Level99 opens at Disney Springs with ceremonial axe-cutting stunt

Level99 made axe imagery the centerpiece of its Disney Springs debut, swapping scissors for a ceremonial axe fabricated by its Massachusetts team during the June 25 ribbon cutting at Disney Springs West Side. Founder and CEO Matt DuPlessie then became the first person to run the venue’s Axe Run course, turning the opening into a live demonstration of the brand’s physical, competitive pitch.

DuPlessie was joined at the ceremony by Level99 chairman Ron Shaich and Disney Springs leaders Debbie Hart and Megan Crosby. The staged opening fit the company’s broader message: build places where guests put down their phones and compete together in real space. For a brand that has built its identity around challenge rooms, duels, and timed physical tests, the axe-cutting stunt gave the launch a theatrical edge that matched the attraction’s name and signature obstacle.

The Disney Springs location opened to the public on June 29 and became Level99’s fourth venue overall. The new site spans about 46,800 square feet across two floors and, by the company’s count, contains 63 of its 75 unique challenges, the most in any Level99 venue. Disney’s listing describes the space as offering more than 60 themed life-sized games and real-world challenges designed for adults, with Axe Run among the headline attractions.

Level99 also built the opening around urgency and exclusivity. Tickets went on sale June 22, and the company said the first 500 opening-day players would receive a commemorative pin. That kind of launch-day incentive has become standard in experiential entertainment, but the scale here points to a bigger bet: Level99 is positioning itself not just as a game center, but as a destination where brand identity, physical play, and spectacle all reinforce one another.

The result is another sign that axe-based recreation now reaches well beyond traditional throwing lanes. In Disney’s family-entertainment corridor, the axe is no longer only a tool of sport or competition; it has become shorthand for hands-on challenge, fast-developing social play, and a visual hook that can carry a major resort opening. Level99’s Disney Springs debut showed how far that language has spread, and how readily mainstream entertainment venues now borrow from the energy of axe sports to sell interactive fun.