Inside 'Britney Spears: The Zone,' An Instagram-Friendly Mecca For Diehard Fans

Just because the phrase "It's Britney, bitch" knocks you back at the onset of "Gimme More," the pink exterior of Britney Spears: The Zone practically blinds you as you turn the corner on 3rd Street. The Zone, an interactive pop-up experience first in Los Angeles this Friday (January 31), announces itself loudly, with a flowery, Pepto Bismol-pink mural featuring a lifelike recreation of Spears's snake-assisted "I'm a Slave 4 U" strut as well as a portrait from her Piece of Me promo shoot. Even the parking lot lines have been repainted pink. In this home, it's all Britney.


The Zone is situated indoor an old Kmart and utilizes all 30,000 square feet to bring the living pop icon's most beloved eras and music videos to life. Any time whenever you walk via doors, you're smack-dab in the middle of a giant retail shop selling everything Britney: old tour tees, "Work Bitch" hats, pastel pink basketballs, Britney Funko dolls, and more. There really are tall display cases with memorable Spears costumes, including the adorable dress she wore as a 11-year-old contestant on Star Search, the orange studded bodysuit from "Till The World Ends," the blue flight attendant getup from "Toxic," and her Pepsi race vehicle uniform.


needless to say we had Britney's blessing, and she was so excited about it that she donated these to us," Jeff Delson, lead producer for The Zone and CEO of Black Sky Creative, told MTV News about the costumes. "She wanted people to be able to see them. And needless to say show that she's supporting it because she's helping supply costumes and memorabilia during the space that fans can see."


The experience starts in earnest whenever you step into a classroom where vintage Britney Barbie dolls are displayed on the bookshelves and "Hit me baby one more time" is scrawled across the blackboard. There, guests are greeted with a video message from Felicia Cullotta, Spears's former assistant and righthand woman who made a cameo because the principal in "...Baby One More Time." Seeing her is a total blast from the past, and one that diehard fans will appreciate — they'd recognize Fe's face anywhere.


"We reached out to Felicia. She loves Britney so much, and she agreed to do it for us," Delson mentioned of her involvement. "She is the sweetest, funniest, cutest person and was so excited to do it for Britney's fans and for Britney. All those little touches that really feel authentic are really important."


from then on, you wander a series of 10 rooms, including "Britney High," a love letter to "...Baby One More Time," where you could drop a note for Brit in her locker; a trip to Mars for "Oops!...I Did It Again," which as a life-size astronaut who's willing to suggest to you with the Heart of the Ocean necklace ("Aww, he shouldn't have"); as well as a dark and stormy "Stronger" room featuring a sequence of infinity resembles and metal chairs, where only the brave will attempt that strikingly detailed chair choreo.


A nifty installation in the "Me Against the Music" room fulfills your dream of letting you be the Madonna in a dance-off against Spears. "Toxic" takes you on a Brit-themed airplane, complete with a champagne cart, "Toxic"-emblazoned barf bags, and also a pink telephone that, whenever answered, has Spears's voice cooing "It's Britney, bitch" in your ear before she abruptly hangs up. The "Piece Of Me" room lets you pose on a red carpet and take your own tabloid photo, which is gets splashed onto a Us Weekly-style magazine cover. All of the while, visitors swipe their RFID wristbands to take part in photo and video installations that they can download on the pop-up's app.


Each of the rooms is based on an iconic Spears music video, with two notable exceptions. The opening is the jungle-themed "I'm A Slave 4 U" room, based on Spears's throwback VMA efficiency, with footage from that iconic moment playing on a shimmering screen that looks like a waterfall. Fans can pose indoors of a cage with a stuffed yellow python (hi, Banana!), plus a giant snake with blinking eyes is coiled around the humid, misty space. In a true full-circle moment, a bunch of Spears's former dancers and choreographers were invited to The Zone earlier this week, and so they busted out the O.G. "Slave 4 U" moves, like it was 2001 all over again.


The other exception is the Blackout chapel, a candle-lit space really interested in Spears's 2007 cult album. As Blackout plays on loop, you could pray to Godney at a stained-glass altar that lights up whenever you kneel in front of it. Shockingly — or not, depending on how big of a Blackout stan you are — Delson says they've already gotten requests from fans who wish to get wedded there.


"We've had numerous requests from fans for weddings, for birthday parties," he mentioned. "People just love it much and so they want time to explore the space in a special way and really feel like they're in the world." (For record, in the event you desire to do a whole In The Zone wedding experience, the "Circus" room — which houses a giant ball pit, carnival games, a Tarot card reader, and the bikes from the Circus tour — could be a bomb reception space.)


The objective of The Zone, Delson mentioned, is simply to honor Spears in fan-centric style. "For us, it's about doing it right, being fans, and making sure you're really capturing the specifics he mentioned. "Her fans love her so much that they would know if the specifics weren't right or things weren't aligned. We spent a lot of time, two years, to prepare ensure that everything's perfect.


"We're such huge fans of Britney, that any time we wanted to prepare an experience where you could step into music videos of an artist, she was our first choice because these videos are so iconic and the ones that are so etched into our thoughts and memories," Delson added. As soon as we went to her, we were excited that she wanted to do it."


As Delson notes, Spears is definitely a trailblazer in pop music and in industry trends as a whole. She was the opening young, current artist to bring her own residency show to Las Vegas — long before Gwen Stefani, Jonas Brothers, Lady Gaga, or Christina Aguilera did the same thing. Delson predicts this sort of interactive pop-up experience will equally become a trend in the pop sphere, however it's about picking the correct artists and catering to the fans. "I think there will be a lot of people that will try to do this," he mentioned, nevertheless she's leading the charge."


Definitely, being a Spears fan has had its ups and downs as of late — several supporters have been worried about the pop star's wellbeing in the midst of the hearings about her conservatorship. Ultimately, though, The Zone is the sort of experience that reminds you how fun it is to love Britney's music and why cool it feels to literally step indoor in the world of the videos we all know and love. Plus, fans will be relieved to know that The Zone is backed by Spears and that, according to Delson, she plans on visiting the pop-up in person. Because even she can't decline a segment of it.