Sage & Jester, a groundbreaking new arts production company, have today announced the world premiere of STOREHOUSE, an ambitious, immersive production that will challenge your sense of truth and trust. Opening on Wednesday 4th June at Deptford Storehouse in London, the show is set to be one of the most artistically daring and large-scale immersive theatre shows in the UK this year. Photo: Sage & Jester STOREHOUSE will invite audiences to step into a world where humanity's stories have been carefully archived since 1983, at the dawn of the internet. As audiences navigate a rich and awe-inspiring underworld, they'll confront the powers that shape everyday narratives and question their own role and behaviours within society. The production, which is set across a space equivalent to two football fields, will throw audiences into a battle between the defenders of Truth and the keepers of Order. As the STOREHOUSE crumbles and secrets unfold, the true cost of controlling the narrative will be revealed, urging audiences to examine their vulnerability in the face of power. Fusing art, technology, and cutting-edge storytelling, this immersive theatre show will have audiences question how they can protect themselves—and others—from being manipulated by powerful forces within this digital information ecosystem. The event's description is as follows: Step inside STOREHOUSE, a bold new immersive theatre experience that will leave you questioning everything you think you know about truth and trust. Hidden within a vast warehouse – once the paper store of Britain’s most influential newspapers, you’ll uncover a sprawling, ever-shifting archive. Now used by an underground collective to house all the digital information ever shared – every news story, message, and meme is being meticulously stored in a quest for a higher collective wisdom. But as narratives begin to clash and compete, and with their last remaining founder fading fast, a successor is desperately needed. Someone must decide what’s preserved, what’s rewritten and what’s destroyed… Are you ready to take a stand? Led by Founder and Concept Creator Liana Patarkatsishvili, Creative Director Sophie Larsmon and Lead Producer Rosalyn Newbery, STOREHOUSE brings together an award-winning team of writers, designers, and artists. The creative team includes Story Producer Donnacadh O'Brian (Operation Mincemeat, Southwark Playhouse/Riverside Studios) and co-writers Tristan Bernays (Boudica, The Globe), Sonali Bhattacharyya (King Troll, New Diorama), Kathryn Bond (IT’S TRUE, IT’S TRUE, IT’S TRUE, Barbican Theatre), Katie Lyons (Peaky Blinders: The Rise, Caryn Mandabach Productions), Caro Murphy (Disney’s Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser) and Rhik Samadder (The Indian Boy, The Globe). Production design is by Alice Helps (Lost Origin, Almeida Theatre and Factory 42), with costume design by Julie Belinda Landau (Wishmas, Secret Cinema), lighting design by Ben Donoghue (Ezra Collective, Wembley Stadium, UK Tour) and sound design by James Bulley (Distortions in Spacetime, Museum of Science and Industry). Liana Patarkatsishvili, Sophie Larsmon, Alice Helps and Zoe Snow Photos: Laura Lewis STOREHOUSE will take place in Deptford Storehouse, over a 9,000 square metre space, which was once used as the paper store for News International, now known as News UK. The vast set is derived in large part from raw, organic and bio materials, ensuring an eco-conscious experience. Sage & Jester was founded by Liana Patarkatsishvili, a Georgian-born media executive and cultural innovator with extensive experience in the television and arts sectors. She envisions STOREHOUSE as a catalyst for critical thinking about information consumption and its impact on society. Speaking on STOREHOUSE, Liana Patarkatsishvili comments: My whole life has been inextricably linked with the media and information ecosystem. I have witnessed firsthand the systemic impact of manipulated information on a personal, national and international level. With this awareness comes the need to share that insight and take steps to affect change. Sage & Jester’s Creative Researcher Aoife van Linden Tol comments: Our work at Sage & Jester is informed by extensive and rigorous research, ensuring that we have an in-depth understanding of the issues in information ecosystems. We have conducted years of desk research as well as original data collection, allowing us to gather important insights about how susceptible our audiences are to misinformation and how it affects beliefs, behaviour and decision-making, particularly around the major issues of our time. We then weave this knowledge into the creative process, providing checks and balances to ensure we are encouraging behavioural change that aligns with our mission. STOREHOUSE runs from 4th June to 20th September at Deptford Storehouse. Tickets are priced from £27.50. For more information and to book tickets, visit sageandjester.com

Photo: Helen Murray The cast has been announced for the highly-anticipated immersive production STOREHOUSE, in which audiences will step into a 9,000-square metre underworld where humanity’s stories have been archived since the dawn of the internet. STOREHOUSE is the debut production from Sage & Jester, whose collective experience spans the likes of Secret Cinema, Punchdrunk, BBC Studios, and Warner Music. The show promises to be one of the most artistically ambitious, large-scale immersive theatre events ever to be staged in the UK, delivering a cutting-edge and thought-provoking journey. Leaving us questioning our role in today’s information ecosystem, a multi-award-winning cast of voiceover actors will guide us through the STOREHOUSE narrative as the four founding members. They will be joined by a cast of real-life performers in Deptford. The voiceover actors involved in STOREHOUSE include the multi-award-winning Toby Jones (Mr Burton, Tetris, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Mr Bates vs The Post Office) and celebrated Meera Syal CBE FRSL (Paddington 2; The Kumars at No. 42; Yesterday; The Devil's Hour), joined by the formidable Kathryn Hunter (Black Doves; Poor Things; Harry Potter; Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead) and rising star Billy Howle (Dear Octopus; The Perfect Couple; On Chesil Beach; The Serpent). They will bring to life a group of radical visionaries, who believed that by storing and analysing all human knowledge, they could ignite the dawn of a new digital consciousness. As their surroundings crumble and secrets unfold, the true cost of controlling the narrative will become clear as audiences are urged to examine their vulnerability in the face of power. Image: Sage & Jester Leading the physical company in Deptford will be Nina Smith (Britannia, Sky; Doctors, BBC), Dawn Butler (Doctors, BBC), Bonnie Adair (Here We Go, BBC; Innocent, ITV) and Zachary Pang (Disney Channel Asia; Julie: The Musical, The Other Palace). They will be joined by Nat Kennedy (Dorian, Reading Rep Theatre), Elizabeth Hollingshead (The Last Disturbance of Madeline Hynde, Maximum Effort), Chris Agha (The Marriage of Figaro, Royal Opera House) and Harriett O’Grady (Peaky Blinders: The Rise, Immersive Everywhere). As well as Rob Leetham (Little Red Riding Hood – A Trial, Alnwick Playhouse), Scott Karim (The Great, Hulu; Dracula, BBC), Grace Hussey-Burd (I’m Angry But Look At This Dog, Unbound Theatre) and Darrel Bailey (Shadow & Bone, Netflix; EastEnders, BBC). Composer Anna Meredith will provide the musical finale for the production, as audiences are thrust into a battle between the defenders of Truth and the keepers of Order. Immersed in an underworld of knowledge, audiences will explore a vast, ever-shifting digital archive stored by an underground collective—where every news story, message, and meme ever shared has been meticulously preserved in a quest for higher collective wisdom. As the final founder fades and narratives collide, audiences will become part of the story, navigating this epic digital labyrinth, making choices, and determining the future of this precarious world. Fusing art, technology, and cutting-edge storytelling, STOREHOUSE is set to be one of the UK's most artistically daring and large-scale immersive theatre experiences, challenging how we perceive truth, trust and the narratives that shape our world. STOREHOUSE runs from 4th June to 20th September at Deptford Storehouse. Tickets are priced from £27.50. For more information and to book tickets, visit sageandjester.com

