group of thinkers.” With the Sesame Street exhibit, Zenas said the challenge facing the design team was coming up with something to appeal to an age group unable to read. An interactive exhibit was the solution. “Thinkwell was instrumental in saying this shouldn’t be text driven and creating an intuitive play learning situation,” van Roden said. International Growth As popular as the company’s domestic product has been, most of the company’s recent growth is attributed to its overseas projects like the Ice Age Adventure exhibit at Movie Park in Germany, the Snow Park at Ski Dubai, and the iPort indoor entertainment area in Singapore. In May, Thinkwell was announced as the designer-of-record for MGM Studio World in Shanghai. The firm was one of several that MGM interviewed. They were chosen, said said George Wade, senior vice president of location based entertainment for MGM Studios Inc., for the quality of their work and their vision. Thinkwell has an office in Spain to service its European and African accounts and one in Dubai to take care of its growing business in the Middle East. The international thirst for theme parks and mega-destination resorts is in direct contrast to the U.S., where the industry has matured. Here in the states, making changes to existing venues is where the bulk of their business opportunities are generated. “American theme parks have to reinvest every year, so you see a certain level in the domestic market from that standpoint,” Wade said. Combining Specialties There are several strong suits that Thinkwell brings to the table, according to its principals. One is that the company does not rely on a single industry for its client base. Another is that the principals each specialize in a certain area Zenas with museum exhibits and special events; Warner with large scale developments; Bergeron with live theater. A third is the company’s ability to take existing technology created for an industry unrelated to entertainment and retool for its own purposes. Take for example The Show, a light and water show at The Pier at Caesars Palace in Atlantic City. Thinkwell installed surveillance technology originally created for homeland security applications that detect how many people are standing nearby. This allows the fountain to play one of three games with the audience. In one game, a water spout follows a person as they walk around the edge of the fountain. In another, the fountain changes color when a person steps onto a colored light on the floor. At Universal 360, a nighttime show at Universal Studios in Florida, the company employed high-definition projection onto buildings and structures surrounding an outdoor lagoon and its 30-foot spheres. SPOTLIGHT – Thinkwell Design & Production Year Founded: 2001 Revenues in 2004: $3 million Revenue in 2006: $7.9 million Employees in 2004: 12 Employees in 2006: 31