The Color Factory is an interactive exhibit that is all about celebrating color! It combines art, games, food, and fun to create an experience that is truly amazing. The Color Factory recently opened up in New York City in SoHo. My sister and I jumped at the chance to visit after reading a bit about the exhibit and we had the time of our lives.

Basic Info

The Color Factory features 16 rooms. The rooms are uniquely decorated and designed to celebrate something about color. The artists that have created these amazing spaces really poured their hearts and souls into the exhibit, making them incredible for all ages. Tickets are $38 and sell out fairly quickly, so definitely plan to purchase them in advance!

The Color Factory knows that they have some pretty amazing photo-opts, so they hook each guest up with a cool card that features a QR code linked to your email. There are several photo spots throughout the exhibit where you’ll want to snag a pic with your hands free. This is where the cards come in! You just scan the cards at the designated photo spot, a monitor counts you down from 5, and your picture is taken. The pictures are instantly sent to your email! You can then check your shot and take another one if you feel it’s necessary. It’s seriously so dang handy and I want every place I ever visit to include this cool feature.

Color Factory Highlights

I’m not even a little bit exaggerating when I say that the Color Factory is basically a dream come true. The rooms truly come to life because of the combination of visual color, taste, activities, and more. Here’s a basic rundown of my experience at The Color Factory.

*Note: I honestly have NO idea what each fun room is called, so I’m just going to make up names for them based on what I think they might be called. I was a bit too hype about all the colors to pay attention to the painted room names on the walls (lol whoops).

Lobby

The first room you enter is the Lobby, which has this gorgeous dotted wall and The Color Factory logo. An attendee gives out delicious mochi ice cream and there are cool, white, geometric bleachers to sit on while you wait for your group to enter the coat check area.

Coat Check Area

The Coat Check Area is the last waiting area before you enter the Color Factory! Hundreds of strips of ribbon-like blocks of color hang from the ceiling of this room. It’s like they’ve brought a rainbow indoors!

Pro-Tip: Check your purse! You’ll want to be as hands-free as possible once you enter the exhibits. I only kept my phone on me to take inside.

Orientation Room

Once you walk through the coat-check area, you’re taken into the Orientation Room. Here, you watch a super cute (and quick!) video that explains what some of the experiences are and the cool QR cards I was talking about above.

Registration Room

The Registration Room is the first interactive room you’ll enter. The first thing you do is sign a photo-release form (if you’re 18+), put your email in to an iPad, and sync your QR Card. Before you leave, stop by the conveyor belt on the wall and grab a super cute, colorful, and sweet macaroon!

Sunflower Room

I’m calling this next room the Sunflower Room because of the adorable sunflower-esque images painted all over the walls. This room is the first chance you get to use your QR Card! Make sure you stand where the little “stand here” circle is, otherwise your picture might be staged a bit funny. This room is very bright and made me feel super happy just looking at the fun flowers on the walls. It’s sure to get you in the right mood for the rest of the exhibit.

Button Hall

The “Button Hall”, as I’ve started referring to it, is a long hallway with stripes of colors running from floor to ceiling. Each stripe is filled with buttons of the same color! You’re invited to take a button with a color that speaks to you. Definitely do this, because your button will come in to play later! Not gonna lie, the entire time I was in this hallway I was thinking about that scene in Willy Wonka where the kids get to lick the wallpaper.

Black/White Hall

At the end of the Button Hall is a little hallway that is split left to right, with black on one side and white on the other. At this point, you’re split into partners to continue into the next room. One partner goes through the white door and another goes through the black door. You’re seated and given a fun activity to do with your partner through a glass panel. We were told to identify the colors we think about when looking at our partner and ended drawing a picture of them. It was SO cute.

Pro Tip: be sure to visit the Color Factory with a friend or an even numbered group for this activity! No one wants to be alone!

Perfectly Paired Treat Room

Once you leave the activity area, you and your partner head to the next room. You’re led to a candy counter with “Perfectly Paired Treats” (aka colored candy) that match the colors you and your partner were assigned in the activity room. You eat the treats together like a sandwich, as their flavors are meant to perfectly complement each other!

