Being in the zone - Staging retail theater at ESPN zone Chicago

Experiential consumption is a topic of growing interest in the social scien tific and managerial literatures. While consumer experience is profoundly s haped by the built environment, a critical eye has been cast on the oppress ive nature of themed environments. While offering multisensory sensual oppo rtunities, themed retail environments cater primarily to the visual impulse and have been theorized to both direct pill and misdirect attention in way s beneficial to marketers. In this ethnography of the servicescape of ESPN Zone Chicago, the ways in which retail theater encourages consumers to anim ate a themed sporting venue and the ways consumers respond to these cultura l prompts are explored. The authors explore the instrumental relationship b etween retail space and experience in themed environments and attend to the interreconsumer a related role of the visual, the sacred, brand, mass medi a, and sport. Conclusions find that consumers watch marketers in these spac es as much as marketers watch consumers-a finding termed obverse panopticis m.