Wildwood Grove at Dollywood — a 6-acre family-focused expansion featuring original characters and handcrafted scenic elements rooted in the Smoky Mountains.
Overview
Wildwood Grove was one of Dollywood's largest expansions, created to introduce a new family-focused land with original characters, handcrafted scenic elements, and a narrative identity rooted in the Smoky Mountains.
A major purpose of the land was to extend Dollywood's operating hours through nighttime activations, making cohesive evening entertainment a key creative priority.
My Contribution
- Reviewed and redlined 50–100 vendor submissions ensuring alignment with the Wildwood Grove style guide and narrative tone
- Supported nighttime entertainment development by aligning narration, lighting, and visual themes with the land's daytime story
- Developed trend reports on hospitality, entertainment, and experiential design that strengthened placemaking
- Acted as creative proxy for the Chief Creative Officer, interpreting and applying her direction consistently
Creative Process
I maintained version control across all creative assets and ensured vendors worked from accurate and approved files. This involved coordinating creative reviews, consolidating internal notes, and communicating clear direction back to external artists and scenic vendors.
My role required balancing multiple stakeholder perspectives while maintaining the integrity of the creative vision, steering vendors away from stereotypes toward authentically Smoky Mountains artwork.
Nighttime Entertainment
The land was designed to extend Dollywood's operating hours through evening activations. I helped ensure the nighttime experience felt like a cohesive extension of the daytime narrative by aligning lighting motifs, narration, and visual themes throughout the land.
This strategic approach supported Dollywood's business goal of extending guest dwell time while delivering a premium evening experience.
My Hero Moment
Early in the project, the Chief Creative Officer noticed that I understood Dollywood's brand and the Wildwood Grove style language so well that my feedback consistently matched her intent. After that, she trusted me to take a first pass on each of our vendor redlines before final approval.
This included steering vendors away from 'hillbilly' stereotypes and guiding them toward artwork, narration, and scenic details that felt authentically Smoky Mountains and true to the land's tone. That trust became a major turning point in my role. It became a core part of how I developed my approach to maintaining design integrity through execution.
What This Project Taught Me
This project proved that if you design with pacing, capacity relief, and multigenerational usability baked in from the start, you don't need high-thrill investments to extend dwell time or drive revenue.
Wildwood Grove reinforced my approach of aligning creative intent with operational strategy. It showed firsthand how environmental planning can shift long-term attendance patterns and led directly into my formal forecasting and capacity modeling work — where I analyzed seasonality, ride throughput, value per guest, and projected how similar design strategies could influence future expansions. You can see that work here.