At a press conference in New York held earlier this month, Carnival Cruise Lines announced that under license from Hasbro, Inc., [NASDAQ;HAS] it will create Hasbro, The Game Show, a new series of larger-than-life productions and entertainment activities based on the popular Family Game Night television show from The Hub.
Part of Carnival’s Fun Ship 2.0 product enhancement initiative, the interactive game shows will debut on Carnival Breeze in 2012 and are planned to be rolled out to several other ships in the fleet over the next few years.
“Hasbro, The Game Show is a great extension of our games brands and strategy to create unique and immersive experiences for consumers of all ages,” said Lisa Licht, Hasbro’s SVP, global promotions and marketing partnerships. “We’re excited to collaborate with Carnival and provide their guests with this live entertainment and imaginative way to play.”
“Our guests love fun, participatory experiences and these larger-than-life adaptations of Hasbro’s beloved and iconic games and brands will add some fantastic new entertainment and activity choices that we know are going to be hugely popular with our guests,” said Mark Tamis, Carnival’s senior vice president of guest operations.
Hasbro, The Game Show will put guests right in the middle of their favorite Hasbro games. Six main games are to be featured: Sorry Sliders, which involves a giant shuffleboard court; Simon Flash, where two teams of four guests wear giant light-up color boxes and must shuffle themselves quickly to repeat a color sequence; Yahtzee Bowling, with a giant ball and larger-than-life-sized bowling pins; Operation, which is set up like a skee-ball board where contestants try to get the balls into different slots on the “patient’s” body, and Connect 4 Basketball, which uses a basketball setup rather than the traditional checkers to play.
Each show will end with a Monopoly Deal inspired grand finale. As guests win each challenge, they will receive a debit card. At the end of the game, contestants insert their cards into a giant “ATM” that dispenses oversized Monopoly money — whoever receives the most Monopoly money wins. Winners receive Hasbro or Carnival branded prizes.
Guests can qualify to star in Hasbro, The Game Show by answering Trivial Pursuit trivia questions in order to qualify as contestants for the main shows, or through Guesstures, where guests will be videotaped around the ship during the cruise doing charades with the resulting video used during the shows. Each game show will be scheduled multiple times per cruise, both as evening entertainment and as matinees, providing guests several opportunities to attend.
In addition to Hasbro, The Game Show, many beloved Hasbro brands will be integrated into Camp Carnival’s decor and programming. Sports action brands, NERF and SUPER SOAKER and everyone’s favorite spud, MR. POTATO HEAD, will be “on board” to help create fun and surprising ways to inspire play for Carnival guests of all ages.
Hasbro, The Game Show is part of Fun Ship 2.0, a multi-year initiative valued at more than $500 million that will completely transform the Carnival guest experience and is the largest and most ambitious project the company has ever undertaken.
Additional information on the Fun Ship 2.0 initiative is available at www.carnival.com/funship2.