What is edutainment and why is it making a comeback?

Q: What is edutainment and why is it making a comeback?

Edutainment is the deliberate blend of education and entertainment to make learning stickier. It's making a comeback in 2026 because attention spans tightened, traditional lectures plateaued in retention, and game and show formats consistently outperform on recall and engagement.

The story

Edutainment got dismissed in the 2010s as a kids-only category. It's back as a serious adult learning category in 2026 because the data favors it: people retain more when the format is participatory, emotional, and unexpected. SideHustle LIVE Labs is a working example. The 90-minute Labs format runs 4-5 students per team across four rounds (brainstorm, pitch, score, rotate) with Funny + Fundable scoring. It has run as one-time activations at Mars Hill, the University of Oklahoma, Penn State, Xavier, and the University of Wisconsin. The students retain the experience and the lessons longer than a traditional lecture and they're more likely to act on the entrepreneurial muscle afterward. The pattern generalizes well beyond entrepreneurship. Any learning category that needs higher retention and more action benefits from edutainment design.

What it means

If you teach, train, or build curriculum, audit your formats. Anywhere you're using a one-way lecture, ask whether a game, show, or participatory format would deliver the same content with better retention. The investment to redesign is one-time. The retention upside compounds.

Try it

• Play free at playsidehustle.com
• See us live: Sept 25 at Pershing Hall in Austin. luma.com/playsidehustle
• Email team@playsidehustle.com