Sage & Jester has announced a programme of events to run in conjunction with their upcoming immersive show, STOREHOUSE. Designed to spark critical conversations around misinformation, identity and digital truth, the season will feature partnerships with SXSW and Intelligence Squared, as well as collaborations with renowned artists and creators, including Stephen Fry. Photo: David Levene VOCALIZE (22nd May – 1st June) is a provocative new interactive installation that will premiere at Hay Festival, inviting audiences to confront one of the most urgent questions of our time: what happens when your voice is no longer your own? Visitors will step into a soundproof booth and enter the fictional world of the Vocalize Talent Agency, where they take part in an interactive voiceover training session led by Sir Stephen Fry’s AI clone. Guided by his vocal double, participants will record their own professional voice reel - until the experience takes an unexpected turn. Sir Stephen Fry comments: VOCALIZE is a brilliant fusion of art and entertainment, revealing both the wonders and pitfalls of AI. As this technology shapes our future, it urges us to pause, reflect, and question: where are we heading, and who gets to decide? Produced by Indigo Storm and conceived by award-winning artists Francesca Panetta, Shehani Fernando, and Halsey Burgund, VOCALIZE invites audiences to engage directly with AI-driven voice cloning. Through its interactive format, the installation aims to spark critical thinking about how AI could impact everything from entertainment to misinformation. The creators of VOCALIZE comment: We wanted audiences to feel what manipulation truly means. When the viewer becomes the protagonist, the boundary between truth and fabrication starts to dissolve - and that shift becomes deeply personal. As artists, we're drawn to exploring AI not only to unlock its creative potential but also to confront the risks and ethical dilemmas it presents. Image: Sage & Jester Across 15th - 25th May 2025, Sage & Jester will unveil a prelude to their upcoming show with an immersive pop-up experience across London. Offering a roaming portal into the unexpected, the Storehouse Truck will share the first glimpses of the production, which debuts this June. Prepare for intrigue, illusion, and a world where reality bends at the edges, as the truck journeys through London’s most vibrant corners, including South Bank and Camden Market. The Storehouse Truck will then find its home at SXSW London in Shoreditch for a week-long residency. Sage & Jester was proud to be announced last week as an official brand partner at SXSW's inaugural European event, and a curated panel is due to be announced soon. Photo: Laura Lewis Founder of Sage & Jester, Liana Patarkatsishvili, comments: We're thrilled to partner with London's inaugural SXSW, a hub of creativity and innovation. As an impact-led arts organisation, Sage & Jester aims to uncover manipulation and misinformation. We're not just storytellers; we’re catalysts for a more informed society. Our values align perfectly with SXSW, and we're excited to reveal more about our debut production, STOREHOUSE, and upcoming events. On Wednesday 30th April, a fast-paced new virtual game show, CUT THE BS, will be hosted by Capital FM presenter and online creator Niall Gray. In this lively TikTok series, special guests will be challenged to see if they can spot lies, fakes or perhaps they are switched on to the world of misinformation. As online audiences call out media manipulation in real time, Sage & Jester aims to empower and educate viewers through the series. Image: Sage & Jester Finally, as part of the wider programme, Critical Conversations, a trio of live talks in partnership with Intelligence Squared will dig deeper into today’s most pressing misinformation themes at The Pleasance Theatre in Holloway. On 13th May, Tricks, Trolls, and LOLs: Comedy’s Crash Course in Spotting Lies sees BAFTA-nominated comedian Rachel Parris (Late Night Mash) unpack how humour can dismantle falsehoods and expose the absurdity of disinformation. On 19th May, Truth Hurts: From Conflict to Connection with author and extremism expert Dr Julia Ebner, will explore how polarised media is fuelling everyday division—and how to engage more constructively. Finally, on 20th May, Sage & Jester teams up with Intelligence Squared for How To Cure Your Algorithm, with Jamie Bartlett (The People Vs Tech) leading a vital discussion on digital manipulation and how to reclaim control of your online narrative. Founded in 2024, Sage & Jester is an arts production company on a mission: to entertain and empower through bold, immersive, socially urgent work. From theatre to festivals, live talks to TikTok, Sage & Jester creates experiences that strive to get people thinking. Their debut production, STOREHOUSE, opens this June in a 9,000-square-metre underworld in Deptford, London. STOREHOUSE runs from 4th June to 20th September at Deptford Storehouse. Tickets are priced from £27.50. For more information and to book tickets, visit sageandjester.com

Image: Sage & Jester Ahead of Sage & Jester's STOREHOUSE opening in Deptford next month, we spoke with two of the show's co-writers, Katie Lyons (writer for Peaky Blinders: The Rise and The Paddington Bear Experience) and Rhik Samadder (columnist for The Guardian and author of 2019's I Never Said I Loved You) to discuss why a show focusing on misinformation is so vital in today's world, how the pair became involved in the project, and what audiences will take away from STOREHOUSE. IR: Hi Katie and Rhik! Thanks for speaking with us today. We'd love to start by finding out how you both became involved in the creation of STOREHOUSE, and what about the show’s concept, which focuses on misinformation, spoke to you when you first heard it? Katie Lyons: I was initially brought on as a Narrative Consultant to support the early iterations of the production. That role soon evolved, and I became a co-writer, working alongside a team of theatre and experience-makers to develop what would become STOREHOUSE. The scale of the ambition - and the urgency of the ideas we’re exploring - feels both daunting and exhilarating. As a parent of two children, I often find myself questioning, worrying, even feeling overwhelmed by what the digital landscape will look like in the years ahead and how it will shape their understanding of the world. That deeply personal concern—the human connection to these big, abstract ideas - is what drew me in and kept me invested as a writer. Rhik Samadder: I was approached by one of the producers I’ve known for 20 years. Misinformation is such a daily part of our lives now. It’s one of the disturbing online phenomena that have become atmospheric, to the point they’re surprisingly hard to look at or examine, but they shape our real world and our future. Photo: Helen Murray IR: Liana Patarkatsishvili, the founder of Sage & Jester, has had first-hand experience of seeing how those with power can try to control the truth. Were there other real-life examples of misinformation that inspired the writing of the show? Rhik: I can’t speak for Liana, as she’s so brilliant at speaking for herself, and her story is so personal and powerful. But she was always bringing our attention to totalitarian-leaning regimes across the world, which all use the same playbook. Controlling information and collapsing truth has always been every dictator’s 101. Now tech billionaires do the same, in invisible ways that most people are unknowingly complicit in, for their own unknown objectives. Well, not that unknown - it always comes down to money and power. Katie: I live in Washington DC and the US elections coincided with the timing of the writers room for STOREHOUSE. The campaign ads, the debates, the news platforms, and the misuse of statistics were all solid examples of mis/disinformation in action on a daily basis. The writers gathered lots of articles and other real-world digital references to develop the story and characters of STOREHOUSE. Through our research and roundtable discussions, the deeper impacts of this information landscape became clear - heightened division within communities, the rise of far-right rhetoric, the othering of marginalised groups, and the pervasive spread of confusion and falsehoods across media platforms. Photo: Helen Murray IR: STOREHOUSE is going to be a massive show, both in subject matter and square footage at the Deptford venue. How do you go about making sure a story as large-scale as this connect with the audience on an individual level? Katie: Throughout the development of this production, we’ve kept the audience experience front and centre of everything we do. With a work like this, so much of its meaning and impact only becomes clear once it’s shared with an audience, so we’ve intentionally built in multiple stages of audience testing. These moments allow us to learn, adapt, and better understand how people connect with the world of the show. As I’ve said before, it’s a conversation. We want to empower the audience to actively inhabit the space, not just observe it, to feel that their presence shapes the experience. Rhik: It can’t be abstract. You have to stage real characters with a specific problem and high stakes. The audience will connect the dots to their own experience - you have to trust that people are smart. Katie also introduced us to her idea of HIIT - High Intensity Immersive Theatre. It’s a dynamic experience style. Basically, as soon as the audience gets used to one mode of interaction, you switch it up, so they’re always figuring something out. She’s a genius. Photo: Helen Murray IR: STOREHOUSE is opening in a couple of weeks' time. Can you tell us a bit about what audiences can expect from the show and what you hope they'll come away from the show thinking about or feeling? Rhik: They can expect an epic experience that will hopefully take up a permanent place in their imaginations. Katie: There’s nothing like this. It’s vast, bold and playful—an invitation to the audience to join the conversation, to observe the mechanics of misinformation and disinformation in a really exciting, jaw-dropping theatrical playground. Photo: Helen Murray IR: Finally, what do you hope audiences will come away from the show thinking about or feeling? Katie: The goal is to create an audience experience that is both surprising and unforgettable - one that leaves them not with tidy conclusions, but with provocative questions about the tools of misinformation and disinformation shaping our daily lives. They may not walk away with all the answers - we certainly don’t have them - but I want them to leave with a heightened curiosity and a more open, reflective mindset about their own engagement with social media and news platforms and the content they encounter and share. Rhik: Audiences will take away an understanding of how certain companies and bad agents will attempt to weaponise them. And I hope they feel an overwhelming awe at our interconnectedness. STOREHOUSE runs from 4th June to 20th September at Deptford Storehouse. Tickets are priced from £27.50. For more information and to book tickets, visit sageandjester.com

