Uncountable accounts might be more valuable.

Written by: Liu Yichen

Source: Wall Street Insights

In the upcoming May Day holiday, Pop Mart's urban amusement park will welcome the opening of new areas.

On April 30, surrounding the two popular IPs, THE MONSTERS and DIMOO, the park will open three brand-new areas and five large amusement facilities while retaining the original classic areas.

Since its opening in September 2023, Pop Mart's urban amusement park has reached its third year.

For Pop Mart, which has an annual revenue in the hundreds of billions, the park, covering about 40,000 square meters, may contribute relatively little financially.

Compared to the lightweight IP and retail business, the heavy asset and operational park resembles a costly "non-standard investment." However, at the same time, its value in interactive experiences, emotional immersion, and co-creating memories with users is irreplaceable by retail channels.

Hu Jian, Vice President of Pop Mart International Group and General Manager of the urban amusement park, stated in discussions with media outlets such as All Weather Technology that in the mid-to-short term, the park's significance to the group is to support and empower IPs, making more people fall in love with these images.

But in the long term, the park is an important project for the group, "and we hope to provide more performance support for Pop Mart's continued development in the future."

This project, which is entirely different from the path of large amusement parks, may be gradually finding its operational pathway.

"Never Completed"

Building an amusement park was not a temporary idea for Pop Mart.

Offline amusement parks have long been included in Pop Mart's overall planning. However, the final form that landed was realized earlier and was more "restrained" than initially envisioned.

The project is located in Beijing Chaoyang Park, covering about 40,000 square meters. The limited space and existing conditions of the park defined its boundaries from the very beginning: it cannot be compared to large destination-type parks like Disney or Universal Studios, cannot accommodate high-intensity amusement equipment, and lacks the physical foundation for large-scale "destination consumption."

Initially, the park planned to introduce large equipment like roller coasters, but it was difficult to implement during actual verification, leading to abandonment. Hu Jian later reviewed that the first phase project launched in 2023 indeed had regrets regarding playability and experience completeness.

Because of this, internal iteration has never truly stopped.

In the first half of 2024, due to the strong consumer reception of desserts, the park built a dessert shop in the castle and even expanded the back area into a small garden to complement the dessert shop.

A year later, the park launched a larger-scale project: a complete renovation of the forest area, which accounts for about two-thirds of the park, with only the neighborhood and castle remaining operational.

As most areas could not be opened to the public, the team's expectations for growth were quite conservative, with a target set in early 2025 of merely matching the visitor flow of 2024.

However, in reality, the visitor flow in the first half of 2025 exceeded the total for 2024, with an annual visitor flow growth of about 70%, and both non-local visitors and non-family groups accounting for over half.

This set of data may indicate that under the premise of limited space, the attraction of Pop Mart's amusement park does not depend on the scale of equipment, but rather derives from the driving force of the IP itself.

Especially during the peak popularity of LABUBU, the motivation for many visitors was not simply to "check off projects," but to participate in "Big Leader" interactions. This attraction generated around the IP provided another logic for the park's existence.

In the new version of the park, Pop Mart continues to let equipment serve the IP and experience, seeking a balance between playability and differentiation.

Hu Jian shared with All Weather Technology: "Here we have a forest, and we can’t make big changes, so we choose the IP that is most compatible with the forest. That is LABUBU, which lives in the forest in the storybook. The castle is naturally suitable for MOLLY, while the lakeside is reserved for the dreamy DIMOO."

He described that the LABUBU pirate ship looks warm and cute from afar, but when it swings, the tourists will feel "deceived," as it is quite thrilling, especially for those sitting on the sides.

"We specially composed music for the pirate ship, with LABUBU rhythmically shouting slogans, and the staff below joining in for fun. That scene is both strange and interesting, hard to describe, but very LABUBU, a kind of friendly mischief. Given LABUBU's character, it’s totally capable of doing this," Hu Jian said.

The current park is still not fully realized, with plans for adjustments and updates in the castle and Pop Street in the future.

