Downtown Instagram trap The Museum of Ice Cream is launching something they're calling the "Sprinkle Spectacular" next week, and it involves characters named Pom Pom and Swirl.
The "Museum" at One Grant Avenue, which is a permanent fixture now and not a pop-up "experience" any more, is reopening on April 4, and SFist has received early warning that ticket-holders will now be treated to a live theater situation that starts in a pink-velvet-seat theater — which is apparently underneath that pool full of plastic sprinkles? — and they will then be led through "a unique whirlwind adventure of sight, sound and taste" by one of several "new characters whose daily mission is to celebrate moments and experiences as long as there is imagination in the world."
Some of the moments and experiences you will be forced to celebrate:
∙ "a decadent diner where fries taste like traditional sponge cake and are drizzled in red velvet soft serve 'ketchup' to a mesmerizing blast of sensory cues in an exploding piñata themed candy spree!"
∙ "a wishing-well to voice their dreams and ride on giant carnival animal cookies on their way to the Rainbow Disco."
∙ "a journey culminating in the ultimate Sprinkle Pool Party!"
Also, there's now some sort of slide you go down to get to the "magical theatre."
It sounds as though things will be similar to how they were before, with most of the same rooms for taking selfies in like Marye's Diner and the Gummy Garden, only now the tour guides will be more cloying and hands-on? The characters in the "Sprinkle Spectacular" are Pom Pom, Sonic, Cones, Swirl, and Freeze, and they will be leading guests through the spaces, ending as you did before in the Sprinkle Pool. Also, according to the website, there are two new installations called "Carnival" and "Mint." The oddly shaped merry-go-round animal below might be part of the former.
The trend of doin-it-for-the-'gram type ticketed funhouses doesn't seem to have abated yet, as Candytopia just passed through here a few months ago, and the Museum of Ice Cream says it's opening several new iterations in other cities this year. Currently, though, the MOIC only has the one location here in SF, and temporary locations in New York, Los Angeles, and Miami have all come and gone. Founder Maryellis Bunn said two years ago that she wanted "to be the next Disney" and she hoped she'd be able to "curate and host the inaugural party on Mars." For now, ahead of those ambitions, the MOIC says that its next museum locations will all be permanent, but those locations are all TBA.
Tickets for reopening day on April 4 are available here, as are tickets for every day after that, except Tuesdays.
In the meantime, please enjoy this September 2018 piece by the New York Times' Amanda Hess about the "existential void of the pop-up 'experience," in which she went to all of New York's Instagram-trap "factories," "mansions," and "museums," and came out saying, "The central experience delivered at all these places is one of waiting," and "The most that these spaces can offer is the facsimile of traditional pleasures."
Related: Plastic Sprinkles From Museum Of Ice Cream Found In Gutters And On Sidewalks Around Union Square