Photo: Jurassic World The Experience Jurassic World: The Experience is set to open this May in Battersea, throwing open the iconic Jurassic World gates to a must-see family-friendly adventure that brings one of the biggest blockbuster franchises in cinema history to life for dinosaur fanatics, big and small. Created by NEON, a global leader in producing experiential entertainment, Jurassic World: The Experience is the inaugural experience at the brand-new NEON at Battersea Power Station visitor space located next to the London landmark. Photo: Jurassic World The Experience Jurassic World: The Experience, which returns to London due to phenomenal demand, will be the first of many live entertainment experiences to be staged at the new attraction. Visitors will walk amongst pre-historic giants and get up close and personal with countless different species across two floors of curated Jurassic World immersive environments within this new venue. Fans of the franchise and audiences of all ages will be immersed in scenes inspired by the beloved films including walking beneath a towering Brachiosaurus, exploring the lab of genetic development, coming face to face with Velociraptor Blue, and even get a rare up-close look at the most vicious dinosaur of them all, the Tyrannosaurus rex. Guests will also be able to interact with baby dinosaurs, discover and engage with actual fossilised dinosaur bones. Photo: Jurassic World The Experience The opening of Jurassic World: The Experience will coincide with the launch of the highly anticipated film Jurassic World: Rebirth, which opens this July. A 24-hour presale begins on Tuesday 29th April via Fever, with tickets available on general sale from Wednesday 30th April. Ron Tan, CEO and Executive Chairman of NEON says: Jurassic World: The Experience is the perfect extension of the popular film franchise, offering the fusion of entertainment, science, and cutting-edge technology, and allowing fans to step into the awe-inspiring Jurassic World like never before. The opening of Jurassic World: The Experience at the iconic Battersea Power Station will mark the first of many world-class IP experiences that NEON will be showcasing in London through our partnerships with leading global studios and partners around the world. Together, we are excited to bring this globally celebrated experience to the heart of London. Photo: Jurassic World The Experience Sam Cotton, Head of Asset Management at Battersea Power Station Development Company, said: We are delighted to be working closely with NEON to bring an exciting new cultural space to Battersea Power Station in the year that Wandsworth has been named the London Borough of Culture. Jurassic World is iconic, making it the perfect first experience to showcase next to this iconic London landmark. We are excited to see Londoners and visitors from further afield enjoy the experience and everything else that Battersea Power Station has to offer. In celebration of this brand new venue opening at Battersea Power Station, NEON will provide 5,000 complimentary tickets to local schools, allowing students to experience the exhibitions firsthand. Additionally, 1,000 free tickets will be offered to local charities, community organisations, and youth groups. Photos: Jurassic World The Experience Jurassic World: The Experience opens at NEON, next to Battersea Power Station, from 23rd May 2025. Tickets start at £22.90, with prices depending on time slot. For more information and to join the waitlist, visit jurassicworldexperience.com/uk

Photo: Netflix This Spring, fans of Netflix’s award-winning South Korean survival drama, Squid Game, will be plunged into the heart of the drama in the brand-new ‘Squid Game: The Experience’ which will be opening its doors at Immerse LDN at the Excel London Waterfront. Heading to the UK capital after successful runs in New York, Sydney, Seoul, and Madrid, ‘Squid Game: The Experience’ is presented by Netflix in collaboration with The Luna Entertainment Group and LETSGO. Photo: Netflix Perfect for fans of the series and thrill-seekers alike, teams compete for 60 minutes as they take on five challenges inspired by the television series’ nail-biting tasks including ‘Red Light, Green Light’ under the watchful eye of the haunting Young-hee doll, the nerve-wracking Glass Bridge and the intense Marbles game. Photo: Netflix Once the game is over, players can gather in the Korean-inspired Night Market where they will be able to purchase exclusive ‘Squid Game: The Experience’ merchandise, buy a range of food and snacks and pose for a celebratory photo opportunity to remember the experience. Squid Game: The Experience will open at Immerse LDN this Spring. The waitlist for pre-sale access is open now, ahead of tickets going on general on-sale on 25 April 2025. For more info, and to sign-up for presale, visit squidgameexperienceuk.com

Following our recent hands-on preview of Bridge Command, we sat down with Owen Kingston and Tom Black of Parabolic Theatre to find out more about their immersive starship simulator experience. Photo: Alex Brenner Thanks for taking the time to speak to us. We'd like to start by asking about the initial version of Bridge Command that ran at COLAB Factory in 2019/2020. Can you tell us about the experience of creating that version and what you learnt from it? Owen Kingston: I first had the idea back in 2010, and even at that point I was like "This could be colossal. We just need the resources to do it." I hadn't even started Parabolic at that point, I was experimenting with some immersive-style work, but I started Parabolic Theatre in 2016 so it was several years after that before I ever had an immersive theatre company. A couple of years into having that [Parabolic] we started to think we had the resources to maybe do a very cheap trial of the show. Bertie, who ran COLAB Factory, had space in the basement. Another show had pulled out unexpectedly, and he said "Do you just want to come and make something? Use it for R&D. If you make something and it's cool, sell some tickets for it in the autumn." Initially, we were just going to set up the computers as a tech test, then we thought "We should maybe put some walls around it..", so we put the walls around and then it was "We should make it feel a bit more like a spaceship..." and we just got carried away. That was the initial moment where I put it all together and thought "This is really cool. If only we had the money to do it bigger". We didn't know anybody at that time who might be willing to invest in something that was completely untested. Initially, we were just going to test it for a week. We put some tickets on sale for quite cheap and just sent it out to our mailing list. It was our fastest-selling show - within 72 hours, everything had gone. So then we thought, "Okay, we'll put another week on." And that sold really well. So we did those two weeks of testing, and it went so well - people really enjoyed themselves, even in a very janky piecemeal type set. We thought, "Let's just run it for as long as we can run it and test out our idea of episodic narrative when we do different shows in this world." Photo: Alex Brenner We took a couple of weeks break to fix a few things and make the set a bit more robust and add a few things that we wanted to try, and then we put a month's tickets on sale. Then we just kept adding another month, another month, another month, another month. What we found was that there was a fall-off - probably about 50% of people who came once didn't come back - either because they didn't like it or because they did like it, but the production values were pretty poor. But for the 50% or so who did come back, nearly all of them came back for every single episode that we made. We did nine episodes in the end, and basically everyone would come back for all of them. That's when we realised, "Oh, there's a business model here which works in theory. If only we can make a set that's incredible" So how did you come about securing the funding for this new version of the show? Owen: It was November 2019 - this group booked in, just people who had heard about us from friends of friends. They came along, played the show, and the next day I had an email that said "I played your show yesterday - the set is awful, but we loved the idea. We're an investment company, we would love to talk to you about investing in this and making a really high production value version." I was a little sceptical, but I emailed back and said, "Well, that sounds great, let's have a meeting." I went to their very posh offices in the City, and that's when I was like, "Oh, okay, maybe this is real." I sat down with their head guy, Sonny, for a couple of hours, and hammered out a deal. I was bowled over by their enthusiasm and readiness to be involved, not just by putting money into it, but also wanting to learn how we make this kind of work and then help shape the world of the show and all that sort of thing. We signed that deal in January 2020 - while we were still running the cheap version of the show. We ran it right the way through to the start of the pandemic, and when the pandemic happened, I thought, "Oh, that's it. This deal's going to fall apart." Sonny phoned me up one morning right after the pandemic started, and he said, "Look, don't worry about anything. Keep working on it. Keep doing everything you're doing. Eventually, this pandemic's going to be over, and people are going to want this stuff more than ever". Photo: Alex Brenner One of the common threads that runs through a lot of Parabolic's previous work is the idea that the audience