Balloon Room

After the treats, I was ready for some play (what can I say, sugar gets to me). Luckily, playtime came quickly via the Balloon Room! This magical room is full of fans blowing shiny balloons that have super cute wishes on them. When you enter the room, the attendant encourages you to find a wish (or wishes) that speaks to you. My favorite balloon wishes were “for unicorns to be real” and “for people to cooperate”. They were all so cute and clever!

Pro Tip: ask the attendant to throw a few balloons at you after you’ve scanned your QR Card for an extra cool pic!

Music Room

Up until this point, we had celebrated color through sight, touch, smell, and scent. In the Music Room, we were able to experience it through sound! The Music Room was composed (see what I did there?) of pairs of chimes set up in a circle. Each pair of chimes were a different color and produced a different perfect fifth. It was super cool to see how the Color Factory paired different colors with different sounds.

Secret Colors

The “Secret Colors” room is more like a series of rooms. First, you enter a white room with a “Choose Your Own Adventure” style map/quiz going through the floor and up on to the walls. The answers you select lead you to your “secret color” room. My “secret color” ended up being green (specifically the shade of Tom Cruise’s eyes). The room has a cute little photo booth (for your QR Card!), where the color of the paint and lighting envelopes you in your secret color. Once you exit the room, you’re able to snag what kind of resembles a paint sample to remember your secret color!

Disco Room

You’ll be so jazzed after finding out your secret color that you’ll want to ~dance it out~! Maybelline comes in clutch with their themed room, which is Disco themed! Each wall was unique. One is covered in sequined disks, another in a huge mirror, and one has a cool neon lips sign. Light-up circles covering the floor and a huge disco ball complete the room! There is even a small bar in the room that serves (virgin) raspberry fizzy drinks. Stay and dance for a song (or nine) and snap some cool pics with their awesome set up (told you those QR cards are beyond handy!).

Mmuseumm

The Mmuseumm room is next! Mmuseumm is a take on the traditional museum that focuses on displaying modern objects in unexpected ways. The shelves of displays include things ranging from how fake vomit looks different in different places and the evolution of body-shaped perfume bottles. Mmuseumm is its own establishment elsewhere in NYC, so this room presents a great taste of what’s in store for visiting them!

Drawers Room

Remember how I told you the button you pick out will come into play later, well, now is that time! The “Drawers Room” features a wall lined with colorful, pull out drawers. Each drawer lies under a letter of the alphabet and matches the colors in the button hall. Find the drawer color that matches your button to learn the colors name and what it means. My light-purple shade button matched the “N” drawer. The N stood for “Nymphea”, which is French for “water-lily” and was a favorite shade of Claude Monet. Cool, right?

Spinning Room

The next room featured these huge, pinwheel-like spinning tables. Each of the three tables had their own color palette. You lay down on one of the tables, spin a bit, and take a cool video with your QR Card! Unfortunately, the video cameras for the spinning room were down when we visited, but we made it work.

Ball Pit

The Ball Pit Room is your final stop in the Color Factory. A massive, light-blue ball pit takes up the majority of the space. The room is decorated in whites, shades of blue, and sayings about different shades of blue on the walls (think “Blue Collar” and other like phrases). Kick off your shoes, take off your button, and glide into the ball pit! There are 2 awesome QR Photo Spots where you can snag dreamy pics! Before you leave, grab some blue gelato and pick out a sweet, complimentary souvenir. As you exit, be sure to grab a neighborhood map, which outlines other fun, color-themed activities in the area! These installations are around for a year, so don’t stress out about visiting them immediately.

Pro Tip: If you’re wearing socks, take them off! The ramp is a bit slippery and I looked SOOO clumsy trying to get in and out of the ball pit.

Gift Shop

Like all wonderful places, The Color Factory exits guests through the gift shop. Here, you can buy all sorts of colorful treats, apparel items, and even post cards!

The Color Factory was an experience I won’t soon forget! If you find yourself in the New York City area, you should definitely head to SoHo and visit!

Have you ever visited some sort of interactive exhibit? Tell me about it in the comments below!

xoxo,

KB

PS: If you’re looking for other awesome things to do in NYC, why not try to see Cursed Child on Broadway or visit the Statue of Liberty?