Pale Blue Dot Ventures and City of Lompoc, CA agree new Space Park pact
By IDEAS
Pale Blue Dot Ventures and City of Lompoc, CA agree new Space Park pact
Lompoc, California – (17 Jul 2019) In a City Council meeting last night, the City of Lompoc, CA agreed to enter into an exclusive period of negotiation with Pale Blue Dot Ventures LLC to develop, design and build a new space themed entertainment and education destination in the city. The memorandum of understanding enables Pale Blue Dot Ventures to complete a first phase concept and feasibility program that, when complete, will provide the basis for a negotiation with the city for an 82-acre site for the new destination experience.
“This is a huge step forward for the project”, stated Steve Franck, Founder and CEO of Pale Blue Dot Ventures. “While my team and I have spent nearly five years preparing and researching for this moment, NewSpace entrepreneurs have been accelerating the economics of space, fusing terrestrial tech with space applications. With mankind returning first to the Moon and then onto Mars in the next 5-15 years, we believe the timing could not be better. We are optimistic that the project will engage our guest’s passion for the next generation of space exploration. That will lead to extraordinary opportunities for immersive learning in all of the scientific, art and emerging new technologies that will transform industries over the forthcoming decades.”
Pale Blue Dot Ventures has partnered with Orlando based brand and experience design firm IDEAS as its creative and design lead. With over 40 years of experience in destination design, branding and operations, IDEAS brings a savvy team to the project. Bob Allen, IDEAS’ CEO and Chief Storytelling Officer points to a robust and growing tourism industry with travel and tourism spending in California totaling $132 billion in 2017–over 7M visitors and just under $2B in Santa Barbara County. Allen notes that the creative program has to evolve with clear market input. “Successful destinations have to be works of innovative creativity and the ‘innovation’ component, in our experience, is deeply connected to an understanding of our audiences, how they think and what they really value. All of the early evidence shows us that Lompoc’s unique proximity to an active space launch facility at Vandenburg Air Force Base and its location in the center of the coastal California tourism corridor provide some special chemistry to help tell an amazing story.”
Although not yet developed, Pale Blue Dot Ventures envisions a 6 to 8-hour guest stay with an experience portfolio leveraging space industry training technologies as well as best-fit augmented and virtual reality, theatrical, kinetic and other themed entertainment delivery systems. The actual design program will be determined once the initial concept work is completed over the next year. The Pale Blue Dot team also includes Irvine, CA based Exline Design and Architecture and Orlando based Integrated Insight, a market analytics and consulting firm specializing in destination entertainment.
Education is at the center of the program and IDEAS’ VP of Learning Solutions, Kelly Pounds, points to experience with other immersive aerospace projects. “Engaging kids with these incredible adventure stories is a tested formula for learning that works. Instead of nagging them to “put down their phones, knock off the games and take off their earbuds”, our new destination will offer a great reason to get out of the house and to a place where families can interact together, embracing science and technology as part of the enhanced experience. Our distinctive competency is blending the learning so well into an experience that the audience learns while being entertained, getting all the nourishment of the educational ‘broccoli’ with all the delicious taste of the entertainment ‘ice-cream’.”
Pale Blue Dot Ventures has begun meeting with potential capital partners and anticipates completion of the concept and feasibility phase of the project by Summer of 2020.
Watch the City Council Briefing by
Project Overview Video
Pale Blue Dot Ventures CEO Steve Franck and IDEAs CEO Bob Allen confer at the Lompoc City Council meeting.
Early conceptual site study.
About Pale Blue Dot Ventures
The Pale Blue Dot was a picture of Earth taken in February 1990 by the Voyager 1 space probe at a distance of 3.7 billion miles, as it left our solar system for the last time. The picture was suggested by astronomer and author Carl Sagan. With a mission to Educate, Entertain and Inspire, Pale Blue Dot Ventures is focused on developing and exploiting commercially attractive, space-related entertainment enterprises and their intellectual property portfolios.
About IDEAS
IDEAS is a Brand and Experience Design firm created in 2001 in a management-buyout of a division of The Walt Disney Company. IDEAS creates, designs and activates experiential brands through media, immersive experiences and training for entertainment, enterprise, government and healthcare clients worldwide.
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