has real agency to control and shape the world they are in through meaningful decisions, with the world responding to them. How do you go about integrating that into a show of this scale? Owen: It has to be built in from the ground up, and that was something that was a real challenge in the beginning - working with incredible theatre professionals who were used to working on linear narrative. So, the lighting designers, the sound designers, all the tech teams, were used to building a show that people progress through linearly, and that isn't as flexible as this. Getting that thinking into everybody's head at the beginning was a challenge because it really is a seismic shift in how you think about planning and how to make something. But if you build it in from the ground up, then actually it becomes very natural, and it becomes the natural endpoint. It's all about shifting that thinking from, "We are going to tell you a story, which is going to be fixed and will always happen the same way every time." It's changing from that to being, "We are going to tell a story together, and we're going to take what your decisions are and we're going to make them meaningful by bending the world of the show around it." How do you manage and keep track of all the decisions guests are making throughout the show? Owen: Really the main tool for that is the back-end database - which is built in Notion - that we use to track everything that the audience decides to do. So long as you can track it, and so long as you can feed back to the audience what the consequences of their decisions are, then it works. The important thing is that you have a way of managing the data and feeding back to the audience the consequences of that data. It's all very well making a decision, but if you never see the impact of it, you might as well have not made it. So we can track all that stuff at the back-end - we can make it meaningful - but unless they know that what they've done - X has produced Y - the whole exercise is pointless. So the feedback mechanism and then the method of data handling, Tom has been the pioneer for that... Tom Black: We did a show a few years ago called Crisis? What Crisis?, which was a politics simulator. That was powered by a spreadsheet that did all of that. It had the cause and effect, and it crucially gave us a way of feeding back into the room "So here's what's happened because of this." With this show, we've commissioned the building in something in Notion, which is much more impressive - it's cloud-based and it's going to have thousands of people in it. It saves not only what your crew did, but what you did. Let's say you come back with none of the same people, all the things you did on that previous mission are saved not just to the crew, but also to you. If you get mixed and matched with some people that did some other things, the Gamesmaster running the show can be like, "Okay, right, it's interesting, we've got a mixed crew - this person went off and did this before and made some enemies in this sector, and these guys have an alliance with these other guys. Let's make a little scenario where they have to maybe be in conflict with each other in an interesting way". But as Owen says, it's knocking over the domino and telling people that's why this happened. Photo: Alex Brenner And it's that level of responsiveness that really makes the entire thing fluid right? Owen: Yeah. It's the thing computer games can't do on their own. Computer games have got to have a decision tree. The developers are not going to be sitting next to somebody, editing the game on the fly for them to accommodate what they want to do, you've got your pre-baked choices. That's what I think is unique about interactive immersive theatre - the live actor, present in the room, who's got a brain. That's why it bothers me that so many immersive shows just make an actor follow a script. Why are you wasting your unique thing that nobody else has? Why not empower that actor to be able to make meaningful decisions about the world of the show? Having done a bunch of other shows before, we've been able to test these things in the small scale. That's enabled us to scale it up really. Tom runs his show, Jury Games, and some of those principles are really evident in that. We've made shows like Crisis? What Crisis? and For King and Country - we've had thousands of hours of being able to test that, being able to pivot the story around audience decisions, so we've got good at it. But I think that makes it difficult to imitate this well because there are so many pitfalls, and it's only really through doing it that you learn how to avoid those. Photo: Alex Brenner You've developed quite a detailed backstory for the shows world. Can you tell us a bit more about the world visitors to Bridge Command will enter into? Owen: What we're trying to do is deliver on the promise of shows like Star Trek, where it's not just about flying around and 'pew-pew, we're going to blow up a load of bad guys'. You are a representative of an Earth government, and you're there to try and be responsible. Initially, the show is centred around an asteroid belt 22 light-years away from Earth called the Adamas Belt. In the backstory of the world, humanity fled to a planet close to that asteroid belt when Earth's environment completely collapsed and they went to that planet to hopefully start again. They then discovered that the planet wasn't as habitable as hoped, and was stuck in this asteroid belt for a number of years, trying to figure out what to do next. Eventually, they crack a new power generation technology that allows everybody to return home to Earth and fix the environment. The current version of the show is set when Earth is being prepared, the environment has been sorted out, and humanity has taken to the stars again, and has returned to the Adamas Belt to recover some of the stuff that it left behind, only to find that a whole human civilisation has sprung up there in the preceding 40 years. So you've got a united government of the entire solar system, Earth and Mars, called the UCTCN. They've arrived in an area of space where nobody knows who they are, and nobody cares. They feel a responsibility towards humanity as a whole, so they're trying to bring these people into the fold, but a lot of them don't want to go into the fold. They're quite happy doing their own thing. There's a lot of political wrangling. We've got five or six different factions in the Adamas Bely, including a whole bunch of people who live on an old ark ship with forests and fields built into the ship so that they can grow food. There's a whole bunch of space criminals who run a gambling operation out of an old space station. There's a whole bunch of pirates who just go out and steal people's shit. There's a variety of independent miners and different factions who all know each other. The UCTCN becomes a kind of police... trying to make everybody work together for the good of humanity. Photo: Alex Brenner By design, every visit a guest has will be different right? You won't end up repeating the same story beats if you visit for a third or fourth time. Owen: Either on the Military or the Exploration team, we can run a lot of unique missions. You could even repeat the same mission parameters in some cases, but make the actual mission feel completely different. You might be ordered to go on a routine patrol around some mining asteroids - that could be the mission, but what happens then is completely up for grabs. You might get attacked, you might encounter somebody who's got a distress call, and then you've got to get them onboard the ship and see what's wrong with them. You might find a weird anomaly in space that you then have to study. Maybe it destroys the shield generator or something. There are all kinds of different potential scenarios you can run so that the mission objectives can then be taken in all kinds of different directions. What do you hope the average audience member that comes to this would take away from it afterwards? What do you want them to leave having felt? Owen: I really like the idea of giving people the experience of genuinely feeling like the best version of themselves. You come aboard the ship and you get to be your idealised self - you get to be the hero. You get to do the heroic thing. You have scenarios thrust in front of you that give you the opportunity to step up. If you'd always imagined, "What would I do if my ship was under attack and I was Captain Picard?" You get the opportunity to test that and hopefully come away feeling ten feet tall because you've nailed it. If people have grown up watching sci-fi TV shows, we want to try and deliver on the opportunity to do the cool things that you've always wanted to do., like set jets to warp core, trigger the self-destruct, or sit in the Captain's chair and go 'Engage'. Tom: I really like the teamwork side of it, especially when people who don't know each other play. I've been to immersive shows where by the end I've hugged people, and I then realise after I've hugged them that I didn't know them until two hours before. I'd love for that to start happening. Because of how much you have to work together if you're going to thrive, it really bonds you together. Owen: The first version of the show, we had people who made friends, they'd come and they'd booked separately - they didn't know each other - they played a game together and then they were like, "I was really fun, should we book the next one together?" And they came back and now they're mates, which is lovely. That kind of thing would be really great. Photo: Alex Brenner Bridge Command begins previews on 27th March in Vauxhall. Tickets can be booked via bridgecommand.space with prices starting at £40.00.

