Latest news with #immersiveExperience
Forbes
15 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Netflix Expands Offline With Fan-Fueled Entertainment Concept
Two years ago, Netflix made the announcement that it would open 'Netflix Houses,' an offline concept where visitors would be able to shop, eat, play, and interact with their favorite shows in real life. Today, the streaming giant is sharing more details about the first location openings and what consumers can expect to experience, indicating a clear intention to develop brand touchpoints through physical retail and engage with consumers in additional ways. Netflix is officially expanding its footprint outside the digital sphere, with two Netflix Houses opening in Philadelphia and Dallas by the end of the year, and a third location in Las Vegas later on. The concept: extending its hit shows into real life and allowing visitors to immerse themselves and interact with the shows they love in-person. The spaces are developed to feel like playful, highly engaging touchpoints where fandom can be lived and expressed. 'Finally, a place where the Netflix story you can't get enough of becomes something real that you can play, shop, and taste. This is fandom coming to life, where you can actually step inside the worlds you've been watching and loving for years,' shared Marian Lee, Netflix's Chief Marketing Officer, on a company article. Netflix will merge the physical and digital worlds by offering VR games, where individuals will be able to play as the main character of a show or movie, play games, trivia nights and catch a movie while having a snack. The spaces are designed to feel like a giant playground for the fans of Netflix original shows and movies. These spaces - which will be permanent locations - signal a bigger ambition for Netflix: expand beyond screens to become a broader part of today's culture by interacting with people as they play, eat, and socialize. This move echoes Disney's evolution as a global cultural phenomenon that grew into a brand that's part of our culture, with theme parks being part of everyone's childhood (and adulthood too). By investing in physical spaces and experimenting with offline play and retail, Netflix is building experiences from scratch and hoping to anchor itself as a cultural brand, potentially hoping to turn into a lifestyle brand that spans beyond streaming. At a time when streaming platforms are fighting for subscribers, physical spaces provide a differentiated, engaging and fun platform that doesn't compare with digital offerings. Building these year-round, evolving immersive experiences will allow the streaming giant to embed itself further into modern culture and hopefully build loyalty amongst consumers. Gen Z's appetite for unique experiences and social-media worthy environments will certainly find a home with these Netflix Houses, expanding the streaming's giant's reach as a cultural brand and universe. In bringing its hit shows into the real world through permanent spaces that merge retail, dining and entertainment, Netflix is opening a new chapter aimed at turning content into culture and engaging with consumers far beyond the screen. Having already expanded into retail through fashion and lifestyle collabs, the streaming player is now going all in to grow its brand and stand out amidst fierce competition in the entertainment industry. A question looms: is this type of entertainment concept the future of theme parks?
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Cyclists, rowers and an aerobatic display: photos of the day
A preview screening of a new immersive experience, Our Story with David Attenborough, at the Natural History Museum Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Alfie Williams and Jodie Comer at a photocall for the film 28 Years Later Photograph: Scott A Garfitt/AP The peloton at the start of stage two of the 88th Tour de Suisse Photograph: TimSpain's Carlos Alcaraz at a practice session on day eight of the HSBC Championships at the Queen's Club Photograph: Ben Whitley/PA A dried out section of Woodhead reservoir after a prolonged period without rain Photograph: Phil Noble/Reuters The Austrian president, Alexander van Der Bellen (left), welcomes his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy Photograph: Heinz-Peter Bader/AP Smoke rises from the Sharan oil depot after an Israeli airstrike Photograph: Majid Asgaripour/Reuters Palestinians carry a man injured as he was queuing for aid to hospital Photograph: AFP/Getty Images The aftermath of an Iranian missile strike on a residential area Photograph: Moshe Mizrahi/Reuters