Anyone reading this report is probably either in the immersive sector already or interested in what immersive might do for them. It is fortunate for them therefore that research and surveys continue to indicate consumer preferences for immersive experiences. In fact, a staggering 86% of travellers now prioritise immersive experiences over traditional sightseeing (Skift/Qiddiya City, 2025)

As you might expect, Millennials and Gen Z are leading the charge with 80% and 75% respectively. As you will see below other sectors such as arts and culture sector are responding to this trend as changing audience expectations represents a clear and present danger to many organisations in this space.

Experiential marketing has also become integral to museum management to tap into these audience demands. According to a recent survey by (Culture Track by LaPlaca Cohen), visitors spend an average of 15 seconds in front of an artwork, and 81% visit museums for fun. This shift has led to phenomena like “Kusamafication” where museums create visually striking, Instagram-friendly exhibitions. While experiential marketing attracts visitors, it also risks turning museums into sanitised entertainment centres (a space where they would likely be outcompeted in any case). To avoid this, marketing activities must also reflect and reinforce the museum’s mission to preserve and educate.

Audiences also increasingly want technology as part of the experience with 81 percent of those surveyed said they would welcome digital experiences at art and design museums (Culture Track by LaPlaca Cohen)

Consumer research (conducted by Fever and Moment Factory) found that multi-sensory experiences are more likely to create lasting, standout memories. 91% of respondents saying these activities helped form powerful “core memories.”

Nostalgia continues to sell

An article by the BBC reported on the increasing move by brands to cash in on nostalgia. Atlas9 an immersive art experience recently opened in Kansas City. Visitors access the story world via a fictional movie theatre in the 1990s but this links to other environments including a 1930s Jazz Club, a pizza parlour and an arcade. Through Stranger Things, Netflix tapped into nostalgia for the 1980s (which also sucked in audiences who were not even born in that era). Immersive was an additional channel they adopted to bring the cinematic universe alive and as Greg Lombardo, VP Live Experiences at Netflix put it at a recent REMIX Summit, it allowed fans to experience that “Hero Moment” in the story. Netflix dipped its toes into the water with two collaborations with Secret Cinema in 2020 (in London and Los Angeles). Netflix later launched Stranger Things: The Experience in 2022 as well as a permeant Stranger Things themed experience at the new Netflix House venues (2025).

• Dig Deeper – REMIX Talk – Greg Lombardo, VP Live Experiences, Netflix (US)

Play

Play is a key trend in immersive experiences because it invites both children (and adults) to suspend disbelief, explore without fear of failure, and actively shape the story. It is a key device for transforming audiences from passive spectators into curious, emotionally invested participants.

In the family segment, a new immersive children’s museum, The Rabbit hOle, opened in a century-old warehouse in spring 2024. It uses literature themes as a jumping off point for a series of playable immersive installations holding the rights to the rights to 70 plus books to build experiences based on them. It was swiftly recognised in TIME Magazine’s 2024 list of the World’s Greatest Places.

Play spaces have also borrowed immersive elements. The Alnwick Garden, a leading UK visitor attraction owned and funded by the Duke of Northumberland is a prime example with the development of Lilidorei which it claims is “the largest play structure in the world.”

Opened in Spring 2023, the newest attraction at the Alnwick Garden has cost £15.5 million and is themed around a magical village of elves, dwarves and goblins. It is a collaboration with artistic playground designers Monstrum to develop the largest single play structure in the world. The attraction achieved over 150,000 ticket sales in its first year (open only during key tourism periods in the year). The Alnwick Gardens (and the connected Alnwick Castle experience) have a strong record of visitation and commercial success and have opened multiple experiences with immersive elements from The Poison Garden to the Alnwick Treehouse and restaurant, so they were able to deploy an innovative financing mechanism to fund the new venture. This included launching a charity investment bond (offering a 5% return) which raised £10 million. The bond was fully subscribed before the closure date (this happened just before the pandemic). To raise further interest in the project they collaborated on a documentary around the building of Lilidorei with MGM studios which also provided access to the Duchess of Northumberland, a key figure in the development of the project.