Photo: World Experience Organisation World Experience Organisation (WXO) today announced a new venue for its forthcoming World Experience Summit (WXS 2025). The event will run from 29th April through to 1st May 2025 at Phantom Peak in Canada Water. This year’s Summit will see Phantom Peak’s enigmatic in-world corporation JONACO join as Official Corporate Partners, with the town’s residents offering up a host of surprises across the event's three days, including a keynote from Mayor Pocket himself. World Experience Summit debuted at Phantom Peak in 2023 before moving to New York’s House of Yes for its 2024 event. This year’s event will see over 500 of the Experience Economy’s leading professionals descend on East London - over double the number who attended 2023’s debut event. Photo: World Experience Organisation In the two years since they last hosted the Summit, Phantom Peak has gone from strength to strength. Its average yearly audience has grown twofold, and its community now boasts almost 1,000 superfans with a 30% return rate. It's received multiple awards, including the TripAdvisor Travellers’ Choice Award (top 10% of things to do worldwide), and a coveted blooloop Innovation Award, naming it the global best immersive experience for 2024. Speaking on WXO 2025, World Experience Organisation founder and CEO, James Wallman, comments: Phantom Peak is a living, breathing example of the Experience Economy in action. Not only is it an amazing immersive experience for an intergenerational audience, it's a financially successful operation that shows how experiences can be as profitable as they are awe-inspiring. Nick Moran, co-founder of Phantom Peak, said the following on hosting WXO 2025 for the second time: Phantom Peak is where it all started for the World Experience Summit, and we can’t wait to welcome back old friends as well as meet the new ones the WXO’s fast-growing event is attracting. Photo: World Experience Organisation World Experience Summit 2025 is part of the debut London Experience Week, which takes place between Monday 28 April and Friday 2 May 2025. As well as hosting the third iteration of the World Experience Summit, London Experience Week showcases the best of the UK capital city’s blossoming experience economy. A citywide Experience Safari will be announced in the coming weeks, with a full roster of London venues and events that both WXS attendees and the public can visit free of charge. London Experience Week partners London & Partners are working with WXO to secure the very best in London venues, with an initial roster to include exclusive behind-the-scenes experiences at the likes of Monopoly Lifesized & London Tea Tour, Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds: The Immersive Experience, Battersea Power Station, The Crystal Maze LIVE Experience, Bridge Command, Cahoots Borough, Frameless, Paradox Museum, Alcotraz, ExCel's Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition and the forthcoming Minecraft Experience: Villager Rescue. WXO Head of Content, Mike Goldsmith, comments: Phantom Peak is a superb example of the capital’s experiential creativity and business smarts and thus the perfect venue for London Experience Week. As well as hosting the best speakers, talks and experiences, we are contractually obliged to announce that World Experience Summit 2025 will also see JONACO, the company that canonically runs the town of Phantom Peak, join us as Official Corporate Partners. That means the Summit will not only see the more ‘interesting’ townsfolk of Phantom Peak entertain WXS attendees over all three days, but Mayor Pocket has some ‘surprise announcements’ which he threatens to reveal in the keynote session he has insisted on giving. We here at WXO are a little concerned but have been told that an unwavering belief in the Cosmic Platypus and JONACO will guide us. Gulp. Photo: World Experience Organisation The World Experience Organisation Summit will run from 29th April to 1st May 2025 at Phantom Peak in Canada Water. London Experience Week will run from 28th April to 3rd May 2025 at various venues around London, with more details to be announced. To find out more about the events and book tickets, visit worldxo.org

Described as 'London Fashion Week for Experiences', WXO's Summit and London Experience Week 2025 will bring together industry leaders from around the world for a five-day exchange of ideas later this month. Photo: World Experience Organisation With WXO's (World Experience Organisation) London Experience Week and World Experience Summit 2025 only a few weeks away, details of this year's speakers, talks and event schedule have been announced and will feature talks from some of the people behind Las Vegas' AREA15, Meow Wolf, Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, Secret Cinema and Punchdrunk. Kicking off the five-day long event on Monday 28th April, a London-wide Experience Safari invites guests to see the inner workings of various immersive and interactive experiences with backstage tours of Titanic: Echos From The Past and Minecraft Experience: Villager Rescue, a tour of L-Acoustic's spatial sound showroom in Highgate and the d&b Immersive Technology Experience Centre at the Science Museum. Video: World Experience Organisation Also on offer is a tour of Old Royal Naval College that dives into the site's extensive history as a filming location for the likes of Bridgerton and Pirates of the Caribbean, as well as two Campfires from Joe Pine (author of The Experience Economy: Competing for Customer Time, Attention, and Money) and Amber Case, who will discuss 'How To Craft Seamless Experiences'. In the evening, London Experience Week invites attendees to the immersive, prison-themed cocktail experience Alcotraz in Hoxton, before a social at Good Hotel London in Royal Victoria Dock. Photo: World Experience Organisation On Tuesday 29th April, the World Experience Organisation Summit will take over the entirety of Phantom Peak for three days of talks, campfires, workshops and networking. Starting things off, there's 'Down The Tunnel' and 'Cross The Threshold' - two experiences produced by George Berlin and Frances Viera Blanc, as well as an address from WXO's CEO James Wallman on the State Of The Experience Economy. From there, attendees will have a choice of events to sit in on from the likes of Sasha Frieze (The Chief Event Officer's Playbook), Louis Alfieri (AI Unleashed: Redefining the Entertainment Ecosystem), and Maria Redin and Lou Pizante (Cracking the X-Stack), all occupying different corners of Phantom Peak's 30,000-square foot venue. There's a range of real-world case studies also set to be discussed throughout the day, including a look at how ITV have previously used experiences from the likes of SWAMP to launch TV shows, with plenty more case studies still TBA. Later in the day, the question Does Everything Have to be Immersive? will be posed to the Summit, before Tim Hill details the 4 Steps to Superfans, and Laura Citron explains Why Cities Need Experiences. Rounding off Day 1 of the World Experience Summit 2025, there's a networking session before the winners of the World Experience Awards are announced. Photo: World Experience Organisation Diving into Wednesday 30th April at Phantom Peak, there's the intriguingly named Immersive Audio Magic Mushroom Experience in the morning, the two-hour long Unconference - which is made up of 12 different sessions spread across the venue, in which any attendee can take the stage to share their knowledge - finishing off the morning. The afternoon welcomes Luke Mitchell and Mike Goldsmith to discuss Boomtown Fair's sprawling, festival-wide immersive elements, and Bristol's iconic venue, Wake The Tiger. Alongside that, a roundtable featuring some of the minds behind Elvis Evolution (Andrew McGuinness), The Traitors Experience (Neil Connolly), ABBA Voyage (Ryan Amstad) and Minecraft Experience (Olivier Goulet) will discuss developing and opening IP-driven experiences in the Town Square. David Shulman will host a workshop on getting Investor Ready, and Tracy Sorgiovanni from Riot Games and Justine Tommey from Major League Baseball are just some of the confirmed names set to be hosting case studies that afternoon. In the evening, the London Experience Night Safari kicks off... Photo: World Experience Organisation Giving attendees the opportunity to head out into the city to see, hear, and feel first-hand everything London's experience economy has to offer, over 20 experiences will open their doors to the WXO community, including Bridge Command, Phantom Peak, ABBA Voyage, Lost Estate's Paradise Under The Stars, Avora, Moonshine Saloon, Bubble Planet, Jury Games and Come Alive! Thursday sees a Live WXO Campfire with James Wallman, the return of the Unconference, Bompas & Parr's Kirsten Wilson and Sam Bompas discussing why F&B Is The Essential Immersive Ingredient, Patrick Flynn and Sermad Buni share how Squid Games: The Trials came to be, and there's a workshop on spatial storytelling from Mel McGowan alongside numerous other talks, workshops and case studies, before a Summit Wrap Party at Immerse LDN. On top of this, the summit will also feature a host of extra content and experiential areas, which will feature surprise pop-ups, across all three days, and there are dozens of additional talks and workshops not mentioned here. Video: World Experience Organisation The finale of London Experience Week on Friday 2nd May features a creative studio visit at Marshmallow Laser Feast, a visit to the opening night of spatial audio festival Polygon Live, exclusive tours of BoraBora at Outernet, and an exclusive LXW backstage tour of Layered Reality's Elvis Evolution, which is set to open this summer. Across the whole of London Experience Week, attendees will also have access to discounts on tickets to a huge range of experiences across the city, including ABBA Voyage, Frameless, Lost Estate's 58th Street and Paradise Under The Stars, Moco Museum, The Paddington Bear Experience, Monopoly Lifesized, Minecraft Experience and Tutankhamun Immersive Experience. Tickets for London Experience Week are on sale now via worldxo.org, with applications currently open for their Scholarship Programme, which allows those early in their careers or unable to afford a full-price ticket to potentially still attend. Photo: World Experience Organisation All of the information shared in this article is subject to change. Please check the most up-to-date version of London Experience Week schedule here. London Experience Week will run from 28th April to 3rd May 2025 at various venues around London. To find out more about the events and book tickets, visit worldxo.org

You Me Bum Bum Train, The legendary immersive theatre show, return to London's west end November 2024 after an eight-year absence Photo: Kirk Newmann You Me Bum Bum Train (YMBBT), the legendary, boundary-pushing immersive show has announced its long-anticipated return to London's West End for November 2024. Founded by Kate Bond and Morgan Lloyd, You Me Bum Bum Train returns following a near-decade absence. The show was previously named as one of The Times' 25 best plays of the century, won the Milton Shulman Award for Outstanding Newcomer at The Evening Standard Awards in 2010, was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Affiliate Theatre at the Olivier Awards in 2013 and was the Barbican's fastest ever selling show. You Me Bum Bum Train is a surreal, exhilarating, euphoric and mind-bending participatory experience that sends its audience, or ‘Passengers’, through a dream-like carousel of scenes, fantasies, and, in some cases, life-altering experiences. Loved by hundreds of thousands, yet shrouded in near-total secrecy, since 2004, YMBBT has redefined what it means to be part of an audience. For the last show in 2015, there were over 120,000 people applying for tickets in the first minute of release. Photo: Kirk Newmann YMBBT will open in London’s Covent Garden in November 2024. The show’s impact depends largely on Passengers having no idea what they are about to experience so they react authentically. Secrecy is therefore an integral aspect of You Me Bum Bum Train, with no details about the production released whatsoever. This ensures the show is experienced at its best, with the proven power to change lives and perspectives. All Passengers sign NDAs preventing them from sharing what they have experienced. The ballot will close at 9pm BST on 17th September. Each ballot entry will allow passengers to book a maximum of two tickets which are priced at £99.99 + booking fee. Successful participants will receive an email on 20th September with a link to purchase their tickets. All unclaimed tickets will re-enter into a second ballot, the date of which is TBA. There will be a concessionary ballot ticket price for those on job seeker’s allowance. Photo: Kirk Newmann In addition to experiencing the show as a Passenger, You Me Bum Bum Train relies on a community of volunteers who come together and contribute their time, resources and skills to make a special, meaningful experience for audience members. Without this community, the project would not be affordable and would simply not exist. YMBBT offers free training and certification across production, stage management and performance. Many of the volunteers have gained newfound confidence and skills, and more come on board with each show, many of them ex-passengers who want to contribute to the next show themselves. The ticket ballot for You Me Bum Bum Train opens on 3rd September at 10am via bumbumtrain.com. The show was run from November 2024 in a Central London location.

