Search Results

This article is part of Immersive Rumours' coverage of WXO's London Experience Week 2025. Inventive Productions is a London-based immersive theatre company that has produced three of the city's most well-known immersive cocktail experiences. Debuting with Alcotraz in 2017, Inventive Productions has since opened Moonshine Saloon and Avora to huge success, with over 1 million visitors having been to one of their productions since launching. Their shows have successfully launched elsewhere in the UK, with versions of Alcotraz now in Manchester, Liverpool, Cardiff, Brighton and Bristol. Recently, the show launched internationally, with a location in Melbourne, Australia. At WXO's London Experience Week 2025, Alcotraz welcomed WXO attendees for a social networking event, and Inventive Production's founder, Sam Shearman, was part of a panel alongside Phantom Peak's Nick Moran and representatives from You Me Bum Bum Train. Following their talk, we spoke to Sam about how Inventive Productions first came to be, how they approach creating their booze-filled immersive experiences, and what the future holds for the company as it rapidly expands. Alcotraz. Photo: Inventive Productions Immersive Rumours: Hi Sam. Thanks for speaking with us today. Do you mind introducing yourself and telling us a little bit about Inventive Productions? Sam Shearman:  I'm Sam Shearman, the founder of Inventive Productions. We’re an immersive hospitality group with 10 locations across three concepts. We operate Alcotraz, which is a prison-themed immersive experience where guests smuggle their own liquor into the prison and play out a narrative involving prison guards, a corrupt Warden, and inmates looking to escape. We also have Moonshine Saloon, which is a wild western experience that predates Alcotraz – a sort of prequel experience, if you will – where you’re a bootlegger looking to join an illicit moonshine operation. Our most recent concept, which launched in 2022, is Avora, which is inspired by James Cameron's Avatar and the world of Pandora. Guests are transported to this other world where this really fun, super-detailed narrative unfolds for guests. We've had success in expanding nationally, so across those three brands we've now got nine locations in the UK: six are Alcotraz, two are Moonshine Saloon, and currently just the one Avora in London, which is in London. Last year, we opened our first international site in Melbourne, Australia, and Sydney is due to open later this month, which is super exciting. Avora. Photo: Inventive Productions IR: Something that came up during the WXO Summit panel that you were just a part of is that the original idea for Alcotraz came to you while you were a university student. Is that right? Sam:  I was a bit of the cliche of a guy who had an idea and would tell everyone about it. I didn't want to fall into the trap of not being the guy who also tried to do that. I had no background in this industry; my background was in business management. I did a brief stint at Universal Pictures doing new release marketing for them. I was also on a graduate scheme at Mondelez International, which is the corporate powerhouse behind Cadbury, Oreo and Kenco, where I worked across sales, account management and marketing roles. The idea for Alcotraz came to me from a few different angles. One was a genuine passion and love for the themed spaces that were starting to appear back in 2015-2016. Speakeasy bars were just coming around, but there wasn't a huge amount. There were a couple where you'd have to do a few knocks on the door, or you'd enter through a fridge door or something like that, but the level of immersion really stopped at the decor and at the intake. That always frustrated me as a fan of highly deep-themed experiences and theme parks. I always thought it was a missed opportunity not to have a narrative go through it, allowing you as the customer to be immersed from the start to the end, and that really frustrated me as a 24-year-old going to those sorts of venues at that time. I thought there was a gap there to create something that took that level of theming, that level of immersion, to a new height that hadn't been done in London before at the time. Alcotraz. Photo: Inventive Productions The second driver behind Alcotraz was a bit of a love-hate relationship with cocktail bars. I always found it frustrating having to give up a large chunk of a booking I had, trying to dissect complicated menus and figure out what's in there when really, myself and whoever I was there with probably wanted to catch up with each other. I thought there was a real beauty in a concept where the power was put in the hands of the expert – the mixologist – and you could say, ‘Hey, look, I really like this; I really like that’ and they could craft something that ticked those boxes, was a bit more creative, added a few variations and created something different there. The final element really was just the fantasy of true crime, the prison genre, and I thought that these three elements could combine, and that was the genesis of Alcotraz. It could tick a box that hadn't been ticked before with regards to theming; it could be a new cocktail solution where the power is in the hands of the mixologist, and it is a highly themed, highly rich experience that has storylines that would appeal to fans of The Shawshank Redemption