November 2026

Inside THE VENUE // Cover NOs LATER AN UNLIKELY SUCCESS STORY 248

By Jackie Fisher

J acob Robinson likes to joke that only two people in the theme park industry have documented disastrous grand openings: Walt Disney and Jacob Robinson. In Robinson's case, the joke comes from experience. When Dig World opened in Katy, Texas, in March 2022, families lined up to operate real excavators, skid steers, and other pieces of heavy construction equipment. The concept had generated enormous curiosity because it offered something guests had never experienced before. Parents were eager to give their children a chance to climb into the operator's seat of real construction equipment rather than admire it from behind a fence. The challenge wasn't attracting guests. It was being ready for them. "We opened the park, and we should have waited about 48 hours," Robinson recalls. "We didn't have enough machines ready to go." Demand exceeded expectations, and several attractions were out of service, leaving guests waiting as excitement quickly turned to frustration. Robinson realized he faced a decision no owner wants to make. He could continue operating and

disappoint nearly every family walking through the gates, or he could close temporarily, fix the problems, and reopen with the experience guests expected. He chose the second option. "It couldn't have gone worse," Robinson says with a laugh today. "Every news outlet covered our grand opening. Every news outlet covered our grand closing. No news outlets covered our reopening." A public setback like that could have ended the business before it truly began. Instead, Robinson treated it as an education. Today, Dig World has appeared on Shark Tank, secured Caterpillar as its title sponsor, partnered with Dude Perfect and just opened a second location in Grapevine, Texas. He credits much of that progress to lessons learned during the difficult first week. AN IDEA THAT WAS HARD TO EXPLAIN Dig World's story began several years before opening day with Robinson's oldest son, Pierce. Just weeks before his second birthday, Pierce contracted bacterial meningitis, leaving him with permanent disabilities and changing the course of the family's life.

Pierce’s fascination with construction equipment never faded. Watching him light up around excavators, bulldozers and dump trucks led Robinson to wonder whether families would pay to operate the machines together as an attraction. "I always tell people, what does any normal, professional, logical father do?" Robinson says with a laugh. "You come home and say, 'I'm going to build a theme park.'" Believing in the concept wasn't the difficult part. Convincing everyone else was.

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