Drip, from Meow Wolf Denver’s C Street installation, offers clues to finding answers to the narrative near the Rocket Car in the cityscape at Meow Wolf on Aug. 23, 2022, in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
Meow Wolf, the arts and entertainment company that opened a Denver outpost in 2021, will lay off 165 employees company-wide, according to an internal memo, even as it moves forward with plans to launch a new location in Texas.
In a note to staff sent Monday, Meow Wolf CEO Jose Tolosa said the cuts will include 111 employees across the company’s exhibitions and corporate team, as well as 54 bargaining unit positions at Las Vegas’s Omega Mart.
Officials at Meow Wolf didn’t immediately respond to questions about the number of Denver employees who will be affected, but said in the statement that the actions will cut expenses by 10%.
The company, based in Santa Fe, has scaled up rapidly in recent years as it expanded its surreal, interactive sculptures and installations to multiple locations in Las Vegas, Denver and other planned markets.
Meow Wolf officials are actively negotiating with the employee union as there is no collective bargaining agreement in place, Tolosa wrote in the memo.
“We have been in close communication with the MWWC, our employee union, around these changes,” Tolosa wrote, naming the cross-company organization that formed in the wake of staff complaints and lawsuits in 2021.
The union drive and formation was voluntarily recognized by the company in April 2022 after 70% of eligible workers voted to organize.
Union officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Tolosa 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.”
Tolosa added that the company is committed to supporting laid off employees through the transition with “a separation package, including severance payments tied to years of service, extended healthcare coverage and outplacement services for career support, in addition to other resources,” he wrote. All staff will also be eligible for potential rehiring.
More details will be shared Wednesday, Tolosa said. Monday’s announced layoffs come about four years after the company laid off 201 employees due to what it described as COVID-19-related challenges and an effort to cushion “devastating losses” in revenue. The action cut its staff at the time in half.
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