Audiences & Immersive Culture
1. The Immersed Audience
Alongside this growth in branded experiences immersive theatre has boomed “aligning with gaming’s entry into the wider public consciousness”[1] and to “audiences who may not think that traditional drama…is for them”[2] instead they prefer to experience theatre “as if they have dropped down a rabbit hole into another world like Alice.”[3]
It was announced in January 2019 that the UK Government would be investing “£18 million [of] funding to create cutting-edge immersive experiences in sports entertainment, visitor experience and live performance.”[4] This is part of a Government initiative called Audience of the Future[5] a project looking at how technology is and will change how audiences expect to interact with “the world around us…and transform how we experience the world.”[6] Margot James MP, the Minister for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said in 2018 that the possibilities of “immersive media and the ability to create new experiences for users with augmented or enhanced environments…are endless.”[7]
The immersive economy in the UK report[9] in May 2018 was the first time any economic research had been done into the immersive sector at such a large scale , followed by another more detailed immersive economy report in November 2019[8].
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Eight key findings from these reports [9 +10] that relate to immersive specialist companies are:​​​
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The UK generates £660 million in sales which accounts for almost 9% of the global immersive market.
80% of immersive companies work in the creative and digital markets.
53% outside of London
47% inside of London
Immersive companies are located
59% are product based
70% are service based
51% are consultancy based
62.3% of immersive companies in the UK export their products and services abroad.
The UK Immersive sector employs about half a million people
97% of immersive companies said skills shortage is the biggest challenge to the sector
The study identified 253 immersive technology projects worth a total of £160 million in the UK
Whilst Government bodies are not always correct with their predictions this indicates that professionals from a wide range of sectors are aware of the changing nature of audience interaction especially in relation to technology. This is of such concern that the government is heavily investing in research to understand these changes to prevent the UK falling behind other nations in terms of audience engagement to prevent damage to the cultural sector, foreign investment and the tourism sector. Margot James also wrote that this governmental investment will “capture the world’s attention and double Britain’s share of the global creative immersive content market by 2025”[10] showing that the sector is set to experience huge growth.
2. Audiences are no longer passive
Lynn Gardner wrote in 2010 “after years of politely ignoring them, British theatre has woken up to the audience, and the role they play in any piece of work.”[12] This experience is “interactive, not passive”[13] much like video games but immersive theatre is not quite at the infinite level of freedom that the digital space provides.
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The appeal of immersive experiences are that audiences can “choose to eschew the central plotline of a game and wander off on series of side-quests”[14] allowing an audience to “build their own experience from an original vision, filled with personal moments.”[15] Felix Barrett, the artistic director of Punchdrunk believes that “playable shows are the future”[14] perhaps indicating the gaming direction that immersive theatre is travelling in.
Sophia Lee is an experience consultant who started her career as a performance designer before moving into marketing and has explained how she implements immersive theatre principles into her work in an article for her blog: “I am using ‘immersive’ as defined by the concept of ‘immersive theatre’; to describe performance where the audience member is an active participant and experiences the piece from literally being inside it…the decisions that the audience members make have a bearing on the actions of the actors and the direction of the story.”[16] Lee doesn’t argue that this theatre routed definition should define how a brand creates a piece of communication but instead uses it to understand the potential needs, emotional response and decisions that a customer might make during the user experience.
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Whilst there is a similarity in an immersive theatre company and a marketer’s understanding and approach to the user journey this alone will not create an immersive piece of communication and this is also where there is an obvious gap between the sectors in terms of applying shared knowledge. All industries that are looking at immersive are ignoring the immersive theatre sector and what they have already achieved.
The active audience is an essential aspect of immersive theatre and is perhaps one of the key defining features of it: “the audience are not merely passive bystanders… In an immersive theatre production, the audience in some way plays a role, whether that is the role of witness or the role of an actual character.”[17] Brands are now having to also engage with audiences in this way, as Ed Daly, the managing director Seeper, a digital events company argues audiences today are “no longer passive consumers – they are in complete control of how, when and where brands communicate with them and this makes the job of reaching them ever more complex.”[18]
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As audiences are no longer passive and are increasingly expecting a level of immersive interaction all services and products that require any level of audience interaction to succeed must adapt their communication techniques to connect.
3. What is immersive behavior?
There has been some criticism and discord within the theatre industry as to what constitutes immersive with theatre critic Lynn Gardner writing in 2014 that “immersive has become one of the most overused terms in British theatre.”[19] An opinion echoed by others such as Owen Kingston, the artistic director of Parabolic Theatre: “thing that annoys me more than anything else is the immersive f*cking bar. It’s just a themed bar…with some décor and a couple of waiters dressed up. But they call it immersive.”[20]
Due to the current demand for experiences many brands and companies have created pop-up bars some of which have been highly successful such as The Cauldron which markets itself as an “immersive class…where you wield a working magic wand and use molecular mixology to brew drinkable elixirs.”[21] Whilst these spaces are often highly Instagrammable and enjoyable place to drink they are unlikely to meet the criteria of true immersion in the eyes of a theatre professional and are often seen as places that “trains audiences badly...someone who shows up…expecting a 1920s Great Gatsby themed bar they behave very badly for a show that you’re expected to watch.”[22]
Through this association of immersive with the consumption of alcohol in a uniquely designed space some audience members are unable to recognize how attending an immersive theatre show might require a different attitude and behavior from them.
