Building a Civic‑Scale Immersive Installation: Lessons from the HeadMaze Launch (Late)

Due to open on Chicago’s waterfront destination Navy Pier, HeadMaze is the first in a series of monumental interactive art installations exploring our relationships with ourselves, each other, and the world around us.

Unfolding over a 20-room mind-bending maze of our subconscious and dreams sat across four stories, HeadMaze is squarely aimed at connection, mental health, and the human experience. A multi-level labyrinth taking visitors across emotion and imagination as the mind explores itself, throughout the many rooms, passages and stairwells, visitors will be invited to explore a rich world of puzzles, performance and hidden treats.

With a focus on mental health, HeadMaze is less an attraction and more an experiential deep-dive into the nature of cognition, consciousness and society. As a civic impact platform, it proposes a live, evolving alternate reality that communities can co‑create.

In this Campfire, Jon Levy (Co‑CEO, HeadMaze) will share the bold vision behind HeadMaze, the operational blueprint behind the project, and reveal how he sees collaborators plugging in next.

What Jon will discuss:

• Open‑ended storytelling at civic scale: How to architect a “living” narrative that can unravel in real time without collapsing ops.
• Impact × Profit: Revenue stack options (admissions, programming, partnerships, sponsorship/grants) and an accompanying impact model (mental‑health partnerships, community metrics, KPIs).
• Can impact and profitability ever can be truly synergized, or is they always a trade‑off?
• When — if ever — could commercially-minded immersive narratives be open‑ended and unravel in real time?
• If you build part of the world and then hand people the shovel, will they build too?

Who this is for:

• Experience designers
• LBE producers
• Museum & cultural programmers
• Civic placemaking teams
• City partners
• Anyone exploring how to combine public art, immersive storytelling, and sustainable operations.

About HeadMaze:

HeadMaze is a four‑storey, interactive “meditating mind” – a 40‑foot head that opens to reveal a crystalline inner being with 20 rooms of immersive art and performance exploring cognition, consciousness, and community. Positioned as the first in a series of monumental interactive installations, HeadMaze is coming soon to Navy Pier, Chicago.

About Jon Levy:

Jon Levy (Co‑CEO, HeadMaze Inc.) is producer, exec, and entrepreneur across immersive and animation/VFX. Former United Talent Agency agent and in‑house entrepreneur (first agent specializing in Immersive Entertainment & Animation), where he incubated, financed, and helped run dozens of projects/companies with $200M+ in secured capital. Principal at Immerse Yourself Entertainment; creative director/lead producer of Contact: A Multi‑Sensory Journey Celebrating Daft Punk (eight sold‑out LA shows; 5,000+ attendees). Partners span Meow Wolf, The Jim Henson Company, Fever, Thinkwell, and others. California Bar; NYU Law; MA International Business (University of Florida).

How to watch this Campfire:

• Link to sign up for this Campfire (WXO members only)
• To join the WXO, please head to our Application page
• The WXO is a global home for the leaders, shapers and doers in the Experience Economy
• As a member, you’ll get live access to Campfires like this one plus unlock an on demand library of over 100 Campfire recordings

Timings

Campfire #2 is suitable for those in the US or Europe, but everyone is welcome! Here’s when we kick off in your time zone:

London: 17:55 – 19:25
Paris: 18:55 – 20:25
Los Angeles: 09:55 – 11:25
Santa Fe: 10:55 – 12:25
Chicago: 11:55 – 13:25
New York: 12:55 – 14:25
São Paulo, Santiago & Buenos Aires: 13:55 – 15:25