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Two Bit Circus

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Two Bit Circus
Information
Type Private company
Industry Location-based entertainment, Virtual reality
Founded 2012
Founder Brent Bushnell, Eric Gradman
Headquarters Los Angeles, California, United States
Notable Personnel Brent Bushnell (Co-founder and CEO), Eric Gradman (Co-founder and CTO)
Products Micro-Amusement Park, STEAM Carnival, VR and arcade attractions
Website https://twobitcircus.com


Two Bit Circus is an American location-based entertainment company based in Los Angeles, California, that builds interactive venues combining arcade games, Virtual Reality attractions, escape and story rooms, and live spectacle. The company was founded in 2012 by Brent Bushnell and Eric Gradman, and it described its flagship Los Angeles venue as a "Micro-Amusement Park."[1][2]

Two Bit Circus grew out of work the founders did at Syyn Labs, an art and engineering collective, and it spent its early years producing temporary installations and a traveling event called the STEAM Carnival before opening a permanent 38,000 square foot venue in the Arts District of downtown Los Angeles in September 2018.[1][3] Its relevance to virtual and augmented reality comes from packing roughly 30 different VR experiences, multiplayer free-roam systems, and motion-platform rides into a single public venue, an approach often called out-of-home or location-based VR.[4] The downtown venue closed in April 2024, and the company has since run a smaller pop-up in Santa Monica and seeded a separate mixed reality venture.[5][6]

History

Origins and Syyn Labs

Brent Bushnell and Eric Gradman were both co-founders of Syyn Labs, an art and engineering collective; the two began collaborating through Mindshare, a recurring art and technology gathering in downtown Los Angeles. Syyn Labs gained wide attention in 2010 for building a warehouse-sized Rube Goldberg machine used in the music video for the band OK Go, work that led to commissioned projects for clients such as Disney and Google.[7] Bushnell is an engineer and the son of Nolan Bushnell, who founded Atari and the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant chain; Gradman has a background in computer science and performance, having worked as an aerialist and fire performer.[7][8] The pair spun off Two Bit Circus from that collective in 2012 with the stated aim of reinventing how people play.[1][7]

STEAM Carnival

Before building a permanent venue, Two Bit Circus produced the STEAM Carnival, a touring, pop-up style event meant to get children to engage with science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics through hands-on activities. The first STEAM Carnival took place in a Los Angeles warehouse in October 2014.[1] The company has said the event was intended to "convert non-STEM kids into STEM kids," and an early funding round was used to grow the carnival into a national brand.[1][9] A related nonprofit, the Two Bit Circus Foundation, continued STEAM education work separately from the commercial company.[10]

Funding

Two Bit Circus raised venture capital across several rounds to move from temporary events toward permanent venues. A 2015 round of 6.5 million US dollars came from Foundry Group, Techstars Ventures, and Intel Capital, among others.[9] In 2017 the company raised a 15 million US dollar round led by Jazz Venture Partners, with participation from Foundry Group, Techstars Ventures, and Intel Capital, money the company earmarked for building permanent micro-amusement parks larger than 30,000 square feet.[11]

Round Year Amount (US dollars) Lead / notable investors
Series A 2015 6.5 million Foundry Group, Techstars Ventures, Intel Capital[9]
Series B 2017 15 million Jazz Venture Partners (lead); Foundry Group, Techstars Ventures, Intel Capital[11]

Los Angeles Micro-Amusement Park

Two Bit Circus opened its flagship venue in September 2018 in a brick building at 634 Mateo Street in the Arts District of downtown Los Angeles.[3][12] Reported floor area is about 38,000 square feet, and admission to the building was free with individual attractions priced separately, from roughly 1 to 3 US dollars for arcade games up to 7 to 25 US dollars for VR and story-room experiences.[1][12] The company has said the venue drew about a quarter of a million visitors in 2019.[6]

The space was organized into themed zones. The Midway recreated boardwalk carnival games with electronic twists; an arcade area mixed classic coin-op cabinets with original games; and Club 101 was an interactive game-show theater with touchscreen consoles built into the tables for audience play.[12][2] Much of the venue was tied together by an in-house software platform that controlled lighting, sound, tap-card payments, and the rotation of games.[12]

Dallas and the downtown closure

The company opened a second location in Dallas, Texas, which operated for roughly a year before closing in early 2024.[13][5] Two Bit Circus then closed its downtown Los Angeles Micro-Amusement Park in April 2024, telling patrons it was "going back to the lab" and seeking a new permanent home.[5] Bushnell attributed the financial pressure to the COVID-19 pandemic, saying the company "didn't have the deep pockets of a ginormous corporation to ride that out," and noted the downtown site had done well with adult and corporate groups but had struggled to draw families and tourists.[6]

Santa Monica pop-up

In December 2024 Two Bit Circus opened a temporary pop-up on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, occupying about 4,000 square feet, a fraction of the downtown venue's footprint.[6] The pop-up opened on December 14, 2024 and was initially scheduled through early January 2025, with Bushnell describing it as a month-to-month decision used to test new concepts and a different audience.[6] Admission was 25 US dollars per person for a day of games.[6] As of June 2026, listings for the Santa Monica location show it as temporarily closed.[14]