As the platypus-loving town of Phantom Peak prepares to open its door for the ninth season of its ever-evolving story, we speak to Creative Director Nick Moran about the past, present and future of the open-world immersive experience. Phantom Peak's Starlit Summer. Photo: Phantom Peak Immersive Rumours: Hi Nick! Thanks for speaking with us today. Phantom Peak's new season opens in a few days time, and with it the show will have had 100 total trails since first launching. If you think back to the opening season of Phantom Peak, at the time did you envisage the show hitting a milestone like that? Nick Moran: I think when we started Phantom Peak, we had an idea of what we wanted to do. We knew where we wanted to go, we knew the overall ending of where Phantom Peak was going to get to. I've always known that from the beginning. I was very confident that the trails system - which is kind of Phantom Peak's thing - would be something people would enjoy. But how we did them and how we do the show in seasons, that was something we learned as we went along. If you'd said to me that we'd do 100 trails back then, I think I would have felt quite unwell, considering how much effort it was to get those first 16 up. Looking back now, they feel quite rudimentary. The trails are much more sophisticated now overall in terms of what they do, how people experience them, the things we use and the content involved. That first season was as much of a learning experience for us as for anyone else. IR: How has planning for Starlit Summer been going? The turnover between seasons is so short this time around you must have to start planning the next one as soon as one opens. Nick: Yeah. This is season nine now, and I would say with each season we get slightly better at planning everything in good time. We knew we had a small amount of changeover time between these two seasons so we have been more organised and I think that's really helped us. The town of Phantom Peak is mostly what it is now and while things do change, there's only so much we can do in that time - we're a temporary venue in London and we can't build a skyscraper, you know? Generally, when a season opens I already know three or four trails that I want to do next season pretty much from the word go, and then the rest emerge when the theme does. It's really just trying to work out what the theme is for the next season and how we make it into good fertile ground for stories that move the town along in a realistic way and feels different but also familiar at the same time. Phantom Peak's Festival of Innovation. Photo: Alistair Veryard IR: Phantom Peak as a town has constantly been evolving season upon season. There’s been multiple expansions and reworks of areas, on top of a string of new inventions being introduced. Why is it so important to keep introducing these changes to the show as part of each new season? Nick: The thing we've always tried to do with new additions to Phantom Peak is that they fill a gap in what we we need, as well as feel different in the way that people interact with them. For me I'm a content guy - I want to make loads of content that people are excited by. The tangibility is so important, so when we're building those machines and inventions that power the experience, it's all about making it so people will smile when they're doing it. People love the Paracryptic mirrors! They love them so much. It's one of those things you don't know at the time. We'll prototype something like that and then we're like, 'Okay, great, it's gonna be unleashed on 1000s of people. So let's see, let's hope it's everything it needs to be'. It's about building something that's robust and exciting as well. Last season the new addition was Klacky. When writing the trails and planning the seasons, we’re always thinking 'It'd be really good if...' and for a long time we really wanted a text input where you could type anything into it, which is so versatile across stories. While it may not be as big or exciting as maybe a new building or something, for us they're big and complicated and takes a lot of manpower and resources. Also, who doesn't love Microsoft Word's Clippy?! We were basically thinking 'What if we make a real Clippy, but it's a dick?'. Every season for us is a question of what can we do that will delight the audience the most with the resources we have. We're a young scrappy startup company - we're not rich - but we're always just trying to think about customer, customer, customer. Phantom Peak's Festival of Innovation. Photo: Alistair Veryard "For me, it's as fun as ever. I think I enjoy coming up with the stories as much as I ever have done. But I think it's consistently the same level of difficulty." IR: The show's first season had 16 trails, but over time you settled on 10 trails (plus a secret one for those who complete them all) being the ideal number for a season. Has it become easier to write them now that number is lower, or has the added complexity made it harder? Nick: The trails are much harder, much more difficult to write now. In season one, there was no real bar for how they should be and every single trail was a new articulation of the world's story. That was exciting enough from our perspective to keep us motivated, but now I'm always like 'Hey, I'm going to tell a story about Perigate this season. What do I want to say that's new about Perigate that I'm excited about? What do I want to say that we've not done before with Perigate?'. For me, it's as fun as ever. I think I enjoy coming up with the stories as much as I ever have done. But I think it's consistently the same level of difficulty since the summer of last year which is probably when we started to hit our stride on how we want to put together the trails. Phantom Peak's Wintermas. Photos: Alistair Veryard IR: You've also shared with us in the past that you'll write several more trails for a season than what ends up in the final show. Can you explain the process of coming up with each season's storylines? Nick: The process is actually really simple. We come up with trails for every character - probably five to eight different ideas for everyone, and then we'll whittle down to the best few. It's a process of elimination, so there's always more ideas. They don't always get written up as full trails, but they'll get quite far along, some of them. In most seasons there's a trail which doesn't work and then it's thrown out probably two weeks ahead of opening. A new trail will come in and basically replace it, because there's always just one that doesn't quite work, and I'm not having people have a bad experience. I'm a perfectionist, so for me, they wouldn't have gone into the show if they didn't work, and they weren't great. I think a couple trails each season, in my opinion, really smash it out of the park. We're always trying to one-up ourselves and write the best thing we can. IR: Which trails from Festival of Innovation were stand-outs for you? Nick: I really liked Some Body to Love - the Halloway trail that involved Jonas. Also, The Last Laugh and Sweet Disposition were my favourites, but it's also a question of personal favourites more than anything else. Oh, and The Very Best! It's great, it's fantastic and had some amazing moments in. Phantom Peak's Festival of Innovation. Photo: Alistair Veryard "Phantom Peak at its heart has a comedy bent to it. Comedy is such an important part of the world - it's got to be funny." IR: The Very Best was our favourite from last season. The title sequence and physical trading cards were such a great parody of Pokemon. You've done a string of trails that parody pop culture in previous seasons, are there any trails in Starlit Summer that do the same? Nick: Well, Phantom Peak has always been culturally literate right from the beginning. I think it's about finding something that we find exciting enough to use as a fun hook for a story. You'll be pleased to know that we're doing our first-ever sequel trail. We've never done one of those before, but we're doing a second Monstermon trail because people loved it so much. We always want it to feel like something where people are in on the joke if there are jokes. That it's exciting, that it's relevant, that it's fresh, that it's frothy and funny. Phantom Peak at its heart has a comedy bent to it. Comedy is such an important part of the world of Phantom Peak - it's got to be funny. And drawing on those things that we find funny is very, very important. Phantom Peak's Wintermas. Photo: Alistair Veryard IR: When writing new trails, how do you balance making them satisfying for new guests, but also rewarding for those who have visited Phantom Peak many times and are more clued up on the lore and backstory of the town? Nick: The most important thing is to focus on a good story. If you focus on a good story that is about a character in a situation with a motive, with stakes that you care about, with a journey that you care about, and people understand what's going on from the beginning, then it shouldn't matter whether it's your first time or your final time. The secret trail is always our opportunity to tell something which is very context-heavy. We need context for the deeper fans - that's always the way that I consider that. As for the rest of it, for example, if we do a trail on Dr. Furbish, I'm going to go out of my way to make sure we get something on Dr. Furbish early in the trail, which explains who he is in a different way to how we've