The Daily Memphian – The Sidebar: Inside BVO’s Immersive Vision on Mud Island

January 9, 2026

The Daily Memphian, The Sidebar

The Daily Memphian’s Sidebar podcast features a conversation with BVO CEO Jee Vahn Knight on the vision, scale, and storytelling behind Baron Von Opperbean & the River of Time. The episode dives into immersive entertainment, phased development on Mud Island, and how BVO blends physical play with cinematic world-building.

The discussion also explores the broader creative economy, tourism impact, and what opening Phase One means for Memphis.

Below: Listen to the episode, then scroll for the full transcript.

Listen or Read below

Interview Transcript - The Daily Memphian — The Sidebar

Program: 98.1 The Max
Guest: Jee Vahn Knight, CEO – Baron Von Opperbean & the River of Time
Air Date: January 22, 2026

Read the full conversation below…lightly edited for clarity and flow.

ERIC BARNES (HOST)

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST)

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

I'm Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian, and welcome to The Sidebar, a weekly show on the community, arts, culture, and more. Today, we're very pleased to be talking to Jee Vahn Knight, the new CEO of Baron Von Opperbeen and the River of Time. So stay with us for our conversation with G.

You're the new CEO as of October of this. So for people who don't know, give the quick 30-second thing, because it's very complicated, but what is Baron Von Opperbeen and the River of Time?

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

So it is an immersive experience that is an immersive playground set within a cinematic storytelling universe. So if you think the ability to play and engage both mental games, physical games, climbing, elements like that, set within... a cinematic universe, so think Star Wars or Marvel where you have multiple characters, multiple storylines, multiple worlds to be able to explore.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

That's very good. We'll talk about Meow Wolf and some people may have been to Santa Fe or Las Vegas or maybe is Meow Wolf any other places now? I can't remember.

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

Those are the main ones. They're in five locations right now and they're opening two more.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

Two more.

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

Santa Fe, Vegas, and Denver were their first three. They've got Dallas Grapevine in Houston.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

Okay.

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

And then they're slated to open in New York and L.A.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

So, again, for some people listening, they're like, I'm still a little confused. And you can say this is a dumb analogy. Is it in some – and I've been to Meow Wolf. I've been to a couple of them, I think. It's kind of like a really elaborate escape room without the escape.

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

Without the game. Escape rooms are a game. But that sense that you're immersed. Because when you're in Meow Wolf, you are immersed in this strange place. You're a little confused. You're not playing a game in the way an escape room is. So, I mean, the analogy falls apart. But it is just sort of you're in this experience and all these strange things are happening. And then after you can go get a beer. I mean, like that kind of experience.

If you don't mind, let's take a step back and just talk about the word immersive. The reason why it confuses everybody is because you're talking about an industry that's only 12 years old.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

Right.

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

And it started with immersive theater, and then it moved into—Meow Wolf is the undeniable success in the immersive industry—but it's an industry that's only about 10 years old. So it's still defining itself.

So when you think about immersive, you have—Meow Wolf, which was founded on being an immersive art gallery. So it is art and a world that was created that you explore and you consume that art. You also have immersive theater, which is putting you in the middle of the theater and the production. You have escape rooms. All of them are building worlds. So multiple senses, audio, visual, physical placement within this space. But what they're asking you to do or not do is a little bit different.

Virtual reality is also a type of immersive experience as well as like the Van Gogh experience and TeamLab, but that is primarily video projection.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

Or a headset or something. This you're walking around, but keep going.

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

Yes. So TeamLab and the Van Gogh exhibit are wonderful because people go in, you have huge walls, you're seeing these paintings that are being projected on these huge scales. But it's still art. So once you consume it, you have consumed it, you may or may not feel the need to go back and create a new experience for yourself.

So the particular intersection that BVO is doing is a cinematic universe. So think all of the characters, locations, people, cars, worlds, organizations, companies that you would have within a cinematic storytelling universe with an immersive playground.

So we want to engage your ability to climb and crawl and find holes and, and, and basically, you know, wear out all of your middle-aged knees because you're following your children through this space with elements of mystery and gameplay.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

In that sense also, you know, it's fine. You started saying that it reminded me of like taking my kids to the children's museum, which I haven't been to in a long time. My kids are, you know, in their twenties now, but that was pretty immersive as we would competitively like go through all these different like scenarios and so on.

