One of New Mexico's most well-known companies recently underwent some high-level reshuffling as the Santa Fe-based immersive art and entertainment firm closes out what's been a big year.
Meow Wolf laid off eight members of its corporate team in early November and recently restructured management at its "House of Eternal Return" exhibit in Santa Fe, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported Monday. Didi Bethurum, the company's chief communications officer, confirmed those layoffs and that management restructuring to New Mexico Inno on Friday. Not all of the affected corporate positions were in New Mexico, she clarified.
Those moves came as part of an effort to reevaluate the structure of the organization, Bethurum said. It was a straight reduction in force and not based on individual performance, she added; let-go employees received severance packages and Bethurum said "are welcome to re-apply for a role in the future."
As for the Santa Fe management restructuring, separate from the corporate layoffs, all affected employees were offered alternate roles, Bethurum said, and Meow Wolf retained "almost all of the talent that was affected," she added. The company employs over 30 people in management at its Santa Fe exhibition.
"It's been a long time since we analyzed our management structure in Santa Fe, and we learned a lot of lessons from our operations in [Las] Vegas, Denver and now Grapevine," Bethurum said.
The changes are part of what Bethurum called a "broader strategy" going into 2024. That's included additional hiring and promotions, as well, she said, to "ensure the organization is effectively structured."
"There aren't any other changes planned today," Bethurum added. "We are, however, constantly evaluating how to organize our business more effectively. These types of changes are never easy, but they're necessary to position ourselves for success in the future."
The company hopes its first namesake mobile application, unveiled on Friday, can be part of that success. Available on both the iOS and Android app stores, the app, which is free to download, allows users to "reveal hidden story elements" at different exhibitions, according to its app store description.
A virtual reality mini-game called "Walkabout Mini Golf: Meow Wolf," first announced in March, is another part of Meow Wolf's ongoing plans. Developed in collaboration with Austin, Texas-based entertainment studio Mighty Coconut, the game — based around one of the worlds in Meow Wolf's Denver exhibition called "Numina" — officially released on Thursday.
Those two Meow Wolf milestones are part of what Bethurum said is an expanding Meow Wolf "universe." That expansion is expected to continue into 2024, as the company looks to open its fifth exhibition, set to be located in Houston, Texas's Fifth Ward neighborhood, in the coming year.
While Bethurum didn't give a more specific timeframe for when that new exhibition — what would be Meow Wolf's second in Texas after opening its Grapevine location earlier this year — is set to open, she said the company has started hiring for the Houston exhibition and expects announcements about it in early 2024.
More physical expansion is in the works, too, Bethurum said. Jose Tolosa, Meow Wolf's CEO, alluded to both expansion within the U.S. and internationally in an interview with Albuquerque Business First this summer.
"We haven't announced our next cities, but so much stuff is in the works and we're going to have some cool stuff to announce next year," Bethurum said.
Part of Meow Wolf's year ahead, besides planning to open its Houston exhibition, includes a return to Austin, Texas's South by Southwest arts and tech festival, where the company announced its VR game last year. Two Meow Wolf executives — Mascot and Senior Art Director Benji Geary, and Chief Creative Strategy Officer Anne Mullen — are set to take part in a panel titled "Kaleidoscopic Worldbuilding in a Fractured World." Representatives from video game companies Riot Games and Ubisoft are slated to be a part of the panel, as well.
Meow Wolf employs over 1,000 people spread across four current exhibitions — Santa Fe's "The House of Eternal Return," "Omega Mart" in Las Vegas, "Convergence Station" in Denver and the recently opened "The Real Unreal" in Grapevine, a suburb in the Dallas-Forth Worth area. The company, which in early 2023 announced a series of new senior leadership hires, also has offices in New York and Los Angeles.
Its nonprofit arm, The Meow Wolf Foundation, recently announced the recipients of its inaugural round of community grant program awards. Twenty four of the 63 total awardees are New Mexico-based organizations.
