When interactive entertainment company Meow Wolf announced this month that it would lay off 165 employees, including 50 in Denver, many of those affected had already learned about it through social media.
That’s not uncommon in 2024, as tens of thousands of layoffs in technology, news media, gaming and other industries have rocked the job landscape since the start of the year, with official announcements often undercut by internal leaks and rumors.
But as with previous layoffs and union actions at Meow Wolf Denver, the fallout has required workers to force the company to account amid corporate disarray, current and former employees said. And the layoffs arrive about four years after the company cited devastating pandemic-era losses, cutting roughly half of its workers at the time — or 201 employees. (The company knew those cuts were coming well before pandemic lockdowns came into play, according to the Santa Fe Reporter.)
The latest round, however, blindsided Denver workers in its depth and range, shedding 111 employees across the company’s exhibitions and corporate team, as well as 54 bargaining unit positions at Las Vegas’s Omega Mart, in an effort to cut expenses by 10%.
“It was shocking when it turned out they were laying off so many managers,” said a former supervisor, who asked not to be named for fear it would hurt future job prospects, in a Denver Post interview. Like some, they were laid off on a Zoom video chat, while others were called into an office at the company’s surreal, immersive installation (Convergence Station) just west of downtown, then escorted directly out of the building by security, former employees told The Denver Post.
Officials with the Meow Wolf Workers Collective have said they believe the company is knowingly violating its collective bargaining agreement, which requires Meow Wolf to follow a specific process that prevents day-to-day operations from changing during periods of negotiation, amid others, union president Roz Rosvold told the Santa Fe Reporter.
“It’s upsetting because everybody they just lost helped run that entire building, and a lot of them had been there since before it opened,” a former employee said, describing Meow Wolf’s layoff process dehumanizing and humiliating. “Now they’re really, really suffering” as a company.
“Speaking about my experience is to acknowledge the ways Meow Wolf has failed its lifeblood: its artists, creatives, and on-the-ground creative operators,” wrote Joanna Garner, Meow Wolf’s former senior story creative director, on a LinkedIn post. She said she resigned from the company in December rather than face another year of eroding camaraderie and values.
Specifically, she cited an exhausting “intensity and pace of production,” a “massive inequity of power and money,” a lack of rewards for artistic contributions, and a lack of transparency from leadership “that translates into a feeling of being a pawn in some larger game, even if that’s not the case.”
Meow Wolf is still moving forward with plans to open a new location in Houston, having expanded from Santa Fe to Las Vegas and Denver over the last three years. That clashes with the apparent need for layoffs, former employees said, and is a sign that the company’s fiscal priorities have overtaken its progressive, artist-first culture.
“The words ‘new business model’ and ‘sustainability’ were thrown around a lot at the employee meeting the week of the layoffs,” said Rose Gasdia, 34, who worked part time as a retail associate at Meow Wolf Denver but resigned on April 19. Her work hours had been slowly declining since the start of the year, she said, and her supervisor was one of those laid off.
The entrance to Eemia the Ice World installation at Meow Wolf Denver’s Convergence Station on Aug. 23, 2022, in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
“They’re trying to justify all this (while offering) 4-hour shifts on random days,” she said. “It’s more trouble than it’s worth trying to fit in with my other jobs.
“When I started, I thought of it as this small community, but it’s got this huge corporate mindset that becoming super obvious,” she added. “I do love my coworkers, so taking a chunk of them out of the equation takes the luster away.”
Meow Wolf Denver officials declined interview requests from The Denver Post, and in an email did not address claims that employees were refused a chance to collect their personal belongings or say goodbye to their teams as they were escorted out by security. (They did, however, confirm that counselors and therapy dogs were on site the day of the layoffs.)
One third of the 50 Denver employees laid off were manager positions, wrote Alex Bennett, senior vice president and head of exhibitions for Meow Wolf, in an email to The Denver Post. All will receive severance packages and the ability to be re-hired.
“We know that many of the people whose jobs were eliminated have been a big part of Meow Wolf’s success to date,” he wrote. “We are grateful for their contributions, both creatively and to our community.”
The timing of the layoffs coincided with a new understanding of Meow Wolf’s unique business model, officials there have said. Now, the company has a clearer view of the marketplace and its own visitation patterns.
“This was not a change to our business model — more so that we are right-sizing the business to ensure future success by preserving our ability to grow and innovate,” Bennett wrote.
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Meow Wolf CEO Jose Tolosa has also said the layoffs were needed to help the company sustain its business and current growth. The company’s first exhibitions were “inventing an operating model from scratch,” he said. “Over the past three years, we’ve developed a better understanding of our guests and what we need to staff and support our exhibitions in order to make the most of the growth opportunities ahead, including our Houston location that opens later this year,” he wrote.
Looq, a character from the C Street installation, waits to offer advice and clues to finding answers to the hidden narrative in the cityscape at Meow Wolf Denver on Aug. 23, 2022, in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
Some employees, however, predict a bumpy road for the company as it turns into a bottom-line corporate concern, they said, instead of the loose, visionary New Mexico art collective that started it all in the late 2000s.
“What if they chose to be the rule breaker, the disruptor in service of something other than the Beast of Capitalism?” former senior story creative director Garner wrote. “What if the metrics of success were radically different? What kind of portal to a new reality might we enter then?”
“It’s just disappointing because there had always been this family feeling,” said former retail associate Gasdia. “They were really awesome and seemed to care about employees so much and support this environment. They destroyed that real fast.”