How is the cultural sector responding to these trends

Museums are still an important way that people encounter immersive experiences as they have tapped into the same audience trends. Experiential and immersive art continues to draw big crowds. An example is LUNA LUNA: Forgotten Fantasy at The Shed, New York, revives a long-lost cultural landmark first staged outdoors in a Hamburg park in the summer of 1987. Conceived as a travelling art amusement park, the original project never toured due to budget constraints and, in an extraordinary twist, its artworks were sealed inside 44 shipping containers and stored in Texas for decades. Today, the restored experience invites visitors to wander through André Heller’s Wedding Chapel, encounter David Hockney’s Enchanted Tree, navigate Roy Lichtenstein’s Labyrinth, and step into Salvador Dalí’s Dalídom, with roaming performers echoing the playful spirit of the original park. Restoration costs, estimated at USD$100 million, were underwritten by Drake and Live Nation. The revived project first reopened in a 60,000 sq ft warehouse complex at Ace Mission Studios in downtown Los Angeles before arriving in New York.

Mike Hewson’s, The Key’s Under the Mat at the new immersive space at Art Gallery NSW. Similar in purpose to the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, the Nelson Packer Tank is a former wartime oil bunker that has already been used for multiple immersive works. Hewson has transformed the space into a “combined park, playground, construction site and commons” that has also been described as “social sculpture” but whatever term you use it has proved incredibly popular with 90,000 visitors in its first month.

Adult play is also encouraged at these experiences and venues but some dedicated offers are appearing as with immersive art experiences starting to tap into some of the connected trends that commercial sector players have recognized. For example, Swingers – The Art of Mini Golf has tapped into the Competitive Socialising phenomenon which has spawned successful businesses ranging from Flight Club to Chaos Karts. Crazy or Mini Golf environments from Puttshack to Holey Moley have created immersive competitive socialising environments blended with F&B and Swingers, part of Melbourne’s Rising Festival has added a cultural element. Curated by Grace Herbert each hole is created by a female artist. The theme has is based Mini golf’s radical roots with the game dreamed up by 19th-century Scottish women who were banned from the “real” courses having refused to sit on the sidelines. Over the centuries, it’s continued to be a game for rule breakers, from fuelling a putt-putt craze in prohibition-era Los Angeles (as late-night booze haunts), to being one of the first desegregated public spaces in the USA in the 1940s. The success of the project saw the Melbourne run extended and now transferred to Brisbane Powerhouse.

Immersive First Institutions

In the 2023 report we explored how some cultural institutions were embracing immersive experiences as part of their offer. These ranged from early adopters such as the National Maritime Museum’s collaboration with Punchdrunk to multi-year partnerships such as that between Layered Reality and Historic Royal Palaces on the Gunpowder Plot Immersive experience at the Tower of London.

We also covered the rise of immersive first models such as Superblue in Miami which created a platform for immersive and experiential artists. Some of these spaces are commercial (such as Superblue) whereas others like The Shed in New York or Factory International in Manchester that offer flexible and changeable spaces for immersive works are not-for-profit. Chris Michaels took this further, writing in The Art Newspaper, and calling them Immersive Institutions.

Whatever terminology you prefer to use, several more purpose designed spaces for immersive work have come online since and some are of very significant scale. The UBS Digital Art Museum, Hamburg, Germany will be Europe’s largest digital gallery when it opens in 2026 and will include a teamLab Borderless experience.

Mercer Labs, New York is another immersive institution – a new museum of art and technology in New York City that blends large-scale digital art, sound, light and interactive environments to create physically and emotionally engaging experiences. Founded by artist Roy Nachum, it is 36,000 sq ft with 15 experimental exhibition spaces and positions technology as a creative medium. Mercer Labs has become a venue for the influential Tribeca Immersive festival.

The Museum of Art + Light in Manhattan, Kansas is dedicated to immersive, light-based and digital art experiences. Housed in a repurposed historic building, the museum presents rotating exhibitions by national and international artists and uses formats such as projection, sound and interactive media. This development is also interesting as a dedicated immersive institution beyond major metropolitan centres such as New York and London. Similar to Refik Anadol’s experiences, NFT income is also a part of the overall business model.

• Dig Deeper – REMIX Talk – John McGrath, CEO, Factory International (Aviva Studios), Manchester International Festival
• Dig Deeper – REMIX Talk – Erin Dragotto, Executive Director, Museum of Art + Light (Kansas, USA)
• Dig Deeper – REMIX Talk – Ulrich Schrauth, Artistic Director, UBS Digital Art Museum (Hamburg)