The issue is also that because immersive is such a new type of experience and very different to other experiences audiences have no reliable context to fall back on to tell them what the social conventions for behavior is. It also depends upon the experience, what occurs there and how believable it is as when someone is disconnected from reality they cannot be expected to act as though they are still in it.
[1] McMullan, T [2014] The immersed audience: how theatre is taking its cue from video games [Online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/20/how-theatre-is-taking-its-cue-from-video-games [Accessed 15th October 2019]
[2] Gardner, L [2014] Immersive theatre: living up to its name, or just an overused gimmick? [Online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2014/sep/19/immersive-theatre-overused-marketing-gimmick [Accessed 16th October 2019]
[3] Gardner, L [2014] Immersive theatre: living up to its name, or just an overused gimmick? [Online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2014/sep/19/immersive-theatre-overused-marketing-gimmick [Accessed 16th October 2019]
[4] James, M. Skidmore, C & Innovate UK [2019] UK takes centre stage in immersive entertainment revolution [Online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-takes-centre-stage-in-immersive-entertainment-revolution [Accessed 16th October 2019]
[5] GOV.UK [2017]Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund: for research and innovation [Online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/industrial-strategy-challenge-fund-joint-research-and-innovation [Accessed 16th October 2019]
[6] UK Research and Innovation [2019] Audience of the future [Online] Available at: https://www.ukri.org/innovation/industrial-strategy-challenge-fund/audience-of-the-future/ [Accessed 15th October 2019]
[7] Mateos-Garcia, J. Stathoulopoulos, K & Thomas, N [2018] The immersive economy in the UK The growth of virtual, augmented and mixed reality technologies [Online] Available at: https://www.immerseuk.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Immersive_Technologies_PDF_lowres.pdf [Accessed 12th November 2019]
[8] Mateos-Garcia, J. Stathoulopoulos, K & Thomas, N [2018] The immersive economy in the UK The growth of virtual, augmented and mixed reality technologies [Online] Available at: https://www.immerseuk.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Immersive_Technologies_PDF_lowres.pdf [Accessed 12th November 2019]
[9] IMMERSEUK.ORG [2019] The Immersive Economy in The UK Report 2019 [Online] Available at: https://www.immerseuk.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/The-Immersive-economy-in-the-UK-2019_Report-2-1.pdf [Accessed 19th November 2019]
[10] IMMERSEUK.ORG [2018] The Immersive Economy In The UK Report 2018 [Online] Available at: https://www.immerseuk.org/resources/immersive_economy_report/ [Accessed 12th November 2019]
[11] Mateos-Garcia, J. Stathoulopoulos, K & Thomas, N [2018] The immersive economy in the UK The growth of virtual, augmented and mixed reality technologies [Online] Available at: https://www.immerseuk.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Immersive_Technologies_PDF_lowres.pdf
[12] Gardner, L [2010] Wisdom of the crowd: interactive theatre is where it’s at [Online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2010/feb/28/interactive-theatre-connected-coney-lift [Accessed 15th October 2019]
[13] McMullan, T [2014] The immersed audience: how theatre is taking its cue from video games [Online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/20/how-theatre-is-taking-its-cue-from-video-games [Accessed 15th October 2019]
[14] Judge, A [2019] ‘Playable shows are the future’: What Punchdrunk theatre learned from games [Online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/games/2019/feb/08/playable-shows-are-the-future-what-punchdrunk-theatre-learned-from-video-games [Accessed August 3rd 2019]
[15] Judge, A [2019] ‘Playable shows are the future’: What Punchdrunk theatre learned from games [Online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/games/2019/feb/08/playable-shows-are-the-future-what-punchdrunk-theatre-learned-from-video-games [Accessed August 3rd 2019]
[16] Lee, S. [2017] The Parallels Between Designing Immersive Theatre and User Experience [Online] Medium.com. Available at: https://medium.com/@sophiapglee/the-parallels-between-designing-immersive-theatre-and-user-experience-543f32e07b5d [Accessed 17th May 2019]
[17] The Space [2019] What Is Immersive Theatre [Online] Available at: https://space.org.uk/2014/08/04/what-is-immersive-theatre/ [Accessed 26th June 2019]
[18] Daly, E [2015] Why people love immersive, interactive experiences – and how you can create amazing ones [Online} available at: https://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/features/interactive-design/why-people-love-immersive-interactive-experiences-how-you-can-create-amazing-ones/ [Accessed 16th September 2019]
[19] Gardner, L [2014] Immersive theatre: living up to its name, or just an overused gimmick? [Online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2014/sep/19/immersive-theatre-overused-marketing-gimmick [Accessed 16th October 2019]
[20] Lynch, E. Kingston, O [2019] Interview with Owen Kingston, Artistic Director of Parabolic Theatre Company.
[21] The Cauldron [2019] The Cauldron London [Online] Available at: https://thecauldron.io/london [3rd October 2019]
[22] Lynch, E. Kingston, O [2019] Interview with Owen Kingston, Artistic Director of Parabolic Theatre Company.