Retail leaders spend a lot of time thinking about store layouts, fixtures, technology, merchandise adjacencies, and ROI. But at RetailSpaces Spring, Steve Tatham challenged the audience to think about something else entirely:
What draws people to theme parks? What can retail leaders learn from theme parks?
As the creative force behind Universal’s Epic Universe, Tatham helped bring one of the most ambitious immersive destinations in the world to life. But his message wasn’t about billion-dollar budgets, roller coasters, or cinematic IP.
It was much simpler than that.
People don’t go to theme parks just for rides. They go to feel something. Awe. Wonder. Belonging. They go to make memories with people they love. And according to Tatham, retail has the power to do the same.
At Epic Universe, every creative decision started with one question: What’s the story?
That may sound obvious, but Tatham made it clear that “story” doesn’t mean matching the right fonts, colors, logos, or brand guidelines. It means understanding who the customer becomes when they step into the space. In a great theme park, the guest isn’t watching the story happen. They’re inside it.
That’s the shift retailers need to make.
Too many stores are still designed around the product, the operation, or the transaction. But customers don’t walk into a store thinking about a brand’s margin, buildout cost, or market analysis. They’re thinking about themselves, even if they don’t realize it.
How does this place make me feel?
Who do I become here?
Is this worth leaving my house for?
The most powerful retail spaces don’t make the brand the hero. They make the customer the hero.
One of Tatham’s most useful ideas for retail leaders was the difference between merch, souvenirs, and mementos.
Merch is branded stuff. A logo on a hat. A pen in a drawer. Something easy to give away and easy to forget. A souvenir carries more meaning. It reminds someone of where they went or what they did. But a memento is different. A memento is deeply personal. It’s tied to identity, emotion, and memory.
That distinction matters for retail.
The future of physical retail isn’t about putting more products on shelves. It’s about creating the conditions for customers to form emotional attachments to what they buy. A wand at a theme park isn’t just a “$90 stick,” as Tatham joked. Inside the story world, it makes someone feel like a wizard. It gives them a role to play.
That’s the real value.
Retail has become obsessed with the word “immersive.” But Tatham drew an important line between being surrounded by a concept and actually feeling connected to it.
A store can be visually impressive and still feel empty. It can have beautiful materials, dramatic lighting, and a perfect Instagram wall, but if the customer doesn’t understand their role in the experience, it won’t stick. Connection is deeper than immersion.
That’s why the best spaces are not just designed to be looked at. They’re designed to be used, touched, entered, shared, and remembered. That means every decision matters. The entrance. The seating. The sightlines. The service moments. The way people move through the space. Even the chair.
Tatham closed with a simple warning: there is no such thing as “just a chair.” Every object creates an emotional response. The question is whether that response supports the story you’re trying to tell.
The takeaway from Epic Universe isn’t that every store needs dragons, portals, or movie monsters. It’s that every physical space needs a reason to exist.
In an era when customers can buy almost anything from their couch, the store has to do more than distribute product. It has to create a feeling customers can’t get online. That feeling might be convenience. Confidence. Discovery. Status. Belonging. Joy.
But it has to be intentional. The retailers that win won’t be the ones that simply build stores. They’ll be the ones that build worlds customers want to step into, and stories they want to see themselves in.
In the end, customers rarely remember every product they purchased. They remember how a place made them feel and whether it gave them a reason to come back.