People board a smuggler's boat in an attempt to cross the Channel to England Photograph: Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP/Getty Images People row on the River Avon near Warwick Castle Photograph: Jacob King/PA The aerobatic flying team Patrouille de France perform a flyover at the international Paris air show Photograph: Christophe Petit-Tesson/EPA Men work to remove a crane that has stood in front of the Uffizi gallery for almost 20 years Photograph: Massimo Paolone/LaPresse/Shutterstock Pupils take an exam at the Lycée Michel de Montaigne Photograph: Sébastien Bozon/AFP/Getty Images Japan's Haruka Kaju competes against China's Jing Tang at the Judo world championships Photograph: Ferenc Isza/AFP/Getty Images
ABC News
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Smaller shows at Adelaide company Patch Theatre makes 'profound' impact on children
Patch Theatre artistic director Geoff Cobham knew a radical change in direction was working in one emotional moment after a show. "This child came up very animated and told us all about how he controlled the show, [he said] I made the lights work and he had a great narrative about the whole show," Cobham said. "And his teacher's standing behind me and she's crying and we're going, 'Alright, what's wrong?' "She said, 'Oh, he's non-verbal,' which is making me cry now," Cobham said. That magical moment was an early sign this Adelaide theatre company was onto something in changing the way it stages shows. It has opted to move from just putting on the traditional two shows a day in theatres seating 400 children, to an interactive, smaller scale theatre. These new-look shows create immersive worlds for kids, a set up that's quick, agile and can be repeated up to 22 times each day. "I think the way children engage with their world has changed over the last few years and they're so curious and aware of themselves in the world," Patch creative producer Sasha Zahra said. General manager Penny Camens said the experience of a family with medical needs showed the smaller, more involved performances are working. "One family said their children were anxious, not sure what they were going to experience," she said. "They were reassured by our performers and had the most joyous experience. "Their medical needs made it difficult normally to leave the house, it was just a real treasured family memory to see the freedom and expression and joy for the children in that experience." Patch Theatre performed to more than 76,000 children across Australia and internationally last year. Its immersive shows were set up in museums, libraries and community hubs. Cobham said the impact was significant. "I've made a lot of art over the last 40 years and rarely do I affect my audiences in a profound way like this," he said. "Finally I've found an audience who are completely involved in the art and it is making a difference to their lives." The work has also helped Cobham deal with the loss of his partner Roz Hervey. She lost her battle with motor neurone disease in 2024, choosing to access South Australia's voluntary assisted dying provisions as her symptoms worsened late in the year. Her close knit family, who includes actress Tilda Cobham-Hervey, knew the following months would be painful. The performing arts had been with the couple every day. "Our life together over the last 38 years has been about art, if we're not making art, we're talking about it or going to it," Cobham said. "Our holidays are not lying on beaches, they are being at festivals and absorbing art." Cobham knew part of the healing process included returning to work steering children's arts company Patch Theatre. "There was no time for grief, she doesn't want that, she wants joy, she wants us all to live our lives to the fullest, so we're endeavouring to do that." Tilda will be staying close to home in 2025, helped by Screen Australia announcing financial backing for her movie It's All Going Very Well No Problems At All. "Her film that she's written, is going to direct and star in, has been funded, so she'll be making a film in Adelaide over the next year which is great cause I get to have her here," Cobham said. He's just returned to working full-time as he continues to deal with living without Roz. She may have worked with a different arts company Restless Dance, but her influence at Patch Theatre was also significant and is still felt to this day. "In the last few months when we've been making theatre, invariably we'll get to a point in the show where you've got to decide one thing or another," Cobham said. "We often ask ourselves what would Roz do?"
