Puy du Fou has finally unveiled its major new attraction: Le Rêve de Louis XIV, a show set to open in June 2027 at the park in Les Épesses, Vendée (85). The program includes 40 sets operated by robots, 30 performers playing 120 characters, and a 4,000 m² Royal Palace built especially to host the court of the Sun King.
The details were unveiled at the park’s annual conference in late October 2026. With €33 million committed, it is the biggest investment ever made by the Vendée park. For comparison, Le Mime et l'Étoile cost €20 million. The teams have been working on this new attraction for four years.
The story follows Madeleine, a young woman from the provinces with a passion for dance who dreams of becoming like Molière. To earn a living, she promises her mother she’ll enter the service of Vatel, the king’s cook. She is whisked off to Versailles, amid the splendor of the court.
Discovered by Molière, Madeleine enters a world where smiles often conceal plots. Palace intrigues soon threaten to turn her life upside down. Also appearing on stage are Fouquet, Vatel, the learned ladies and, of course, Louis XIV himself.
The choice of character is no accident. For Nicolas de Villiers, the park’s president, Louis XIV was the king who “invented the French art of living.” During his reign, he notes, clothing became haute couture, food became gastronomy and language became poetry. He was a monarch surrounded by great names such as Vatel, Molière and Le Nôtre—plenty to fuel a highly visual story.
This is undoubtedly the most intriguing part. The park promises 40 robot-controlled sets, capable of transforming the scene before the audience’s eyes. A little like a deck of cards reshuffled with each scene, the spaces flow one into another, from Vatel’s kitchens to the court’s gilded salons.
Nicolas de Villiers promises an “out-of-the-ordinary show,” with staging designed to take audiences by surprise. We’ll have to see it for ourselves, but the park has already shown with Le Mime et l'Étoile that it knows how to combine theater, machinery and stage effects.
The setting matters as much as the story. The future Palais Royal will cover 4,000 square metres, with an aesthetic designed to match the grandeur of Louis XIV’s reign. Everything will be painted, moulded and rendered in bas-relief, creating a real visual impact as soon as visitors enter, even before the curtain rises. It’s a way of bringing the audience to Versailles without taking the RER C.
The venue will accommodate 1,800 spectators, including 300 seated on a large balcony. That’s fewer than in most of the park’s other productions, but the frequency makes up for it: this show, which runs for about 35 minutes, will be performed 13 times a day. To keep up this pace, around a hundred performers, actors and technicians have been recruited.
Louis XIV is not venturing into unfamiliar territory. The park has already built an entire world around the 17th century, with its convention center, the Molière Theatre and the Le Grand Siècle hotel, which is set to add 100 additional rooms for the 2027 season.
The timing is ideal. The park is coming off a record 2026 season, welcoming 3.1 million visitors, according to L'Écho touristique. Le Rêve de Louis XIV thus becomes the site’s tenth major show, alongside L'Épée du Roi Arthur, Les Vikings, Le Signe du Triomphe and Le Dernier Panache.
The Dream of Louis XIV is scheduled to open in June 2027, though no exact date has been announced yet. For the latest information, check the show’s official page. From Paris, Les Épesses can be reached by TGV to Angers (about 1 hour 30 minutes from Montparnasse station), followed by a shuttle during the season. It’s best to book well in advance: the park’s major new attractions always draw large crowds in their first season.
This new show will appeal to families, history buffs and anyone who loves spectacular stage productions. And if the Vendée seems far away, the Puy du Fou is coming to us too: its show Mousquetaire is coming to the Seine Musicale in Boulogne-Billancourt (92), from November 19, 2027, to January 9, 2028. In a completely different vein, Seine-Saint-Denis is preparing Populaire, toutes nos histoires, a series of historical shows at the foot of the Basilica of Saint-Denis, starting in May 2027.
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Location
Puy du fou
85590 Les Epesses
85590 Epesses (Les)
Route planner
Accessibility info
Access
Angers TGV station (1h30 from Paris) + Shuttle bus