Virtual and augmented reality

Two Bit Circus is one of the better-known examples of out-of-home, or location-based, virtual reality in the United States: rather than selling headsets for home use, it concentrated many VR systems in a public venue where groups pay per experience. At its downtown peak the venue advertised roughly 30 distinct VR experiences alongside its arcade and carnival attractions.[4][2]

The VR offerings spanned several hardware approaches. Seated motion rides used D-Box motion-platform seats for content such as a multiplayer tank game and orbital and roller-coaster simulations. Standing "Flex" stations used tethered headsets with hand controllers to run titles including Beat Saber and Space Pirate Trainer. Multiplayer arena play used Hologate systems running tethered headsets at 90 frames per second, and a free-roam VR maze used HTC Vive headsets paired with backpack PCs so players could walk untethered through a tracked space.[12] The venue also ran cooperative "story rooms" that blended VR with physical sets, including a bayou-themed shooting experience and longer escape-room style adventures.[12] VR Cabanas were private rooms that small groups of up to six could book by the hour for catered VR sessions.[2][12]

The 2024 Santa Monica pop-up shifted toward standalone mixed reality hardware. It used Meta Quest 3 headsets in passthrough mode for VR games, paired with Snap augmented reality glasses for AR experiences and an immersive "space elevator" piece produced with the studio One World Immersive.[6]

Related venture: Future Circus and Dream Park

Brent Bushnell co-founded a separate company, Future Circus, with augmented reality developer Aidan Wolf to build a mixed reality theme park concept marketed as Dream Park. Dream Park overlays game content onto real public spaces: visitors wear Meta Quest 3 headsets in passthrough video mode and play games such as a "floor is lava" experience while still seeing their actual surroundings, an approach the founders say reduces motion sickness compared with fully enclosed VR.[15][16] The first Dream Park installation opened in mid-February 2025 over roughly 30,000 square feet of the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, with early tickets around 10 US dollars.[15]

Future Circus appeared on the ABC television show Shark Tank in season 16, episode 15, which aired on April 4, 2025; the founders sought 500,000 US dollars for 5 percent of the company and did not secure a deal from the investor panel.[16] Future Circus is distinct from Two Bit Circus, though the two share Bushnell and the same broad goal of building technology-driven entertainment venues.[15]

Current status

As of June 2026, Two Bit Circus does not operate a permanent Micro-Amusement Park: the downtown Los Angeles flagship closed in April 2024, the Dallas location closed in early 2024, and the Santa Monica pop-up is listed as temporarily closed.[5][14] The company has framed the period as a return to experimentation while it looks for a new permanent venue, and Bushnell's parallel work on Future Circus and Dream Park has continued the mixed reality direction.[5][15]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 "Two Bit Circus planning series of next-gen micro-amusement parks". https://www.cladglobal.com/CLADnews/architecture-design/Two-Bit-Circus-virtual-reality-technology-visitor-attractions-STEM-STEAM-Los-Angeles-Brent-Bushnell/329772.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "This New "Micro-Amusement Park" in Downtown L.A. Isn't Just for Kids". https://lamag.com/nightlife/two-bit-circus/.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Two Bit Circus Opens Micro-Amusement Park in Downtown Los Angeles". 2018-09-06. https://kfiam640.iheart.com/content/2018-09-06-two-bit-circus-opens-micro-amusement-park-in-downtown-los-angeles/.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Get Your Game On at Two Bit Circus in Downtown LA". https://www.discoverlosangeles.com/things-to-do/get-your-game-on-at-two-bit-circus-in-downtown-la.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 "Two Bit Circus Moving L.A. Location". 2024-04-13. https://www.replaymag.com/two-bit-circus-moving-l-a-location/.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 "Two Bit Circus is back as a Santa Monica pop-up with a 'space elevator' from the future". 2024-12. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/two-bit-circus-back-santa-110046338.html.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 "The Science of Fun". 2015-01. https://csq.com/2015/01/brent-bushnell-eric-gradman-two-bit-circus-the-science-of-fun/.
  8. ↑ "Eric Gradman, Two Bit Circus CTO". https://garage.hp.com/us/en/arts-design/eric-gradman-two-bit-circus-cto.html.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 "High-tech fun factory Two Bit Circus win US$6.5m investment to expand innovative concept". https://www.leisureopportunities.co.uk/news/High-tech-fun-factory-Two-Bit-Circus-win-US$6.5m-investment-to-expand-innovative-concept/318859.
  10. ↑ "Home - Two Bit Circus Foundation". https://www.twobitcircus.org/.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 "Two Bit Circus raises $15 million to build next-generation micro-amusement parks". https://calentertainment.com/two-bit-circus-raises-15-million-to-build-next-generation-micro-amusement-parks/.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 12.5 12.6 "Two Bit Circus' "Micro-Amusement Park" Levels Up Location-Based Entertainment". 2018-09-17. https://davidmullich.com/2018/09/17/two-bit-circus-micro-amusement-park-levels-up-location-based-entertainment/.
  13. ↑ "Two Bit Circus". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Bit_Circus.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 "Two Bit Circus - Santa Monica (Temp. Closed)". https://www.yelp.com/biz/two-bit-circus-santa-monica-2.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 "Here comes the mixed reality theme park". https://www.lowpass.cc/p/two-bit-circus-vr-dreampark-santa-monica.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 "Dream Park - Shark Tank Season 16 Episode 15". https://www.sharktankblog.com/business/dream-park/.
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