YouTube star Dhar Mann wants to give the creator economy a home address. According to New York Post‘s Bianca Zalben, Mann used Advertising Week New York to announce “Creator City,” a four-acre production hub in Los Angeles, alongside a pledge to generate $100 million in brand deals for creators.

What Creator City is supposed to be

The Post reports the campus is slated to open Super Bowl weekend in February 2027 with five soundstages, pitched as a place where influencers, tech companies and advertisers can work together under one roof.

Mann gave more detail at MIPCOM in Cannes. According to Deadline‘s Stewart Clarke, he described a campus with multiple sound stages and 175 sets that can host 15 productions at the same time. “It’s basically where creators, brands, and culture [will] all come together in one place,” Mann said.

Sets that are real brands

The big twist is product placement built into the walls. Mann told the MIPCOM crowd that the sets at his current studio are unbranded, but the sets at Creator City will be actual brands. Instead of a random coffee shop, he said, “it could be a Starbucks,” and a generic store “could be a Target.” Deadline reports Dhar Mann Studios is working with a handful of brands as launch partners.

A press release reported by Tubefilter and quoted by the Post framed the idea this way: the creator economy “has never had a physical home of its own, the way technology has Silicon Valley, finance has Wall Street and entertainment has Hollywood.”

Awkward timing for Hollywood

The Post points out that the announcement lands while plenty of traditional Hollywood soundstages sit empty, as film and TV production keeps shrinking or moving out of Los Angeles. It also notes that it’s still unclear how the campus will operate, which creators will get access, or what it will cost to use.

Mann already runs a sizable operation. Citing the LA Times, the Post says his Burbank studio covers about 125,000 square feet, employs around 220 people and has three soundstages. In September his company reportedly bought a 108,000-square-foot production property in Chatsworth for $23 million and plans to move there by 2027.

Bigger studio ambitions

Deadline reports that Dhar Mann Studios has struck deals with Disney and Fox, is expanding its partnership with Samsung with a new scripted series called Unlikely Families, and plans to launch a new original series on its YouTube channel every month starting in December. Mann appeared at MIPCOM with Sean Atkins, the company’s CEO and a former MTV and Disney executive.

The takeaway

Creator City is a bet that top creators want more than a camera and a bedroom wall: they want sets, brand money and a place to network. Whether it becomes the Hollywood of the creator economy or just another big soundstage in a town full of them, it shows how much brand cash is now chasing creators. For independent creators, the lesson is that the brand-deal side of the business keeps getting more professional, and the people who treat their content like a studio are the ones landing the big checks.

Image: AI-generated illustration.