Stranger Things: The Experience turns fans into Hawkins residents — and I lived through it in Rio

What if Stranger Things was real for one day only, and you could walk straight into Hawkins, dodge a Demogorgon, sit under Joyce’s Christmas lights, and bite into a chocolate chip waffle sandwich under the glow of neon nostalgia? At Stranger Things: The Experience in Rio de Janeiro, I did all of that and more.

More than an event, it felt like being dropped into a living episode of Stranger Things, where every hallway hummed with synths and every corner hid a new reference. I joined a secret mission, watched a rift open in front of my eyes, and ended up at the Mix-Tape lounge, where Scoops Ahoy desserts and glowing cocktails waited like fan service in edible form.

This is not a simple walkthrough attraction or a quick photo op. It is a fully immersive world where Stranger Things becomes personal, interactive, and unexpectedly delicious.

The mission: becoming a Hawkins test subject

It begins like something between a school tour and a science fair. Staff in lab coats greet you with that eerily polite tone that never means anything good in Stranger Things. You’re not a guest. You’re a volunteer. And apparently, you’ve just agreed to participate in a sleep study supervised by Hawkins Lab.

As the crowd filters in, the air changes. The lighting gets colder. The screens start glitching. What felt like theater staging slowly tilts into narrative tension. There are actors everywhere, moving the story forward with controlled chaos, and suddenly, you are not just watching an event. You are part of it.

You're following orders, taking psychic tests, and entering restricted corridors. Something is clearly wrong with the system, and it's breaking in real time. The music pulses like a warning. And just when your body starts to believe the panic, a rift opens. And it is not a metaphor.

Saving Max: a climax you scream through

There is no gentle transition. One minute, you are walking through dark corridors with warning lights pulsing at your feet. The next, you are inside a forest. Not a forest made of stage tricks. A forest that feels cold and alive, with mist crawling around your legs and static in the air like the ground itself is listening.

And in the center of it all, Max.

She is there, surrounded by red light and impossible sound. Vecna’s voice roars from everywhere and nowhere. El appears in front of her, and suddenly, you are not in the audience. You are inside the fight. The walls shake. The sky flickers. Screens crack and reset. The floor responds to every beat like it is wired to the Upside Down.

The crowd isn’t passive. You are told to help. To fight. To scream. And people do. Loud, desperate, ridiculous, real. Grown adults yell for Max like they know her. Children raise their arms as if their voices matter. And maybe they do, because Max doesn’t fall.

When the Demogorgons burst through the walls, it feels like a final test. They aren’t actors in costumes. They are shadows with form, claws with muscle. You feel them before you see them. It’s all noise and movement, red light and white fog, and the sound design doesn’t let you breathe.

And then it’s over.

The light changes. The cold lifts. A voice says you survived. But everyone in the room knows it wasn’t just survival. It was catharsis. It was theater with teeth.

Mix-Tape madness: waffles, neon, and one more memory to keep

The shift is immediate. One moment, you are being pulled through a rift with alarms echoing in your spine. The next, you land in a space that looks like a mall, a theme park, and a memory wrapped in neon light. The Mix-Tape lounge doesn’t ask you to leave Hawkins. It just rearranges it into a softer version, one where you can finally stop running and just exist inside the story.

Everything here glows. The Scoops Ahoy counter hums in warm red and blue. The arcade machines flash in rhythm with the soundtrack. Posters line the walls, including one of Will the Wise that looks like it belongs in a fantasy movie lobby.

There’s a cassette labeled “For Will” displayed above a glowing bar, and somewhere near the corner, the alphabet lights from Joyce’s living room blink faintly like they are trying to speak.

I found a booth and sat down with a waffle sandwich filled with chocolate chip ice cream, syrup dripping onto the plate, rainbow sprinkles catching the purple light. The first bite was dense and cold and perfect. It tasted like fandom. It tasted like a treat made for someone who waited years to be inside the world instead of just watching it. My drink came in a custom Stranger Things cup, fluorescent blue, topped with a marshmallow on a skewer and a glossy little gummy. It looked absurd. It was delicious.

Behind me, someone posed next to the Camp Know Where display. At the arcade, a couple took turns losing at Pac-Man. Near the bar, a group debated which cocktail El would hate the least. The whole place buzzed with suspended disbelief. It wasn’t just themed. It was emotionally calibrated.

This wasn’t a souvenir stop. It was an afterglow scene. The kind you imagine the characters might stumble into after the credits, if they ever got to rest.

Stranger Things around the world

Stranger Things: The Experience is not unique to Rio de Janeiro. Before the Demogorgons reached Brazil, they had already taken over cities like New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Seattle, Toronto, London, and Paris. Each location followed the same core structure but adapted its physical layout to the venue, offering local audiences a chance to walk into Hawkins without crossing a single dimension.

Right now, the event is running in Sydney, with sessions still available. And Netflix has bigger plans ahead. In late 2025, the company will launch permanent Stranger Things installations inside two massive immersive venues in the United States. One will be at the Galleria Dallas and another at King of Prussia near Philadelphia. A third unit is expected in Las Vegas by 2027 as part of a broader Netflix House project.

What started as a temporary crossover between fiction and reality is now part of a global blueprint. Stranger Things doesn’t just haunt screens. It sets up shop in cities, builds forest sets next to shopping malls, and leaves behind photos, cups, and memories that glow in the dark.

Bonus round: The realest thing I tasted was a nugget

Before I even left the event, they handed me a surprise. Seara’s Chicken Supreme, in its Stranger Things edition, came as part of the experience. A final gift sealed in branded packaging, with two dipping sauces tucked inside. It was a perfect extension of everything I had just lived.

This was the best nugget I’ve ever eaten. The texture was soft and rich, the breading perfectly balanced, the barbecue sauce better than anything I’ve had at McDonald’s. I said it. I meant it.

Along with the food, the kit I purchased came with souvenirs. A Bitty Boomers Bluetooth speaker designed after Dustin, small and loud and absurdly adorable. And a shoulder bag branded with Stranger Things: The Experience, the kind of item that becomes less about utility and more about proof. You were there. You got the badge. You earned the right to carry it.

Everything about that bite, that bag, that box felt like an echo of the day. It was playful, thoughtful, unexpectedly satisfying. The same way a fake forest can make you scream for Max, a bonus chicken snack, and a speaker that lights up red can make you feel like the story followed you home. That is the kind of crossover I’ll remember.

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Rating with a touch of flair: 5 out of 5 upside-down memories.

Because sometimes, the only way out is through a forest, a waffle, and a scream.