done it before. We've got to make sure that someone who's visiting for the first time will have an introduction to it. For me, it's always about making sure that everyone is always reintroduced, but also, I like long-running TV shows, I like long-running things. I can't be assumed to be studying up on it all the time and having a memory of that. Just a little refresher sometimes is needed within that. As long as we make the story good, it's always compelling. With a good hook at the beginning, it's fun and exciting. It takes people on the journey and makes every step clear and accessible and digestible, then no matter who you are, it should be an exciting place to be and an exciting adventure to be on. Phantom Peak's Hallowed Peak. Photos: Alistair Veryard IR: Given you're now over 300 performances into Phantom Peak, and there are breaks between seasons where you can make changes in ways other shows are maybe less able to do, how much of your decision-making for the show is based on audience feedback? Nick: In terms of the stories, it's always what we think is best. We can't think about what people would want otherwise you end up working in a fan service-y way, and that's probably not healthy for anyone. What people want for the characters is not necessarily what's best for the stories. We're trying to do the best we can without pandering, but also staying core to our values of what we think are the right stories to tell and move the overarching grand plan of where Phantom Peak is going and what the overall story is at the same time. In terms of the experience as a whole, we're very, very customer-focused. We really, really try and make it something that answers to peoples need. For example, the closing ceremony was created because people said 'Wouldn't it be nice if the show had an ending?' And we're like, 'Okay, we'll give you a closing ceremony'. People said 'Wouldn't it be nice if there was something more puzzle-related?' so we did The Innovation Games. That aspect is for puzzle people, because although the trail may have puzzles within them, puzzles are not the focus. Phantom Peak isn't an escape room, although it has escape room elements in it. It's all about stories, exploration, discovery, adventure, characters, situations, motive, and storytelling. We're always trying to work out what we think the customers want from the feedback. Especially on the food and the drinks, we've always been listening, trying to get better and better. The evolution of the food in Phantom Peak is as much of a thing that we've cared about as anything else. People said they wanted slightly more elaborate, more fancy, Instagrammable cocktails. If that's what you want, that's what we'll give you. Video: Phantom Peak IR: There’s been talk of Phantom Peak expanding to other cities besides London in the future. Is there any news on the potential opening of a USA-based experience? Nick: We'd love to launch Phantom Peak elsewhere. We're still in the process of raising investment for it, so that's the big question. Hopefully something on that front will happen soon. We're looking at venues across the United States. I'm not going to toot our horn on this because it sounds arrogant, but we're currently by some metrics one of London's best experience now which is really exciting. We'd love to take it to other places around the world and expand the world of Phantom Peak. There's so much more that we can do with Phantom Peak - Jonas has his terrible, amazing plans for the universe. Jonas has infinite ambitions let's just say.... Phantom Peak's Festival of Innovation. Photos: Alistair Veryard IR: If you had to sum up your goal with Phantom Peak in a few words, what would it be? Nick: We're really trying to build a world that people can come to and explore, and have adventures. That's what we're trying to do with Phantom Peak, we're trying to make a true other-world experience. That's always been the goal - it's about building a world and a place that people can feel comfortable in, feel excited about, and somewhere they can feel at home and grow with over time. Phantom Peak's Starlit Summer season begins on 21st June and will run throughout the summer in Canada Water. To find out more about the show and to book tickets, visit phantompeak.com

When Muddled Marauders' Vegetables was first announced to run at a secret location in Clerkenwell last year, mystery surrounded the show’s content. Those who did attend stepped into a dark comedy that focused on an exiled scientist’s experiments to cure all manner of physical ailments by uploading people's consciousness into root vegetables. It was a bizarre and surreal show that defied expectations and was one of the most talked-about immersive shows of the summer, garnering strong word-of-mouth and a string of positive reviews. Recently, we sat down with Nathan Ess, the brains behind Muddled Marauders, for their first-ever interview to discuss how the company came to be, how his unconventional beginnings creating immersive off-grid parties led to the creation of Vegetables, and what's next for the company. Photo: Muddled Marauders Immersive Rumours: Hi Nathan, thanks for sitting down with us today. Let’s kick things off by discussing the origins of Muddled Marauders and your history of putting on interactive and immersive events. It was quite a unique entry into the immersive world for you, right? Nathan Ess: Yeah. A lot of it started with experimentation in rave culture. A friend of mine lived in a tower block in Plaistow, and one year I convinced him to let me throw a New Year's Eve party on its rooftop. It went unexpectedly well; something clicked, and I wanted to see if it had legs. After a few small things gained traction, I started Muddled Marauders with a forest party in Wick Woodland. Everything was sorted, but we arrived there too early, and a police helicopter spotted us. The Park Rangers told us it would get shut down before we started. So it was 7pm, the evening of our first proper event, loads of people getting ready to join us, and we didn't have a clue where we were going to do it. Muddled Marauders 001 in Walthamstow Marshes Photo: Muddled Marauders My friend Lucy and I were biking around North East London, frantically trying to pull it out of the bag. At around 9pm, she called me saying, ‘I’ve found somewhere’. There was this secret forest spot in Walthamstow Marshes, just north of Clapton. By 10 pm, we were setting up. By 11pm, we texted everyone the address. Come midnight, 400 people had arrived, with the party going until 11am. The thrill of it all was instantly addictive. From there, things progressed quite quickly. I think our risky approach to sourcing spaces people hadn't been to before, as well as the playfulness of the design and the music, made it catch on quite quickly. IR: A lot of these experiences are undocumented, and you can’t find much about them online. There is mention of one event you did that involved a huge tunnel maze in the middle of a forest. Can you tell us about that? Nathan: Yeah. A couple of years deep, we were commissioned by a festival. Up until then, everything we’d done had been in London, but this was for a small festival in Grimsby. In order to help them sell tickets, we were given a bit of money to build something and entice our crowd up there. As well as building a stage, we built an 800-metre-long maze with 14 immersive scenes themed around a narrative of relationships and sexual anxiety called The Corridor of Uncertainty. It was actually based on a really shit drawing I’d done a couple of years earlier... The Corridor of Uncertainty Photo: Nathan Ess The maze only opened for 2 hours, right in the middle of the second night. It was designed for people to get completely lost in, with 3-metre-high walls built from poles and thick black sheeting. You’d go around in circles and might be walking for 5 minutes before you’d end up in an STI clinic being told you’ve contracted a rare infection. Turn a corner and you're apologising to all your exes. One doesn't care and still loves you; the next is calling you a prick and hitting you violently. A scene within the maze Photo: Muddled Marauders You’d be wandering again and enter a surreal restaurant with tiny tables ready for your first date - the whole thing was designed to be really awkward. Couples therapy was one of the best bits. All of it within the context of the maze, along with the hysteria of the night, had this punchy impact that resonated a lot with people. IR: It seems like you were doing your own version of a You Me Bum Bum Train experience… Nathan: I think Bum Bum Train is the best in the business, and their production is essentially a giant maze. I strongly believe that the more labyrinthine the structure, the more the participants will get enveloped in whatever experience they are going through. Being isolated from other people you know during an experience also heightens it 10 times over. I wouldn’t personally compare what I’ve done to YMBBT, given how big and good they are, but we share views on what creates impact. Set builders working on the entrance to the 800-metre long maze Photo: Muddled Marauders IR: Are there any other events you created around that time that stick out? Nathan: 'Never Have We Ever', which was in a huge abandoned school in Poplar, sticks out. There was also one in an empty hotel and another in a care home, which were pretty memorable. The best one we did was in three internally conjoined