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

Yes.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

When you say with Baron Von Opperbean, um, this cinematic universe. It's not though. It's not Marvel, right? It's not DC. Like it's a creation. Is it, it's Christopher Reyes, the artists, the local artists, people know or don't know, but that you should know it's, it's a universe of his creation.

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

Correct. Yes, absolutely. They shouldn't go in there expecting cinematic universes that they've seen in a movie. No, they're not expected a branded experience.

So Netflix is doing that right now. They're creating what's called the Netflix house and it's an immersive experience. Um, it's more of a pop-up and transient though. It's not a permanent facility. That is a branded experience. They're trying to take an existing IP and brand and basically skin a nice little attraction, make some money and then shut it down.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

Yeah. Different business model. Okay. So y'all are down at Mud Island.

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

Yes.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

Talk about how much it's the old river museum for people that ultimately shuttered. There's lots of questions about Mud Island and lots of space down there. You all have a portion of Mud Island. You have not taken over all of—

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

Correct. We have the Old River Museum, which is the majority of that physical building, Sands, the mahogany restaurant that opened 18 months ago that is doing well down there in this space. And there's a couple of other small buildings like concessions that were open in its heyday that there isn't a plan for those at the current time.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

And you're not also in the big, I was going to say pool, but the pond that people can see.

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

That's still the actual park. So that is under Memphis River Parks.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

Okay. So how long – give me the timeline of when this started and then where you're trying to go in this upcoming year.

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

I think if we like from the birth of the Big Bang, it probably started in Christopher's head in 2008 or something like that because he was tracking alongside what the immersive industry was doing before it ever came to Memphis. He knew what was happening in the industry. Just Memphis didn't have that particular industry here.

But we took possession of the keys to the building in early 2024 and were able to secure kind of a first round of investment in the middle of 2025, which then really put us on a production schedule to be opening phase one.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

Okay. Phase one will include?

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

Phase one is 8,000 square feet of the total 33,000 square feet experience.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

8,000 square feet is a lot of space. Yeah. So if anybody went to Quadrant 360 during 2020, that was 2,000 square feet. So this will be four times the size as the experience that was done at the end of 2020. That was the one that was in—what's the space, right? It was during COVID.

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

Yes. Off the wall.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

Off the wall. Yes, off the wall. Kind of midtown. Yeah. Okay. But keep going.

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

So 8,000 square feet, a permanent installation. It's meant to be here and live here permanently. That will then enable us to probably open another 10,000 square feet by the end of 2026. And then we have a pretty significant capital raise to be able to open the full riverboats by the end of 2027.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

And talk about the – that's aggressive though. Like I haven't caught up with you all in a bit. I mean I think we had Christopher on this show I know and maybe we did a show. I'm looking at Marvin Stockwell who's here. Not on the microphone. Didn't we do a Behind the Headlines with some folks a year ago?

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

Natalie confirmed that.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

OK. So that's still a lot of space and a lot of progress.

I can't remember, but for people who don't know, so we'll pretend I'm one of them because apparently I am. Is it a nonprofit, a public benefit corporation, a full LLC? I can't remember. How does the whole structure work and the relationship to the city work?

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

Yeah, not a nonprofit. It's an LLC. So it is a private organization. It's a for-profit entity because in the attraction space, we're talking about economic development and creating economic capital for this industry here in the city. And you can't do that with the amount of leverage if you're a nonprofit organization. Also, there are not enough philanthropy dollars in this city to go around to all of the nonprofits that need it. This particular type of attraction does not need to be a nonprofit.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

As someone who runs a nonprofit, I thank you. We are only because we are only a nonprofit. You know, the Daily Memphian is only because it's just such a difficult business. But we do try to run like a business as we talk about all the time.

But so, OK, so you raise enough money to get keep these stages going and then there will be admission charges and concessions and so on. And that's the business model at the simplest level.

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

Yeah. The business model isn't new. It's one of the oldest industries. So you have tickets and admissions, which includes annual passes and group sales. You've got food and beverage. You've got merchandise. And then you have events, whether there are events or whether it's event rentals for the space.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

How much staff? How many staff members today? Give me a sense where you are and where you're going with staff.

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

We fluctuate between 10 to 15 on site depending on how many of the built crews are working at the same time.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

Okay. And then once this 8,000 square feet is—when are you expecting that to be open?

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

March 7th.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

March 7th. That's right around the corner.

March 7th, you'll be open seven days a week, five days a week. Walk through those logistics for people for whom this is very new.