or Orange Is The New Black and so on. Alcotraz. Photo: Inventive Productions IR: If you were to ask someone in London if they knew of an immersive cocktail bar, I think the odds are pretty high that their first answer would be to name one of your three shows. They’ve been tremendously successful and are really well-known amongst people in the city, right? Sam : Yeah. I'd say we've managed to gain a bit of a reputation as the experimental cocktail guys, and again, it's been a bit of a perfect storm with immersive theatre being on an upward trajectory. At the same time, competitive socialising has also gone through that same upward trajectory. There’s been a genuine culture shift in people's expectations of going to a pub, bar, or restaurant and expecting more. I think we satisfied that demand for wanting more at a time when people had other options. We’ve managed to find our niche within that world, but from the point of view of getting a really good story, you're going to get theatre, and you're going to get high-quality cocktails. I think that's where we found a really good lane that exists within the wider hospitality space. Moonshine Saloon. Photo: Inventive Productions IR: The theming of all three shows are pretty distinct from one another, and while they’re not based on pre-existing IPs, they use the tropes and iconography of things people are familiar with – prisons, westerns and sci-fi. There must be a lot of other genres that you've considered for future shows, right? Sam:  Yeah. To answer the first part of the question, whilst inspired by popular films and TV shows, we have created our own worlds within our experiences and even have our own little interconnections between the storylines. There is no affiliation, reference or connection to any existing IP, as it is all our own creation, which is something we are very proud of. It's really important to pick, in terms of theming, something that has a fan base or a preconception about it. That's where the beauty of new concepts could be, but the sky's the limit, and the model works. Our format of being very intimate shows, where you, as a guest, get very close contact with an actor, is not done in many of these experiences because often they have a much higher throughput of guests. Ours are very intimate by design, which means nine times out of ten, the actor's going to know your name, and you're going to know the character’s name by the end of it. That allows this great shared camaraderie to exist between you and a small group as an audience, which I think delivers something unique compared to some of the much larger experiences out there. That can be translated to different themes and different concepts. As for which ones will be successful? If I had a crystal ball that could tell me, that would be amazing. Avora. Photo: Inventive Productions IR: What do your future plans look like for the company? Have you got any new shows on the way, or is your focus on expanding the shows that already exist into new territories? Sam:  It’s a bit of both. We’re definitely trying to navigate which cities globally have the demand and the appetite for our immersive experiences and taking the existing IP that we've created and opening them in the right cities. That's one half of the trajectory over the next two to four years. London remains a unicorn from the point of view that it has the highest throughput of experiences happening, the highest throughput of guests that are attracted to them, and therefore we're going to continue to use London as our hotbed to create new concepts.  We've got some really exciting ones coming. One centred more within a fantasy world, which we're super excited about. There’s a huge fan base that we're looking to attract who will be fans of that genre in general, and then another concept is a format shift in trying to differentiate from what we've previously done. A lot of our experiences so far and in a lot of other experiences, the characters are so obviously signposted. What I mean by that is the Guard at Alcotraz, they’re the actor; they’re who you’re going to speak to. The same goes for the scientist at Avora; they're wearing the costume; you know it's the actor. These characters are, by design, exaggerated and over the top. I think there's a really nice new territory to play within that I haven't seen done that many times on our scale, where the lines between the guest and the actor can be way more blurred. Instead of having over-the-top characters, over-the-top costumes and accents, there's a story that can be born from the idea of who can I trust, who is involved in this experience and who is not involved. You might be sitting with a couple that you think are going through this for the first time with you, but they reveal themselves in the final moment as being a part of this massive conspiracy. There's a lot to unpack there and to be revealed, but I feel like that’s a new territory for us to play within. Moonshine Saloon. Photo: Inventive Productions For more information and to book tickets for Alcotraz, Avora and Moonshine Saloon, visit their respective websites, which are linked below. alcotraz.co.uk avora-experience.co.uk moonshinesaloon.com This interview is part of Immersive Rumours' coverage of the World Experience Summit and London Experience Week 2025, which has been made possible thanks to the World Experience Organization .

