Sydney's heritage-listed Luna Park will try to lure more visitors through its facade's gap-toothed smile with a shift from roller-coasters and rides to "immersive" experiences.
The harbourside amusement park is unveiling a fresh attraction, the Dream Circus, as part of a $15 million overhaul of its entertainment offerings.
"The site plays this incredible position in the social fabric and cultural fabric of the city," Luna Park chief executive John Hughes said.
The audio-visual display, built inside the Big Top, will be an all-surrounding theatre show featuring hundreds of projectors, LED screens and spatially-mapped sound.
It will play an immersive film produced for the venue and featuring Australian artists such as actor Socrates Otto.
Theatregoers will be able to move around the space as they see fit as the footage is projected onto all four walls, as well as the floor and ceiling.
With a maximum capacity of 1000, the theatre will likely host 500 people per session for the film's 45-minute duration.
"What we're doing is having more things for people to do that centre around amusement," Mr Hughes said.
Similar to attractions such as the Museum of Ice Cream in New York and Singapore, which feature Instagram-friendly exhibits in lurid colours, the redevelopment shifts Luna Park away from its historical focus on roller-coasters and other rides.
"We want to be a reliable, magical and affordable destination for all generations of Sydneysiders and visitors to our city," Mr Hughes said.
The park's head of strategy, Lucy Keeler, said she wanted to provide pathways for graduates in creative industries to work at Luna Park through productions such as Dream Circus.
"What we are developing actively is a place where people with specialist skills can actually create cross-genre work and test things, try things," she said.
"Sydney has really wonderful creatives and when they work together, we all can make things that are greater than the sum of our parts."
The venue, which opened in 1935, hosts about one million visitors a year.
It is one of only two heritage-listed amusement parks in the world, along with Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen.
The park was closed for six months in 2021 for redevelopment of multiple rides at a cost of $30 million.
The Dream Circus, which opens on December 22, will be priced separately to the general entry to the park, with tickets ranging from $35 to $45.
