VR is being touted as the next big thing, but finding a way to win people over in ways that 3D could not is a challenge. But combining VR with live entertainment is proving to be an audience winner. Could VR’s future lie in ‘Immersive performances’?
Every decade brings a new technology that rouses predictions that people will no longer leave their homes to be entertained: the 80s had VHS, the 90s, DVD and the 21st century has brought us HDTV, streaming services, video games and cheap supermarket booze. But the public, especially younger adults, respond by finding new excuses to get out of the house, from pub rock to night clubs to cabaret to festivals and large scale music events.
As television surpasses cinemas in picture quality and content, the traditional movie theatre looks like being in terminal decline, but big screen moving images are increasingly a part of exhibitions, concerts and other live events. For ten years Secret Cinema have been creating massive experiences around the screening of a classic movie, ranging from Brazil to The Battle of Algiers recreating the environment of the film with elaborate sets and armies of actors. Their biggest hit, Blade Runner, is playing in London again now. With audiences for some of their screenings exceeding 70,000, they are capable of putting old movies back in the UK box office top ten.
Collective experiences
People want collective experiences and they want those experiences to be increasingly all-consuming, participating in a narrative rather than remaining spectators. There has been a huge boom in ‘immersive’ live experiences which cut across the boundaries between theatre, art, games and cinema. Pioneers in the theatrical field in the UK were Shunt who operated from 1998 to 2014. At their peak from 2006 to 2010, they occupied the cavernous vaults beneath London Bridge Station.
Shunt shows were constantly surprising, as you were led through vast dark spaces, experiencing something that was part nightclub, part circus and part performance art, sometimes inducing the strange feeling that rather than watching theatre, you were actually a performer desperately trying to work out your part in an unseen script.
Perhaps the most extraordinary of immersive theatre experiences is that provided by You Me Bum Bum Train – so extraordinary, that I am not allowed to tell you anything about them other than if you ever get a chance to obtain tickets, move heaven and earth to see them. You will find yourself the centre of a series of bizarre but thoroughly real activities with a cast of hundreds and an apparent audience of one, that will, without a doubt, change your life.
The best known theatre company currently working in this genre is probably Punchdrunk, currently running shows in New York City and Shanghai.
,
Source: Redshark