CNET
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CNET
Meow Wolf's Weird Physical Universe Is Planning to Extend Into Augmented Reality
I've spent years exploring immersive physical and digital spaces and dreaming of how they can overlap. A new partnership is finally making my dream come true. Immersive installation creator Meow Wolf and Pokemon Go creator Niantic Spatial will join forces to expand and extend existing Meow Wolf spaces into a mixed reality game. It will live on your phone, activate and change your physical experience in immersive exhibits, and could even follow you home. The partnership is starting this year with a closed beta test of the world-mapped AR overlays in Meow Wolf's Denver space, Convergence Station. The location-based technology is also designed to bleed outside the physical exhibit and appear on phones. It may even show up on future AR glasses, starting with plans for 2026. "The belief here is that the Meow Wolf universe really could extend both physically and digitally across the entire globe," Vince Kadlubek, Meow Wolf co-founder and chief vision officer told me. Our exclusive conversation included Meow Wolf CTO John Lee and the heads of Niantic Spatial's team. I'm imagining some sort of bizarre Pokemon Go-like series of interdimensional quests that start in the exhibits and continue when you're home, and that's not far off from what's being planned. The partnership could make Meow Wolf's sensory-overload experiences feel even more fascinating, but it also indicates where other immersive physical spaces and theme parks could be heading soon. Meow Wolf dabbled in VR a few years ago, recreating one of its Denver installations in Walkabout Mini Golf. The new partnership with Ninatic aims to directly layer virtual elements into physical exhibits via your phone. Mighty Coconut Physical spaces get augmented reality layers Meow Wolf, a Santa Fe-based collective, has already created five different immersive interactive installations around the US and has plans for two more in the next several years. It's a company I became recently obsessed with because it's already been heavily dabbling in the physical-digital, real-virtual blend. All their experiences are created to feel like they're tapping into interdimensional portals, while their actual exhibits are made out of largely physical materials by hundreds of artists. Now Playing: Meow Wolf and Interactive Experiences - Tech Therapy 06:55 Extending into virtual and augmented reality is a goal Meow Wolf has had for years. The company made a virtual version of its Denver exhibit inside a VR mini golf game in 2023, and played around with AR in its apps back in 2019. The folks from Niantic and Meow Wolf told me that the current move is different. It's actually aiming to layer the real-world exhibits with AR that'll be mapped onto the physical spaces, using visual positioning tools Niantic Spatial started building in games like Pokemon Go. And it's going to work with physical things in the exhibits. "We've been doing a lot of work with what we call mechanical connectivity, so that things that you do in the app can affect the actual physical exhibition via local state changes or big takeovers, and vice versa," Meow Wolf CTO Lee said. When I spoke to Meow Wolf earlier this year, I learned that that the planned New York installation will explore mixed reality in all new ways. This looks like a big part of those plans. "We are in a unique position -- because we have these indoor environments, we are able to build this show system infrastructure that is quite sophisticated," said Kadlubek. Peridot, a mixed-reality pet made by Niantic Spatial, shows some hints of where Meow Wolf's collaboration could be heading. Screenshot by Scott Stein/CNET A field test for the overlap of real and AR The closed beta test later this year will change the way entering and moving through Meow Wolf's Denver location will feel. It'll start with an AR mission outside involving an outdoor portal, leading to quests inside the Meow Wolf space. Maps with portal locations could start appearing in Meow Wolf's app with AR quests. Meow Wolf and Niantic Spatial "What you did outside of the exhibition matters now to what you're doing inside of the exhibition, and the quest continues as you find additional clues and solve additional puzzles inside the exhibition, " explained Kadlubek. "You then have a reward of the exhibition itself physically responding to you completing that quest, being able to recognize who you are and what you've done, and responding with light and sound projection specifically for you. After you leave the exhibition more AR points on a map show up. The proof of concept stops there, but you can start to understand how important that piece is to scaling to other cities, and then eventually scaling globally." After the beta, a public version of the overlaid AR experience could arrive at either Meow Wolf's Denver or upcoming LA locations, according to Kadlubek. Balancing virtual distractions with real experiences The blending of the virtual and the physical is a difficult territory, one promised by AR companies for years. Companies like Niantic Spatial and Snap have built tools and apps that add AR onto physical landmarks or scans of real-world