This article is part of Immersive Rumours' coverage of WXO's London Experience Week 2025. SWAMP is a London-based brand agency that has previously worked with the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Warner Bros to create immersive and experiential activations. From an overnight stay in the John Wick universe to a blood-soaked Vought office, SWAMP have consistently delivered elaborate and detailed experiences for some of the world's best-known global brands, alongside a string of critically-acclaimed ticketed Original productions for the general public, including The Drop, Saint Jude and the Isklander Trilogy. At WXO's London Experience Week 2025, SWAMP's Ollie Jones and ITV's Head of Brand Experiences, Charlie Cooper Henniker, presented a case study on their collaboration on a brand activation to promote Trigger Point Series 2 in 2024. Following their talk, we spoke to Ollie about SWAMP's path to becoming a brand experience agency, how that work sits alongside their Original productions, and their approach to creating new experiences. Photo: SWAMP Immersive Rumours: Hi Ollie, thanks for speaking with us today. Do you mind just introducing yourself and telling us a little bit about SWAMP? Ollie Jones: My name's Ollie Jones; I'm the co-founder and CEO. SWAMP is a brand experience agency and an immersive experience production house. We work with brand partners to do marketing events, and we also, at times, produce our own independent direct-to-consumer events. IR: Our readers are probably going to be more familiar with your original productions like The Drop and St Jude, but the brand activation side of the company is far more active than the original productions side. I would love to know how you first established yourself as an immersive brand agency. Ollie: Me and Clem, my co-founder, and some of the key early members of SWAMP are from a theatre background; we studied theatre. Clem and I started the company because we saw a lot of brand experience stuff happening, and we thought it was a bit flat and bland. When we were sweating blood into an Edinburgh show for no money and putting all our free time, and often all our not-free time, into that, we began to realise that brand experience work could be commercially rewarding and could help to prop up that other side of our life. We thought we could add something to the world of brand experience, and our expertise fits it really well. We always had dreams of doing our own stuff with the proceeds of brand work eventually, but that was expedited when we hit lockdown because everything got cancelled. We had nothing else to do, so we decided to make Plymouth Point, which is the first of the Isklander games. We felt we should do something during lockdown; we had nothing else to do, and we thought we had a cool idea. We thought if nothing else, it'll be something you can put in front of people and say, ‘Do you want to do an online brand experience? They can be interesting…’ but it took on a life of its own and became its own thing, and actually did end up saving the company. We did get a lot of work through it, and it made its own money, so we came out of lockdown much stronger than when we went into it. Photo: SWAMP Following that, we did The Drop, our second show, for two reasons. One was to re-establish ourselves as a live company. Having gone into lockdown as a theatre company and come out as a digital experience company, we needed to reset everyone's understanding of what we did, but also we were starting to realise at that point that independent shows were not only artistically nourishing but also the best new business tool you could ask for. Potential clients would happily come; they'd happily take a free ticket to this show, especially when it turned out to be quite good and the press liked it. So now we kind of exist on this cycle. The brand experience work is the vast majority of our income, and the originals, as we call them now, are not the vast majority of our income, but they serve their own purpose in terms of our artistic integrity, in terms of a new business tool, in terms of being a creative agency that actually puts its creative on its sleeve, and that puts its money where its mouth is and makes its own shows on the side, so that's why we do both. Video: SWAMP IR: You mentioned that transition came about largely during the pandemic off the back of Isklander. For others working in immersive that want to do the same thing, do you think there is a viable path following the same model that you did, or do you think it was a perfect storm of doing successful online work during lockdown? Ollie:   I think we probably had all the right tools in place for lockdown to be as successful as it was. I think if you look at us and if you look at increasing numbers of other