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

Absolutely. So BVOEXP.com is our homepage. You can go there. You can see any of the tickets that are available at forward slash drops is where all of our presale tickets are listed right now.

We're in a time ticketing business. So you'll choose the day that you want to come, pick the time window that you want to be able to show up in. People are going into the exhibit every 30 minutes. They'll be pulsed in about every 10 minutes at a time. But you have a 30-minute window to enter the exhibit.

There isn't a time on when you have to leave. Some people will probably go through it and really enjoy it visually and they might pop out in 45 minutes. You might have some deep divers who are like, no, I want to discover every single element and they're in there for a couple of hours. That type of flow, we still have to determine because that really is the appetite of people to consume the creative for us to fully understand.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

To answer a question that every Memphian is going to want to know, there is a parking lot on Mud Island and a bridge for those who have not been there in a very, very long time.

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

Yes. It is paid parking with the city, so you have to be prepared as all the downtown parking is. And then when that lot is full, we still have the pedestrian bridge to the parking that's across the way.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

What used to be the monorail.

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

Yes. Although the monorail hasn't run in years, that bridge is actually accessible to it.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

One thing I want to come back to. Let's go through the size because I asked you the size of, you know, you've got Mud Island River Park is what? Fifty five acres.

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

Yes.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

You all have the whole museum part that you hope to expand into is—

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

Thirty three thousand.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

Thirty three thousand. That's the eight thousand. Then another ten thousand.

Talking about that, you talked about a big capital campaign. Can you talk about the round dollars to get all this done? Is capital campaign the right word?

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

Yeah. We're doing a raise.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

A raise. Because to me, a capital campaign implies nonprofit, but it's really a capital raise in the investment into the entity.

Can you give me some round numbers of what the business spends and what the business needs to generate to be successful down there?

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

So in the attraction space, you need to be able to operate at 50% occupancy and profitable. So people who think that it needs to be at 90% occupancy, that's not actually what you need for the business to be successful. You need to average 50% occupancy and that's why you've got seasonal highs and seasonal lows.

But we're looking at overall 50% occupancy of the space. But then you add on events and merchandise and food and beverage, and that's what brings the business model up to a strong point.

Right now we're raising a million dollars on a convertible node. We're over 50 percent of the way through that particular raise. And that is to fund us all the way through this March 7th date. So we're building while we are raising at the time.

And those are for investors—those that are looking at not nonprofit donations, but looking places to invest their dollars in businesses.

Overall, phase one and phase two will probably bring us to about $3 million in total. So $1 million now and another $2 million to be able to bring all of our food and beverage, alcohol offerings to the table.

The riverboats—that's the phase three. And you're talking about a three-story riverboat within a five-story building that's going to be turned into a three-story playground.

Half of the money goes to the insurance company across the board. That could range anywhere between about $10 to $20 million for us to complete that, about $500 per square feet to develop that.

So we don't have exact numbers on that right now because we are focused on bringing an experience to Mud Island and opening it.

And roughly, if you have how many people a day in the first month, you'll be happy. What are your numbers, your hopes, your expectations in terms of foot traffic and visitors into the experience?

Our early projections to be profitable for our investors are about 200,000 people a year. So it's not a huge number in terms of throughput.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

Bass Pro Shop gets...

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

Two million visitors, local and tourists a year.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

Graceland is closer to 700,000.

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

So we're looking to carve out about one and a half percent of the existing Memphis tourists that are coming here to be able to hit those numbers.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

Your percentage of tourists versus residents, how do you see that breaking out?

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

A big part of it is going to be the children of the city—because they are going to be the ones that help bring the skeptical parents out. They're a huge part of the anchor in the first year as well as field trips and other events.

But in this space, you're still looking at about 70% coming from tourism and 30% coming from local.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

Tourism could include Arkansas, Missouri, day trips, Nashville.

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

Day trips, yes. Five million people in the Mid-South.

You talked about kids and field trips—yes, absolutely. The same way they go to the zoo and other places around town.

And for us, it's about creative industry. That includes creative technologists doing digital work, audio work, 3D and animation—and helping students see these as real career paths. Not just coming to have fun, but also what workshops and classes we can provide that help give them a doorway into these other professional paths.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

Thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it. And good luck as we move towards the opening.

JEE VAHN KNIGHT (GUEST):

Thank you.

ERIC BARNES (HOST):

And we’ll see you next week.