mapped areas. Niantic Spatial used to have a number of AR-enabled games, but sold off most of its gaming properties to Scopely and is now focused on spatial technologies with real-world mapping. Recent projects like Peridot, a whimsical augmented reality pet that looks like it's running around your home, show off how some of the technology could work. The Meow Wolf partnership sounds almost like Pokemon Go, but it'll work both at exhibits and away from them. Kadlubek suggests that the ideal mix is about 20% AR at physical locations and 80% real, and 80% AR when using the app anywhere else. "It's been a long time coming to get the technology to a place where the experience is realistic enough and feels precise enough. And you know, our huge focus is on this idea of connecting bits to atoms, really bringing immersive digital content onto the canvas of the 3D world," said Thomas Gewecke, Niantic Spatial's president and COO. "We think the time has come for this sort of capability." Kadlubek and Lee acknowledge that they don't want these new AR experiences to overwhelm or distract from the physical installations themselves, which are already a celebration of sensory overload. But the AR and mapping additions to Meow Wolf's app could help add quests and deeper layers of substory. Tapping into one of Meow Wolf's terminals at its Las Vegas exhibit. Little RFID cards serve as souvenirs and a sort of interactive game layer. Future layers of augmented-reality interaction with the physical space could do even more. Scott Stein/CNET Where will the real and virtual overlaps blend and bleed here and everywhere else? Meow Wolf's exhibits already have layers of games and secrets, triggered by in-world interactive objects like phones, or by tapping NFC-triggered cards to terminals. Universal's Super Nintendo World and Wizarding World have quests and challenges that get triggered by bands and wands that tap or wave in certain places at the right time. Watch this: What I Unlocked in Epic Universe With Nintendo Power-Up Bands and Harry Potter Wands 08:00 These extra pieces all need to lean on more evolved phone apps, a thing that not everyone visiting a theme park or an art exhibit wants to start pulling out of their pockets. With Disney and Universal, phone apps have become overloaded. Meow Wolf's evolving phone app, which I tried in the Santa Fe and Denver exhibits this spring, is more mysterious -- and it's already overlapping with the physical places. Turning on a "psychic sensor" lets the app scan for Bluetooth beacons in the rooms you walk through. After your visit, you can open it up and see secrets you've unlocked: artifacts you may have missed, videos, bits of lore. Meow Wolf's Kadlubek and Lee say the Niantic Spatial tech infusions will keep evolving that app's creative overlaps in new ways, and add an ARG-like series of game quests that will keep following you. They could even be used, potentially, to connect to pop-up experiences, other partner art exhibits or to trigger or organize performances. The ideas remind me of the potential I saw when Niantic first announced its Lightship world-mapped developer platform years ago, and a collaboration with immersive theater company Punchdrunk that was canceled before anything was created. I've seen promises of these types of overlaps and connections come and go. Are they actually starting to happen? This time, however, the overlays could be coming in all sorts of ways. Meow Wolf's exhibits are going to be built for this tech integration going forward, said Lee. Existing exhibits are being retro-fitted and enhanced -- with the exception of the original, less tech-infused House of Eternal Return in Santa Fe. I already got lost in Meow Wolf's mazes of dripping art, losing myself in other worlds. The collective's weird merchandise sits on my shelves, like escaped pieces of my journey. But maybe I'll be living in Meow Wolf's world all the time in the future. Is that where all our theme parks are heading, too?
South China Morning Post
05-06-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Why go to the cinema? ‘Shared reality' experience makes viewers feel they're in the movie
In a Los Angeles cinema, a trench-coat-wearing Neo bends backwards to dodge bullets that spiral over the viewer's head, as the sound of gunfire erupts from everywhere. This new immersive experience is designed to be a red-pill moment that will get film fans off their sofas at a time when the movie industry is desperate to bring back audiences. Cosm, which has venues in Los Angeles and Dallas in the United States, is launching its dome-style screen and 3D sets in June with a 'shared reality' version of The Matrix , the cult 1999 film starring Keanu Reeves as a man who suddenly learns his world is a fiction. 'We believe the future will be more immersive and more experiential,' said Cosm president Jeb Terry at a recent preview screening. Neo (Keanu Reeves) appears on screen with an extended display of the power plant towers during the first 'shared reality' screening of the movie The Matrix on an immersive dome screen inside Cosm Los Angeles. Photo: AFP 'It's trying to create an additive, a new experience, ideally non-cannibalistic, so that the industry can continue to thrive across all formats.'