people who brands are working with, a lot of them come from doing their own stuff, and that's how brands find out about them. It's often that stuff that's better and more heartfelt and more interesting, and like it's a work of passion or organic artistic expression, and that's where I think the strongest connection with an audience is. It makes sense that people who work in the brand experience space go to things like that and think that's what I want my audience to feel. Also, we made Plymouth Point on nothing. Something we keep trying to do is remember we made that show on nothing. There are ways to make something interesting within a budget; you don't need a brand experience budget to make something that makes you feel. IR: Finally, one thing that I've always found interesting about SWAMP’s work, whether it’s branded or original production, is that you've never repeated an idea. With every new show, you completely reset. Is that coming from a place of just not wanting to repeat yourself, or are you trying to expand your scope so that in the future you have a wide-ranging set of tools to pull from? Ollie: Yeah, I think the business sense would say it's not the right thing to do, because we find a formula that works and then immediately throw it away and start something new, but I do think it comes from a genuine interest in trying new things. New stories and ideas come to us, and we want to just get into them in different ways. We like to stay creatively motivated and creatively interested, and it in itself has become a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now we've done however many originals that are completely different from each other, it keeps the impetus on us to make sure the next original IP is something brand new and different again, and we have an idea, which again is a completely new format… Photo: SWAMP For more information on SWAMP, visit swampexperience.com . This interview is part of Immersive Rumours' coverage of the World Experience Summit and London Experience Week 2025, which has been made possible thanks to the World Experience Organization .

Image: CityDays/Race Across The World: The Experience On 11th November, CityDays will be adding a touch of festive magic to its popular adventure game with the launch of a brand-new route for Race Across the World: The Experience London . Building on the huge success of the original, the second route introduces new hidden gems of the city, exciting new gameplay, and a seasonal twist to celebrate the winter months.   Based on the hit TV series from Studio Lambert, part of All3Media, the experience invites players to live out their Race Across the World dreams as they navigate the city, make strategic decisions, manage a tight budget, and race against the clock - this time with a touch of winter magic. Along the way, teams will uncover secret treasures, embrace the seasonal spirit, and work together to triumph in a race like no other.   Creatively designed to capture the sights, sounds, and spirit of London in the colder months, the new route takes participants on a 4-5 km race through a fresh corner of the capital, winding through twinkling streets and lively neighbourhoods. From November, players will uncover seasonal highlights, including dazzling shopfronts and glittering street displays, cosy cafés, bustling markets, welcoming pubs, and partner venues offering exclusive discounts, perfect for warming up with a glass of mulled wine or hot chocolate, enjoying a festive treat, or planning their next move. Photo: Jamie Davies At each stage, local characters guide teams through escape room–style puzzles that are both physical and mental, challenging participants to think on their feet, collaborate, and unlock the next leg of the race. Alongside the updated gameplay comes a fresh approach to budget management, with new ways to earn extra funds as the race unfolds, adding an extra layer of strategy to the adventure.   As with the existing route, teams are scored on both their time and remaining budget, with live leaderboards tracking the top performers of the day and week. Whether racing to win or simply soaking up a new side of London, this new experience offers a unique and thrilling way to explore the city.   Tom Rymer, founder of CityDays, said: We’re incredibly excited to introduce a brand-new route for Race Across the World: The Experience. It’s a fresh challenge for fans and newcomers alike, combining physical puzzles, a brand-new part of London, and an extra layer of festive atmosphere for the winter months. It’s the perfect mix of adventure, strategy and seasonal fun. With these two exciting routes across London, Race Across the World: The Experience London gives friends, families, and colleagues even more opportunities to explore the city in a fun and challenging way. From ice-skating rinks and festive light installations to historic squares adorned with seasonal displays and pop-up winter villages, the adventure is full of winter magic and hidden discoveries waiting around every corner.   