Entourage specialise in live, immersive, interactive experiences; people face-to-face with other people, living out a story. It’s our niche and we’re pretty proud of it.
Through 2020 and 2021, as for so many others, the live element of our business was put on pause, so we started to experiment with ways to create an authentic immersive experience within a digital world. How can you let your audience live a story and be an active participant within the confines of online? How could we put audiences in control from the comfort of their own homes? How do we create the same sensations, the same levels of stimulation, or moments of surprise, wonder and delight that live audiences seek?
We soon found other people exploring the same questions, and formed a partnership with Jack Pirie and Tom Syms, two creative directors with a deep background in creating live immersive experiences, film and interactive games. They had developed the Unbound platform, a new way of creating stories across multiple platforms and devices, hitting that sweet spot where the audience are at the centre of their story, whilst being active participants in it.
As we explored these possibilities together, the key principles we discovered were.
Give your audience choice.
A magical element of live immersive shows is that the audience has agency and choice in when, and how, they engage with the characters, story and experience. Empowering people to pick and choose how they engage with content leads to audiences crafting their own bespoke experiences.
Suspend the disbelief.
Immersive theatre audiences tend to come prepared to sink into a themed world. Online, this requires more work. Look at when the experience begins for the audience and how you are building the world you are inviting them into. Consider multiple pathways or touchpoints to build narrative before the experience even begins.
Seek interactive moments.
Audiences are 50% more likely to retain an experience if they have interacted with it, rather than been a passive viewer. Create a more human digital connection by considering authentic ways that people can develop connections and relationships within an experience. Put your audiences in the story and give them a part to play to create feelings and emotional reactions.
Lead with the story.
Follow with the technology. Using multiple channels or integrating tech into an experience can really create moments of surprise and blur lines to give a more immersive experience but using it just for technology’s sake is jarring and has the opposite effect. Always lead with the story first and look at which tools are the best to creatively drive the experience and draw audiences into the fantasy.
The Unbound platform continues to be developed with a debut experience due to be launched in 2022. For more information – get in touch.
