I admit I’m late to the hype of Stranger Things. I only started watching on a trip to Penang in May this year. I can’t believe I manage to avoid spoilers for so many years and finished Season 4 in July 2023 completely spoiler-free. 😂 I was initially scared off by the horror-elements but I’m happy I can now call myself a fan of this cultural phenomenon. ✌️
This Stranger Things event is being held at Bugis+ and we’d been seeing ads for it online. Intrigued, we bought our tickets from their website for an 11am slot on a Saturday. I have to say, I was a little reluctant after seeing the ticket price. It was $49 for a peak period ticket (i.e. weekends and public holidays). Even as a fan of the show, I was skeptical about whether it would be worth it.
On Saturday, we headed down to Bugis+. It was pretty empty since the mall was just starting to open for the day. We went to this small area on Level 2 which was themed like the Starcourt Mall from the show. There, we showed the staff QR codes that had been sent to our email. They then gave us our wristbands which granted us a one-time access to the experience and repeat access to the Starcourt Mall area, both of which were located on Level 7.
My Experience (No spoilers)
I don’t want to spoil too much of what goes on in the rooms so I’ll try to keep my review as vague as possible. The whole experience is said to take around 45 minutes and I think that’s fairly accurate. Visitors are admitted in groups based on the booking timeslot but since our timeslot was quite empty, it was just us and a family of four.
It’s touted as an immersive experience where you get to go into the world of Stranger Things. The different themed rooms include iconic locations from the franchise. You’d have to suspend your disbelief somewhat with some of the rooms but overall I was surprised by the quality. I’m sure it was a lot of effort that went into the creation of the experience. There are some interactive elements in each of the different rooms but I think my favourite part of the experience were the photo ops along the way. Don’t be shy and just take a whole bunch of photos!
But if you’re not a big photo person, they do have a little side quest that you can complete along the way. During registration, they gave us each a sheet of paper with some quiz questions that we had to answer. If we completed the quiz (which included some fan questions), we could add a second character onto our customisable t-shirt at the merch shop. If you didn’t want to buy the t-shirt, you could complete the quiz just for fun.
Another fun side quest you get to do is to tap your wristband on these little devices along the way. These gave you extra goodies that you keep in your online account and can use to add onto your customisable t-shirt. It’s a fun little activity especially if you have younger kids in the group.
🌟 How to get the best experience
I think we were lucky that we had just finished watching the whole series in the last two months. The experience of watching the show was still fresh in my mind and getting to walk through it was a treat. It’s probably best if you go with people who have also watched the show so you can enjoy the experience together.
As there were very few people in our timeslot, we got to take our time to explore and take a whole bunch of photos by ourselves without worrying about bothering others. I’m not sure about other timeslots but the event didn’t seem crowded, even approaching 1pm. You can take your chances with later slots but I think 11am slots are quite safe if you want to guarantee a less crowded experience.
🤔 Things to note
As I mentioned earlier, our group consisted of just us and a family with two young children. During the walkthrough, the staff insisted that the two kids, who both looked under 4 years old, to skip one of the rooms. I think the staff made the right call but it also meant that one of the parents had to miss that room. If you’re planning to go with young children (under 7 or up to 12), I think it’s possible to check with the friendly staff members whether you can do a child-swap so that you don’t miss anything out.
🛍️ Merch
At the end of the whole walkthrough experience, you enter into the Starcourt Mall. If you bought a regular ticket, you can enter this area for free until the event ends in October. Here, you can get pizza and milkshakes from Surfer Boy Pizza and gelato from Scoops Ahoy. There are also a variety of Stranger Things merchandise including notebooks, collectibles, and apparel. There were so many amazing things that I really wanted but it was pricey! For apparel, I didn’t see any changing rooms to try on the sizes either.
Mr Bao and I ended up going for the customisable t-shirt with our characters. This set us back about 40 bucks each. Ouch! 💸💸💸 We could either get a tote bag or a t-shirt. We opted for the shirt. The t-shirt came in two designs and either black or white. We opted for the graphic to be on the front and on the white tee. Since we completed the little quiz, we could add a second character to our shirt. Our first character was a lucky draw based on what we got during our registration. We could pick the second character freely from the following list: Will, Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Eleven, Max, and Eddie.
I was so happy that I got Max, who’s my favourite character. 🥰 I originally wanted just her on the shirt but the shirt was so big it felt a bit sparse. Mr Bao made the genius suggestion of adding Eleven so now I have the girl-power BFFs on my shirt and I couldn’t be more pleased.
Mr Bao was hoping for a Steve or Hopper but those weren’t within the options. So since his original character was Dustin, he picked Eddie as his second character.
My gripe is the lack of women’s sizing and cut since it’s a unisex style tee. The smallest shirt in white (an S) was still too long for me, I can wear it as a dress. The chest and shoulder areas are a little stiff too. I can’t really do much about the top of the shirt and I can’t just cut off the bottom either cos then the design can’t be seen. I’ll see how I plan to style it once it’s out of the wash. 😜
🔴⚠️ UPDATE: Even after the first wash, the graphic transfers were already peeling off. I was really quite disappointed because we spent quite a pretty penny on the shirts. I like the design of the back and the choice of the graphics on the front, but I agree with Mr Bao, this has made me more wary of buying customisable things in the future. 😩 I feel like my money would have been better spent on posters instead. All in all, the overpriced product kind of soured the experience for me in hindsight.
Well that’s the end of my review. If you’re interested, you can keep scrolling to see some fun pics from the experience.
📸 Photo dump time
Time to indulge in some photoshoot fun! Mr Bao helped me take a bunch of fun photos in the different rooms. When I was younger, or even just a couple of years ago, I didn’t understand the whole “taking photos” thing. I thought it was cringe and I was “better than that”. But honestly, I don’t care anymore. I love photos and it helps me remember things. Even better is when you have a good photographer who’s not gonna judge you when you do fun character poses and stuff. 😉
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⚠️⚠️ Warning! Spoilers ahead! ⚠️⚠️
Bonus: Could you guess what character I was dressed as?
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Of course it’s Max! I had to dress as my favourite character and it was a fun challenge to see how I could do it with clothes I already owned. I only had clothes that matched one of her outfits. While this outfit isn’t super iconic, I’m happy to have done it anyways.
My budget outfit:
Top: Sleeveless pale yellow knit top I stole from my Mother’s wardrobe some time ago
Bottom: Possibly 10+ year old jean shorts from Bossini
Socks: High white socks with a little white poodle patch on the top gifted by my Brother
Shoes: 3 year old sneakers I got for almost half-off from Uniqlo
I had to guess what shoes Max was wearing but she wears sneakers most of the time and high socks were the style back then so I went with that. 😊
Credit:
Image from Netflix of Sadie Sink portraying Max Mayfield in Stranger Things
Photo taken from – https://www.collegefashion.net/inspiration/stranger-things-outfits/
Thanks for reading till the end. See you when season 5 comes out 👋
💜 jy