Whether a long-time Londoner or visiting for the holidays, this limited-edition experience reveals secret treasures around every street and captures the magic of the city at its most festive. Those who signed up to the  waitlist  can now access discounted presale tickets, giving them 20% off and 48 hours of exclusive booking ahead of general release on Thursday 25th September. Race Across The World: The Experience West End will run from 11th November 2025. Tickets are priced from £25.oo per person and can be booked via  raceacrosstheworldexperience.com/london-west-end

Image: Kerry Churcher Koro , a brand new production company specialising in immersive and interactive theatre, tours its critically acclaimed playable theatre piece, 1884, this autumn. The tour includes HOME Manchester, Warwick Arts Centre in Coventry, Carrow House in Norwich (as part of Norwich Theatre Beyond), and the Wellcome Collection in London. Created by a team of creatives led by award-nominated playwright Rhianna Ilube, 1884 is an immersive game-theatre show inspired by the legacy of the 1884 Berlin Conference, an often-overlooked historical turning point for the African continent and the world. Welcome to Wilhelm Street. Make yourself at home! Photo: Paul Husband Taking place in a modern fictionalised setting named Wilhelm Street, 1884 isn’t a history lesson – it’s a fun, fast-paced, and thought-provoking journey where play and protest meet. Played around tables, participants form small family groups, collaborate on playful activities, and make choices about how to build their family community and make their house a home. However, as rules are gradually imposed on the groups and it becomes increasingly clear that not everything is within their control, they must decide how to respond. 1884 asks: how is history recorded, and who is left outside of the room where history is written? Somewhere nearby, there’s a meeting going on. A very important meeting. Run by very important people. Making very important decisions about your lives. But you and your family are not allowed inside… Photo: Alex Brenner Co-created by artists, historians and activists, 1884 is a groundbreaking game-theatre show inspired by the impact and legacy of the 1884 Berlin Conference which contributed to the carving up of the African continent by colonial powers. The experience invites audience members to build a community and connect with strangers, ultimately exploring the ways in which anti-colonial resistance movements have been excluded from our public history and collective historical narrative, and how this omission highlights a glaring oversight in how we memorialise the impacts of colonialism. Co-creator, writer and project director Rhianna Ilube commented: 1884 was inspired by the work of activists from the African diaspora in Berlin who have been raising awareness about how Germany has largely erased the memory of its role in the colonisation of Africa. I wanted to bring the story of the 1884 conference to the UK, but the nature and impact of this show has gone much further than I could've imagined. 1884, created over a year of debates, experimentation and playtests with Coney and amazing creative collaborators, touches on the heart of crucial questions about land ownership, memorial cultures, decolonisation, gentrification, protest and more. I'm so proud that it will be experienced - and shaped - by even more audiences across the UK and in Athens this autumn, and I am happy that Koro is taking the show forward. Photo: Alex Brenner Led by artistic director Marie Klimis , Koro is a new production company specialising in grassroots immersive, interactive, and site-specific theatre. Continuing the legacy of former game-makers and co-creators of 1884 Coney , Koro create, produce, and tour shows that place the audience at the heart of the storytelling experience, with work that centres on urgent contemporary narratives that reflect society and history. Koro will launch a new biennial festival of socially-engaged immersive and site-specific theatre in 2027, with a special focus on celebrating the voices of migrant and global majority theatremakers. Photos: Marie Klimis/Rhianna Ilube/Tatenda Shamiso Acclaimed playwright, theatre-maker, and film programmer, Rhianna Ilube has recently been selected to join the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program at Juilliard in New York. She was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Playwriting, and Highly Commended for the Soho Theatre's Verity Bargate Award (Samuel Takes a Break… - The Yard Theatre, 2024). Rhianna is currently writer-on-attachment at the Royal Court Theatre, and an alumna of the Royal Court Writers Group and the Oxford Playmakers. Performance director Tatenda Shamiso won the Emerging Talent Award at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards 2023 (NO I.D. - Royal Court, 2023), and was the Associate Director on the West End return of For Black Boys… (Garrick Theatre, 2024). Koro's 1884 is at Wellcome Collection near Euston from 22nd to 25th November 2025. Tickets can be booked via wellcomecollection.org

