Efteling employees receive a unique memento of the Spookslot Haunted House

Last year, Dutch theme park Efteling closed the infamous Spookslot Haunted House to make way for a new creepy themed area with a new major attraction. The theme park creates fairytales and attractions that can be experienced from generation to generation, however, sometimes it is inevitable to replace something. In lieu of its closure, Efteling has announced that Spookslot Haunted House will be digitally immortalised in the world of the metaverse.  The attraction has previously been digitally recreated through YouTube videos, such as a walk-through and 360-degree video, however, this spring, the most innovative and accurate version will be released: a unique 3D experience of the attraction building of the Spookslot in the metaverse. The Haunted House will be visible to everyone in the metaverse, and Efteling employees will have exclusive access to the inside of the building with a digital key, in the form of an NFT. With this key, they will be able to enter the attraction as before. The theme park is thus unveiling one of its attractions in the metaverse for the first time.

More detail than ever
To create this 3D experience in the metaverse is innovative for Efteling, yet the theme park has been embracing new technologies for years. "From our creative philosophy, we build attractions for eternity," says Koen Sanders, Director of Product, Marketing & Image. "We are now experimenting with the latest technologies, and, thanks to the innovative 3D scan, we were able to capture the Spookslot in great detail, making it almost an exact copy of the original. This is hugely special for Efteling. With a digital key in the form of an NFT, all our employees get access to the inside of the attraction building and a piece of the Haunted House literally becomes their property. After all,  Efteling belongs to everyone who works here. As Efteling, we have never before immortalised an attraction building in this way or worked with NFT's capabilities. That is why we deliberately chose to make the digital key available only to our employees. We will of course help them understand the technology properly. We are hugely looking forward to the first reactions."

3D scan comes to life
"What we have done with the Spookslot Haunted House is very unique in the technology industry and has never been done before," says Jeroen Pelser of PelserHartman who realised the 3D scan. "Together with Boldy-XR, we have made sure that the 3D scan comes to life in the metaverse. To create this scan, we deployed state-of-the-art techniques with multiple high-end 3D laser scanners, each making 2 million measurement points per second to capture it very accurately. We are immensely grateful to have been able to contribute in our own way to the preservation of the Haunted House. We are ensuring that an icon, which has held special meaning for many staff and visitors, is immortalised in the metaverse. The NFT ensures that exclusivity remains guaranteed."

Metaverse and NFT
The metaverse is a virtual world of experience. It is also called 'real world simulation' because almost everything from the real world can be recreated in the metaverse. For example, one can pursue hobbies, visit museums and concerts in the digital world of the metaverse. An NFT has a unique character and cannot be replicated, which is why it can serve as a digital key to certain parts in the metaverse.