The second phase project is scheduled to officially start construction in 2027, subsequently launching the story world of Star People and the multi-dimensional space of SKULLPANDA.

Hu Jian revealed: "We have designed some very artistic expressions for SKULLPANDA, with many techniques that are not commonly used in amusement parks."

The New Algorithm of "Borrowing Events to Cultivate People"

For Pop Mart, which has flagship stores all over the world, there is no need for another enlarged retail space. The most direct significance of the park is not revenue, but the continuous strengthening of the emotional connection between IPs and users.

Even in the space-limited situation of 2025, the park still achieved significant external influence through short video channels.

A typical example is "The LABUBU Song." This song was originally customized music for a sculpture, but later became a high-frequency background sound in LABUBU's viral short videos.

Hu Jian revealed that since its launch nearly three years ago, the song still has over 100,000 plays per week, "and it continues to empower LABUBU to this day."

Similar paths were quickly replicated, and the park created the first single for Star People, "The Star People Song," which gained over 15 million exposures across the internet, and debuted the "Star Dream Guardian Team" performance in musical form for the first time, releasing a homonymous music album.

When viewing Pop Mart’s business system beyond retail, the absence of content in films and animations was initially filled by occasional performances.

In July 2024, LABUBU debuted in Bangkok and was appointed as a "Magical Thailand Experience Officer," further igniting the brand's momentum in Thailand; in November of the following year, it appeared in Macy's Thanksgiving Parade in New York, making Pop Mart the first Chinese brand to represent an original trendy toy IP in this American cultural event's float in nearly a century.

Throughout 2025, LABUBU, MOLLY, and Star People frequently "went out of the park." This group of "star friends" participated in special events reaching 40 occasions, gradually appearing on New Year’s Eve parties, variety shows, and other external stages.

A deeper layer of change is reflected in the reshaping of operational capabilities.

In the past, Pop Mart's core capability was focused on IP product development and channel distribution.

Park operations face a whole new set of capability challenges: from site selection logic and traffic accessibility assessment, to thematic space planning, large infrastructure implementation, as well as food management, performance production, and complex visitor flow scheduling.

Hu Jian summarized this process with "borrowing events to cultivate people": "Part of it is the internal team expansion and upgrading, and part of it is progressing together with excellent partners in the industry."

"Previously, product operations were already very mature, and what is slowly accumulating now are visitor service operations, food operations, small performance operations, including flow management and large crowd management. We already have the basic capabilities, and we need to continue to climb in the future related to amusement equipment and large performances," Hu Jian said, "We already know how to run a good amusement park; we need to fill the shortcomings, but the direction is clear, and we know what kind of people to seek to solve it together."

The accumulation of these capabilities opens up imaginative space for the park to support a larger revenue scale.

Although Hu Jian repeatedly emphasized that profitability is not a priority for the park itself, he also stated: "The park is a very important part of the group; in the long run, we hope it will provide more assistance to the group at the revenue level."

Before the renovation areas of the park officially opened, Pop Mart first updated its pricing system.

According to the latest plan, from April 30 to July 29, the standard park visit will cost 148 yuan on weekdays and 178 yuan on peak days, essentially restoring to early 2023 levels; bundled tickets for three carnival experiences will be 198 yuan and 228 yuan; sightseeing tickets will maintain the original pricing system at 88 yuan on weekdays and 118 yuan on peak days.

As around 30% of the remaining areas of Phase One open at the end of July, the park will enter a fully operational phase, and ticket prices will increase again: standard park visits will be 178 yuan on weekdays, 208 yuan on peak days, and 238 yuan on specific peak days.

The food and retail side also shows greater commercial openness, introducing leading brands like Heytea and Pi Ye Coffee, as well as local consumption brands like Beiping Machine and Little Red Riding Hood Sandwiches.

Pop Mart stated that food and partner brands will continue to update with seasonal changes, attempting to provide visitors with fresh experiences every time they visit.

This 40,000 square meter "little amusement park" is creating a story offline that is different from the giants in its own way.