In the first report I talked about how immersive entertainment had broken into the mainstream and was attracting audiences in their droves. At the same time, it felt that we were in a Wild West period that was defined by some of the following characteristics:

• immersive was already becoming an overused word that was rapidly being applied inappropriately to a wide variety of experiences, service and products to the detriment of the burgeoning sector;
• in any sector experiencing increasing commercial success stories there were always going to be some low-quality cash grabs. The short-lived Willy Wonka Experience in Glasgow entered folklore as the benchmark for this with some misleading AI-designed marketing material contributing to hype that did not meet expectations;
• conversely even immersive experiences with high production values have come unstuck where they provide limited interaction. Audiences have increasingly high expectations: one case in point is Elvis Evolution. The mention of AI, holograms and other technologies in the original media cycle (whipped up further by the success of ABBA Voyage) seemed to promise a personalised encounter with a “life sized digital Elvis” that never quite materialised in the way audiences imagined. This led to a media backlash and lower user scores (2.5*, TripAdvisor) than for previous Layered Reality productions that had achieved significant success such as Jeff Wayne’s The War of The Worlds: The Immersive Experience (4.7*, TripAdvisor) and The Gunpowder Plot (4.6*, TripAdvisor). It is also worth noting that how you respond to audience reactions (good and bad) can make or break experiences and the team at Layered Reality have used audience reaction data to redesign parts of Elvis Evolution;
• unconvincing replica experiences have also led to poor audience reception. In particular projection art experiences have perhaps been the most maligned and diminishing audiences has seen a contraction in the market. These experiences undoubtedly played a key role in mainstreaming immersive experiences and have been wildly successful; but oversaturation, mixed reviews and multiple operators (producing experiences of variable quality) have led to challenges for both the new entrants and established players. It would appear their staying power has proved challenging with limited repeat visitation. Lighthouse Immersive, featured in our previous report, claimed over 7 million tickets sold and were operating in 21 North American cities at the time. They were a successful business with over 4,000 people. However, The Guardian reported that in 2023 “two of Lighthouse Immersive’s companies went through corporate restructuring under the (Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act) process”. In the same article, Lighthouse Immersive President Corey Ross told Crain’s, “Management decided to close several locations including Lighthouse Detroit and focus on touring productions. This refocus has been successful with touring shows currently running in Japan, Singapore, Mexico, USA and Canada.” They are now down to just two locations (Las Vegas & Toronto);
• major players are needing to diversify to maintain growth. Culturespaces is the largest permanent network of digital art centres globally with 10 venues and 5 million annual visitors. One of their sites, the recently opened Hall Des Lumières (New York) has been converted into an “immersive events venue” rather than a public facing venue. Sensibly, there is consolidation and collaborations between companies that might previously have been seen as competitors as they search for compelling new content for audiences. Lightroom has two venues and a touring program and has achieved 1 million visitors to date. Their content will be shown at Culturespaces venues through a new agreement.
• the question of temporary versus permanent, and the role of publicly funded market interventions is also increasingly important. The Lume in Melbourne, the largest digital art gallery in the southern hemisphere (created from repurposed space at Melbourne Exhibition Centre) also achieved great success setting a record for the most successful ticketed art exhibition in Australia’s history (Van Gogh) and over 2 million ticket sales in total. The parent company Grande Experiences^[1] has also sold in excess of 25 million tickets globally (perhaps only beaten by teamLab from the figures available). Under any measure The Lume would be deemed a success although it raises questions of what is permanent and what is temporary (and what is somewhere in between). These attractions are on time-limited leases, and they can be incredibly successful over a short-period or event (in this case the 4+ years in the case of The Lume). However, they are not necessarily forever like a public museum or gallery which receive subsidies for a broader mission such as conservation and to fund diversified programming (not everything needs to be a commercial hit). Having pioneered the immersive projection experience, Grande recognised this shift and while they still have an extensive touring business they have also identified and invested in the creation of more interactive experiences that can sit alongside or operate independently of their core immersive productions, most notably in Shared Virtual Reality through their Finding Vincent experience;
• even where audiences rate an experience highly, applying the right commercial model is of course essential to sustainable success. In this regard, defining something purely as a success or failure is also sometimes unhelpful. The much-anticipated Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser part of the Galaxy’s Edge development (which set new standards for immersion in a Disney theme park) was a highly anticipated move by the entertainment giant after previous successful collaborations and experiments with immersive companies such as Secret Cinema. The experience was generally well received but one factor in its demise was that it could not sustain the high prices (necessitated by a bloated operating model) and the experience was retired after just two years;
• there has been a move to tried and tested IPs as parts of the sector have become more risk averse, preferring to derisk projects by relying on attracting a baked-in audience for the IP. There is logic in this of course but there is a danger that by focusing on major IPs this could reduce investment in new concepts, making the next Punchdrunk or Darkfield less likely;
• other operators have reduced risks by focusing on major tourism cities evidenced by the two most recent location announcements by Meow Wolf (New York and Los Angeles).

The following quote perhaps sums up some of what we were seeing in the Wild West phase:

“Immersive art is the latest lazy lovechild of TikTok and enterprising warehouse landlords.” (VICE)

The Wild West period is still with us (and it was always going to happen), but the winners and losers are becoming clearer. As it was aptly described in a report by the Gensler Research Institute and the Immersive Experience Institute, the immersive sector is “moving into adolescence” or those “awkward teenage years” (Evolving Immersive). Others have used the term Immersive2.0 taking their cue from web terminology to reflect a maturing sector.

My own feelings are that those that leave a mark on audiences will ultimately flourish in the long-term. The best immersive work has the power to transform audiences through the experience. New publications from B. Joseph Pine II (The Transformation Economy) and Charles Melcher (The Future of Storytelling: How Immersive Experiences Are Transforming Our World) provide guidance here. These texts explore the emotive and transformative impact of experiences as well as some of the most innovative exponents and dissect their story worlds and thinking.

With this evolution in mind, in the next section we explore the fortunes of some of the key players.

^[1] For disclosure, the report author Peter Tullin was an Advisory Board Member for Grande Experiences