August, 2026.- Twenty Five years ago, the carpet, arrivals, screening, and after-party could largely stand on their own. Today, every part of that journey is an opportunity to tell the story. Craig Waldman, President & Chief Creative Officer at 15|40, has seen the biggest shift: people do not want to simply attend a premiere anymore—they want to experience the world around the content. A premiere might have 1,500 guests, but the experience needs to have a life far beyond those 1,500 people.
In this interview, Waldman discusses how he designed the 300+ feet Spider-Man arrivals experience and 1,800-guest premiere with integrated brand partnerships. You start with Spider-Man, not the sponsor. When you are working with an IP that recognizable, the audience knows immediately when something feels authentic and when something feels bolted on. Brand integrations have to contribute to the journey rather than interrupt it.
On Ted Lasso Season 4, Waldman explains that you do not reinvent the franchise simply because you are doing another premiere. The question is what the next chapter feels like. You want someone walking in to immediately know they are at Ted Lasso, but still have moments where they say, “I haven’t seen this before.”
On measuring success, Waldman notes that attendance is one of the least interesting numbers by itself. Success is measured by earned media, social engagement, organic content, and whether people cared enough to talk about it. When something built for one night becomes part of the larger conversation around a film or series, that is when they have done their job.
- The Evolution of the Premiere: You’ve said that premieres have evolved from red carpets to “full-scale experiential marketing moments.” What’s the biggest shift you’ve seen in what audiences expect from a premiere compared to twenty five years ago?
- The biggest shift is that people don’t want to simply attend a premiere anymore—they want to experience the world around the content.
Twenty five years ago, the carpet, arrivals, screening and after-party could largely stand on their own. Today, every part of that journey is an opportunity to tell the story. Guests want something they can discover, interact with and ultimately share. And studios are thinking about that audience well beyond the people physically attending. A premiere might have 1,500 guests, but the experience we create needs to have a life far beyond those 1,500 people.
The carpet still matters, but now we’re asking: How does someone feel like they’ve stepped into this world before they ever sit down to watch it?
- Spider-Man: Brand New Day – Scale and Integration: You produced a 140-foot Spider-Man arrivals experience and an 1,800-guest premiere with integrated brand partnerships. How do you design an experience that feels authentic to the Spider-Man universe while also delivering value for brand partners?
- You start with Spider-Man, not the sponsor.
When you’re working with an IP that recognizable, the audience knows immediately when something feels authentic and when something feels bolted on. So we begin with the story, the visual language and the world of the film, and then look for places where a partner can naturally become part of that experience.
With Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the scale of the arrivals experience gave us a tremendous canvas. At 360 feet, you’re not simply designing a carpet—you’re creating a journey. Brand integrations have to contribute to that journey rather than interrupt it.
The best partnership is one where the brand gets tremendous visibility and value, but the guest remembers it as part of the experience.
- Ted Lasso Season 4 – Evolving a Beloved Franchise: With Ted Lasso, the challenge was to evolve the experience from previous seasons while staying true to what fans love. How did you approach the Season 4 premiere differently from previous launches to create something fresh without alienating fans?
- With something like Ted Lasso, you have to respect what people already love about it. You don’t reinvent the franchise simply because you’re doing another premiere.
For Season 4, the question was: What does the next chapter of Ted Lasso feel like?
We wanted the experience to feel familiar without repeating what had already been done.
That meant identifying the things that are emotionally connected to the show—the optimism, humor, community and, obviously, “Believe”—and finding new ways to express them. The Academy Museum also gave us an opportunity to think bigger architecturally, including using the dome as part of the storytelling.
You want someone walking in to immediately know they’re at Ted Lasso, but still have moments where they say, “I haven’t seen this before.”
- Fan Nostalgia vs. New Creative Ideas: When launching the next chapter of a beloved series like Ted Lasso, how do you balance fan nostalgia with the need to surprise audiences and exceed expectations?
- Nostalgia is incredibly powerful, but you can’t let it become the entire creative idea.
Fans want recognition. They want those details that tell them, “This was created by people who understand the thing I love.” But once you’ve earned that trust, you have permission to take them somewhere new.
We try to use nostalgia as the foundation rather than the destination. Give people the familiar touchpoints, characters, language or moments they have an emotional connection to, and then build something around them they couldn’t have anticipated.
That balance is what makes an experience feel both authentic and new.
- From Screen to Experience: You’re bringing a film or TV show’s story to life beyond the screen. What’s your process for translating a narrative into a physical, immersive experience that feels organic rather than forced?
- We don’t start by asking, “What can we build?” We start by asking, “What should someone feel?”
We look at the story, characters, environments, visual language and emotional beats and determine what can translate naturally into the real world. Sometimes that’s a massive scenic environment. Sometimes it’s a very small detail that only a true fan will recognize.
Then you have to think about the guest journey. What do they see first? What do they discover? Where do they stop? What makes them pull out their phone? What makes them talk to somebody else about it?
The goal isn’t to recreate the screen literally. It’s to make someone feel like the world they know from the screen has somehow expanded around them.
- Measuring Success Beyond Attendance: How do you measure whether a premiere experience has succeeded beyond the number of guests? What metrics tell you that you’ve created a genuine cultural moment?
- Attendance is probably one of the least interesting numbers by itself. Of course we look at throughput and guest counts, but success today is much broader.
We look at earned media, social engagement, organic content, press pickup and how far the experience travels beyond the event itself. But I also pay attention to something that’s harder to put on a spreadsheet: Did people care enough to talk about it?
Did guests stop and experience something rather than simply walk through it? Did talent engage with it? Did fans post it without being asked? Did press photograph something we created because it became part of the story?
And ultimately, does the experience still have a life after we’ve loaded it out?
When that happens—when something we built for one night becomes part of the larger conversation around a film or series—that’s when I think we’ve done our job.