Image: COLAB Theatre Step inside a new era of theatre at the Invitational Theatre Festival this September at the COLAB Tower. Over one extraordinary weekend, discover boundary-pushing performances that don’t just immerse you—they invite you in. This pioneering new form of theatre places the audience at the heart of the story, not as passive spectators, but as welcomed participants in a shared narrative. From intimate encounters to daring large-scale experiments, the festival showcases bold creators redefining how stories are told. Whether you’re an artist, a theatre-lover, or simply curious about what comes next, the Invitation Theatre Festival is your chance to be part of something truly revolutionary. The Shop for Mortals and All Fools by Vinicius Salles Photo: James Lawson Old relics, curious finds, hidden trinkets, and heirlooms – treasures that whisper forgotten stories. In this enigmatic shop, a select audience is invited to an exclusive preview of its mysterious collection. Step into a world where gods and mortals clash, and chaos reigns supreme. Where the memories you thought were long forgotten still linger, haunting your every step. The Shop for Mortals and All Fools is a site-responsive and immersive physical theatre experience conceived by Vinicius Salles. Inspired by Euripides’ The Bacchae, this bold production delves into one of the greatest tragedies ever written, weaving an original and compelling narrative that explores power, vengeance, and the fragility of the human spirit. Photos: James Lawson 💰 From £22.00 🕒 13th September - 3rd October 2025 🎟️ Book via tickettailor.com CREATURE by Peter Broughton Image: Peter Broughton Creature - the most exclusive immersive experience in London this year. One audience member. One experience. From Peter Broughton (Co-Creator and Associate Director of Bacchanalia) comes a fusion of puppetry and immersive theatre, inspired by Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Take a seat in a wheelchair, guided into darkness by a gas-masked figure, and don headphones that plunge you into a world of shadows, sound, and tension. Confront the phenomenal, towering puppet in an intimate, one-on-one encounter with the unknown. "I told you I would be with you on your wedding night. And here I am, as promised." 💰 From £102.00 🕒 26th - 27th September 2025 🎟️ Book via tickets.colabtheatre.co.uk Uncle Barry's Birthday Party by UNCLE BARRY Photo: UNCLE BARRY What makes for a fun party? People (you’re invited), gossip (someone has to spill the beans), booze (obviously), dancing (optional), flirting (encouraged), cake (yes), a good playlist (please)... and Uncle Barry! You're invited to share an evening with us, celebrating Uncle Barry's Birthday. We know he'd love to have you. Photos: UNCLE BARRY/James Lawson 💰 From £19.20 🕒 26th - 27th October 2025 🎟️ Book via tickets.colabtheatre.co.uk The End by COLAB Theatre Image: COLAB Theatre The world outside is lost — the husks roam, the infected devour, and every choice means life or death. Humanity’s last survivors have gathered in the bunker, but safety comes at a price. Trust is fragile. Secrets run deep. And sabotage is never far away. Apocalypse isn’t just a game. It’s a live-action survival horror experience where you and your fellow survivors are thrown into the final days of civilisation. You’ll forge uneasy alliances, solve desperate challenges, and fight to prove your worth — because when the bunker doors close, not everyone gets to stay inside. Step into a world of fear, strategy, and betrayal. Feel the tension rise. Hear the husks scratching at the walls. When survival is on the line, how far will you go? 💰 From £12.00 🕒 26th - 27th September 2025 🎟️ Book via tickets.colabtheatre.co.uk Medea by Robert Halvorson and Adelaide Leonard Image: Robert Halvorson and Adelaide Leonard Euripides’ play Medea serves as the point of departure for this one-woman show that can be performed with multiple actors. Maddy’s expectations of Santa Fe, New Mexico, are falling short. She’s isolated, her YouTube channel is stalling out, and her husband, Jay, is leaving her for another woman. All without a second thought for their daughter, Bella, who Maddy feels further away from than ever right at the moment Bella begins puberty. In rage, Maddy acts out and puts her family in danger. With those she cares about most remaking their lives without her, Maddy starts plotting her revenge - sleeping with a long-time protege, lashing out at lawyers, and opening up old wounds. Teetering on the edge, Maddy clings to her spiritual practice. When it becomes clear Jay will not take her back, she chooses to do anything, including taking a life, to prove she’s worth it. 