“When Hallmark was founded 115 years ago, it was purely in the card business. Now, of course, Hallmark is the giant of the space, with cards for every holiday or life event you can imagine. The company expanded into entertainment in the mid-to-late 1990s, first with Hallmark Entertainment, and later with Hallmark Channel, bringing its”, — write: www.hollywoodreporter.com
The company expanded into entertainment in the mid-to-late 1990s, first with Hallmark Entertainment, and later with Hallmark Channel, bringing its ethos to an entirely new line of business.
But the company has, quietly, leveraged that media business into what Hallmark chief brand officer Darren Abbott describes as something of a third pillar: Experiences.
Hallmark is now in the cruise business, filling mega-boats with its stars, with waitlists in the tens of thousands. It turned its Kansas City headquarters into a Christmas experience with musical performances, shops and tee lightings. And there is more to come, leveraging the heartwarming and family-friendly things that define Hallmark the brand with the familiar faces of Hallmark the media company.
“We’ve been on a bit of a journey over the last couple of years to really connect those two business units [cards and media] together,aAnd one of the things that we got to thinking about was this intersection of the fandom around all of this,” Abbott says. “What could we do to create, essentially, an experiences business around that, to move from making things and making movies to a third leg of the stool, which is the experiences. And that’s actually how we think about the business right now, it’s about product, it’s about content and it’s about experiences, and that’s how we’re sort of defining the three aspects of the brand.”
“Not all brands have permission, if you will, from their audience or from their consumers, to get into this space,” he adds. “But I think because Hallmark has always been a storytelling brand, it makes sense for us to bring these stories to life in real life.”
Nikki DeLoach knows a thing or two about that. The actress has starred in dozens of projects for Hallmark Channel, but in 2019 the company hosted what it called a “Christmas Convention,” an event where Hallmark Channel fans could meet many of the stars of their movies.
“I had never done a convention, most of us had never done one, we certainly hadn’t done a Christmas convention,” DeLoach recalls. “We didn’t know what to expect, and I will never forget stepping out onto that floor and seeing the thousands of fans cheering and so excited, and we listened to their stories one by one about how our movies got them through cancer treatments, loss, grief, divorce, heartache, all of these things. There was this moment where I kind of realized, ‘wow, we need to be doing this more.'”
Hallmark took that cue.
In 2024 it debuted its next major push into experiences, with its first ever Hallmark-branded cruise, and the Hallmark Christmas Experience in the Crown Center in Kansas City. Both experiences were built around letting Hallmark fans live and breathe Hallmark, with plenty of familiar talent, games, shopping, and other elements.
“I think there’s a component here where we have this great family of actors and talent that we use over and over again in our movies, and we’ve heard from our consumers, we’ve heard from the audience, they would love to experience the movies in real life,” Abbott says. “That’s where the genesis of most of this came from, and I think we’re really just getting started in this space.”
The 2024 cruise sold out almost instantly, with tens of thousands of people putting their names on the waiting list. The 2025 cruise doubled in size, with DeLoach noting that they also ramped up the programming on the boat, which sailed from Miami to Cozumel last month, with shows, comedy, shopping and other activations.
“This year we did something very different, which was we had an actual variety show on the boat, so full performances, choreography, harmonies, all of it,” DeLoach says. “Every single year, whatever it is that we do, we aim to do something different and bring more to our fans.
“I will say I have worked for MTV, ABC, FOX, CBS, I’ve worked for all of these different networks,” she added. “I’ve never experienced anything like it, the connection, the unique opportunity that we specifically get to have with our fans.”
Hallmark Media now hosts the “Hallmark Christmas Experience.” Hallmark Media / photographer Matt Hoover
The Christmas event in Kansas City, similarly, let’s visitors immerse themselves in a scene straight out of a Hallmark movie.
“You get to walk around, there’s tons of vendors, there’s gonna be thousands of people there over the course of four different weekends, there’s tree lightings,” says Benjamim Ayres, a Hallmark movie veteran who hosted a TV special featuring performances and content from the event. “For those that maybe can’t do the cruise … it allows for them to have the opportunity to see us and come together and understand the brand even on a deeper level.”
Hallmark has spun up something of a flywheel, leveraging its TV and movie talent for live events, and creating original programming from those events. That includes the Christmas special from Kansas City, but also a docuseries about the cruise. And it has brought many of its TV sponsors along for the ride, with brands signing on to sponsor the tree lighting in Kansas City, or the game show on the cruise.
Abbott likens Hallmark’s stable of talent to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with familiar faces that return every year.
“We kind of have Hallmark’s version of that with our talent, and you’re going to see us continue to leverage that, not just in the experiences, but even as we think about content beyond the movies that we’re so well known for, scripted series, some of the other initiatives we’re getting into, the talent’s coming along with us every step of the way,” he says.
It’s about access and a personal touch that is unusual for a media company.
“We had a Zoom with the team the other night, because we’re still building [the TV special] out. And, you know, one of the things I said was that it’s just such a special thing that people continue to allow us into their living rooms,” Ayres says. “And I want to approach this in a way that we’re going to invite them into ours.”
But Hallmark is still in the early days of its experience building out. The company has been experimenting in recent months, hosting events at its Hallmark stores across the country (including bringing talent to stores in Nashville and Buffalo, themes around programming).
And the company is eager to bring the model outside of the holiday season as well, betting that it will work across the calendar.
“We are talking and in fairly advanced planning stages of creating experiences at other times of the year,” Abbott says. “We’ve got a new event that we’re working on called Stars on Tour that will be like an auditorium tour that will go around the country and bring a small piece of what we do at the Christmas Experience or on the cruise to other cities. We’re going to test that summer of ’26 and then some other things we’re doing is really zeroing in on specific aspects or activations at Christmas Experience, and how do you scale those and maybe take those to other areas as well.”