Changi Experience Studio

The airport everyone rushes through has built a room asking you to stay and play.

Changi Experience Studio is a paid, indoor arcade about the unglamorous side of flying, and it is worth it for children of six and up who like pressing things and beating their siblings. Allow about 90 minutes, make it the noisy half of a Jewel outing, and settle in advance who is playing and who is minding the bags. Skip it if being scored on your smile sounds like a punishment.

It opened in June 2019 on Jewel's Level 4 and takes the machinery of an airport, the trolleys, the taxi ranks, the people in the control room, and turns it into games. Changi Airport Group described it at launch as a tribute to the 50,000-strong airport community, and that is the angle worth buying into: it is less about planes than about the people who keep them moving. Changi puts a great deal of effort into making sure you never notice any of this, which makes a room celebrating it rather endearing.

The scale is bigger than the name suggests: 3,000 square metres, roughly half a football field, with more than 20 interactive touchpoints spread over ten zones. At launch, visitors were handed a "travel guide", a handheld device that unlocked displays as they went.

What was on the launch running order

At opening, the route started with a time tunnel of airport history and moved through a hanging garden of operations and horticulture stations. The Amazing Runway pitted two teams on exercise bikes in a race between a Porsche and a Boeing 747. The Smile Challenge photographed and scored your grin, with the top ten going up on a wall of fame. In the Arena, arcade games recreated airport jobs: the trolley game used a real trolley handle as its controller, and another had you coordinating a taxi queue. A green-screen wall dropped you into airport backdrops, a Garden of Harmony let a group make music together, and the finale was a multimedia show on aviation's past and an imagined future. Check Jewel's site for what's running now before anyone sets their heart on the bikes.

Who it suits

Jewel lists the studio as suitable for ages six and up, and the games are built for children who like to compete. It is also a decent rainy-day plan for adults who are secretly fascinated by how an airport runs. Departing passengers should keep check-in and boarding well clear of it; a trolley game is not a good reason to miss a flight.

Pair it with the calm half of Jewel, the Rain Vortex and a meal. It is separately ticketed, with bundles alongside Canopy Park, so check prices and sessions on Jewel's ticketing site first.

Good to know Jewel lists the studio as open until 8pm with last admission at 7pm, and suitable for ages 6 and up. It is separately ticketed (bundles with Canopy Park exist), so check current prices and sessions on Jewel's ticketing site. Departing passengers should keep check-in and boarding time well clear of a visit.

Want more outings that work across the ages? Here are our ideas for different ages.

Changi Experience Studio | Jewel Changi Airport L4, 78 Airport Boulevard, Singapore 819666 | Nearest MRT: Changi Airport