mansions in Islington. We commissioned and gave individual rooms to people with different ideas they had pitched, which they then brought to life. This created a fusion between festival, immersive experience and party - but with a distinctly debauched, underground London feeling. It was so big and mazy that we gave people an A3 map when they arrived to help them navigate it. I remember it being incredibly difficult to figure out how to leave, and often people just gave up trying. It went on for two days and was a real melting pot of the different cultures existing in London at that time. It also birthed Burt - a fictional Head of Promotions for Muddled Marauders who hates his job, which we made using stop-motion animation. Burt became a staple of the brand. Video: Muddled Marauders I think we reached the limit of how far we could push the format within the constraints of off-grid events with that particular production. Due to them being unlicensed events and the fact that the majority of the buildings we’d acquired were squatted, the amount of time and financial investment that would go into them wasn’t sustainable when there was always the risk of the police shutting it down before it started and not being able to make any of that money back, even if we were lucky that this only happened once. IR: One of the things I imagine you took away from creating all of those off-grid shows was the ability to make something out of nothing and overcoming unexpected problems. Would you say that was a good training ground for where you are now? Nathan: Yeah, they were pretty hardcore, and we constantly felt like we were trying to achieve something impossible. It needed pretty militant production skills, all the while trying to retain the focus on developing a fluffy and mysterious identity with actors and storylines. We've always had a strong team; Muddled Marauders stalwarts such as Joe Brann and James Phillips (Ariel Bold) have worked on pretty much everything, alongside an always massive crew that bring it all together. It makes unexpected problems much easier to overcome when you have a load of ride-or-die partners. Preparations for a party in an abandoned school in Poplar Photo: Muddled Marauders IR: When did the idea for Vegetables first come to you? Nathan: At a certain point, I got burnt out, so I moved to Sicily for about 8 months, living on a farm where I fed chickens. While out there, I started writing some scripts and concepts to form the basis of a transition into pure immersive theatre, and Vegetables was one of them. I finished the first draft and spoke to this Brixton-based company called BOSI, who suggested applying for Arts Council DYCP [Develop Your Creative Practice] funding, which was successful. I started refining Vegetables with Dan Wye - a drag performer (Séayoncé), stand-up comic and dramaturg. He was brutally honest, and it was such a steep learning curve. We completely rejigged it all, and I'd say he categorically made me a much better writer. Tom Duthie also really helped with the final edit of the script once we got the main project grant from ACE. IR: For those who didn’t attend Vegetables, how would you describe it? Nathan: It was a really dark comedy set within the underground tunnels of an old fire station in Central London. I don’t particularly enjoy describing the story itself, but the aim was to create something that people didn’t realise was theatre - let alone a comedy - until well into the experience. Lots of people knew they were coming to some kind of show, but many didn’t (including my mother), and the team and I took great pleasure in fucking with people’s expectations with the help of the incredible actors and design team led by Ellie Koslowsky (who was nominated at the Stage Debut Awards for Vegetables). 11 people could experience it per show. In terms of influences, Charlie Kaufman, Julia Davis, and Black Mirror were the primary ones. Ultimately I wanted it to be unhinged, subversive and well executed. Vegetables Photo: Muddled Marauders IR: There was also a community outreach aspect to the show that I think people might not be aware of. Can you tell us about that? Nathan: Yeah. The venue, which was an old fire station in Clerkenwell, was previously occupied by the Museum of Homelessness and The Outside Project, which offers shelter for LGBTQI+ people with lived experience of homelessness in London. We had an outreach strategy led by our producer and Museum of Homelessness founding member, B.Lain, and we allocated a third of the tickets to that community. The idea was to create a show that this community felt empowered to go to. A lot of communities don’t feel like the traditional, or even mainstream immersive theatre world is accessible, so by doing it in that space, it allowed us to flip that a bit. We also had workshops as part of the show at the Old Diorama on set design, acting, and sound design, and the products of those workshops were integrated into the show itself. The attendees of all those workshops had lived experience of homelessness. Clerkenwell Fire Station, the former home of Museum of Homelessness and The Outside Project Photo: Muddled Marauders IR: When Vegetables was first announced, there was real secrecy around it. By and large within immersive theatre, especially post-COVID, that seems to have been left behind as it feels more financially risky. Where did the desire to be secretive about what the show's content and story come from? Nathan: You only really get those hairs that stand up on your neck when you go into something a bit blind or when there are surprises. Whether that’s achieved or not, I'd rather prioritise the experiences of those who are willing to take a chance on something than put out a trailer that puts a wet flannel on it all just to appease incurious people. This isn’t to say that I don’t believe in marketing or an online presence. I love the science of marketing; I just prefer having fun with it and using it to add to the world of the production, like with Burt. For Vegetables, the Clerkenwell Bio Botanics website we used to entice people to the show took a serious amount of time to plan and build, but it worked despite at no point revealing it was secretly drawing people into a theatre show. I’m interested in pushing this side of things further. Vegetables Photo: Annie Tobin IR: In the last year, we've seen a few crowdfunders launched for various immersive shows, which reflects the fact that, obviously, getting funding for any theatre project is hard at the moment. If people are in a similar position to you and are looking to secure Arts Council funding, what advice would you give? Nathan: I think finding the right bid writer is important. I worked with an incredible bid writer and theatre-maker called Rosa Thomas, who was so invested in the project but also knew Arts Council funding applications like the back of her hand. I'm good with formal writing, but I have no doubt that I would not have gotten the funding without her. The first draft should come from you, but definitely do it with someone else. The second thing is to not be overly disheartened by the narrative around Arts Council. Even though there's less funding available overall, there is an impetus for them to fund new, grassroots projects and practitioners. IR: You mentioned earlier doing workshops as part of Vegetables, and you’ve also previously worked with the Museum of Homelessness. Can you tell us a bit about why doing outreach is so important to you and the company? Nathan: We live in a broken society, and we need to look out for each other. As much as I try to keep Muddled Marauders a bit aloof, it's crucial that everything we do is welcoming and approachable to those who are vulnerable, in whatever capacity. Particularly with how much of a shitshow everything is. This has been the case so far, and I’m determined for it to continue. As for the Museum of Homelessness, they're an incredible charity run by activists and creative pioneers, and we're long-term collaborators. They’ve now got a physical museum in Finsbury Park, and their second exhibition has just opened. As with last year, we've contributed a recurring fictional pirate radio show called Riot FM to that exhibition. Previously we designed an award-winning immersive show for them called Secret Museum, which explored the stories of those who experienced homelessness during the pandemic. We took stories donated to the museum and left clues and installations throughout the streets of Waterloo, culminating in guests finding our physical pop-up museum with live performances of those stories, told verbatim. Secret Museum by Museum of Homeless Photo: Museum of Homelessness IR: Looking to the future, what are you working on now? Nathan: I’m currently on the Senior Production Team for the current iteration of You Me Bum Bum Train. Muddled Marauders has taken a temporary side seat while I've been working on that, but it's been worth it. Next up for Muddled Marauders is our new show, which I am extremely excited about, but that’s all I can say for now. We’re also fundraising for the company's next chapter, as we’re looking to make some chunky steps forward. Find out more about Muddled Marauders at muddledmarauders.co.uk or via their Instagram. You Me Bum Bum Train are currently fundraising for War Child with a prize draw to win tickets to the show, which can be entered here. You can donate to Museum of Homelessness here, and The Outside Project here.