💰 From £9.60 🕒 16th - 27th September 2025 🎟️ Book via tickets.colabtheatre.co.uk Spy of the Year by Tom Black/Arlo Howard/Chloe Mashiter/Hannah Raymond-Cox Photo: Spy of the Year The Spy of the Year Awards is the most important night in any spy’s calendar, but this year’s celebrations are threatened when a shady organisation begins leaking top secret information. Even worse: one of the agents at your table is the leak. Together, can you get past personal vendettas, messy histories and emotional revelations to uncover the leak before the end of the night? Fresh from sold-out runs in LA, Chicago, and London’s own Voidspace Festival, Spy of the Year is an original Jubensha led by a live actor, blending role-play with puzzle solving and hidden traitor games. A strictly limited capacity of six players will face challenges, swap secrets and solve mysteries as the clock ticks down. Whether you’re a James Bond, an Ethan Hunt or a George Smiley, get ready to uncover the truth… 💰 From £12.00 🕒 26th - 27th September 2025 🎟️ Book via tickets.colabtheatre.co.uk Timonopoly by Brite Theatre Image: Brite Theater Come Fortune! Let’s play a game. It’s only money... Inspired by Timon of Athens, one of Shakespeare’s least known works, Timonopoly is a unique experience, a game, a show, an event. Play a game with Fortune and see how easily any of us can fall through the cracks of society... whoops! Brite Theater continue to push the immersive envelope, creating ever more daring audience-specific work and bold adaptations of classical material. The long-anticipated final instalment of the multi-award-winning Coward Conscience trilogy, following Richard III (a one-person show) and Hamlet (an experience), Timonopoly is fresh from a successful first run at Edinburgh Fringe. 💰 From £18.00 🕒 26th September 2025 🎟️ Book via tickets.colabtheatre.co.uk DREAM CAGE by King Lexie Image: Dream Cage For twenty minutes, in a dreamworld built for two, a performance unfolds. Not of spectacle, but of attention and curiosity. DREAM CAGE is a tender framework for an intimate encounter, treating the landscape of a dream as the most precious of materials. It is a one-to-one ritual that asks: What happens when the sound a dream makes is given a voice? An interaction with dreaming and the spaces in-between awaits. 💰 From £18.00 🕒 26th - 27th September 2025 🎟️ Book via tickets.colabtheatre.co.uk Strangers: A Magic Play by Joe Strickland Image: Joe Strickland To celebrate its ten-year anniversary, Strangers is returning with a brand new interactive storytelling magic show. In the same way that a musical blends theatre with music and lyrics, Strangers: A Magic Play blends theatre with magic and illusion. Stories are interwoven with magic and audience collaboration to create an audience experience which challenges what and how we think about magic and performance. 💰 From £18.00 🕒 27th September 2025 🎟️ Book via tickets.colabtheatre.co.uk The Evil Ex Game by Jet Vellinga Image: Jet Vellinga Madame X invites you to her tea parlour for an intimate evening of storytelling, gossip, and connection. She’s offered to facilitate a special version of “The Evil Ex Game”—an obscure party game she came across this past July.* According to its rulebook, players must “share the best stories about their worst dates.” How provocative! At its heart, the game is simple: Draw a card, overshare, vote for the best story, rinse and repeat. However, as with everything that piques Madame’s interest, there’s more to this game than meets the eye. Perhaps your neighbor steals your card, or worse, your story! And speaking of stories... Bear in mind that Madame only serves tea to patrons with particularly scandalous (hi)stories. Will you spill the tea? RSVP now. *Despite its title, The Evil Ex Game is about romance and dating in general and (Evil) Exes are not required to play. 💰 From £6.00 🕒 26th - 27th September 2025 🎟️ Book via tickets.colabtheatre.co.uk Cool Lab Office of Terrestrial Confusion - Tunnel 1 A debriefing on Earth’s most unstable export. Welcome back to HQ. Your exposure to the human construct known as “COOL” has been confirmed. You arrive here as both expert witness and data point. Preliminary findings remain inconclusive. Contradictions persist. Some insist “COOL” is a resource, others a performance, a weapon, or simply an elaborate Earth joke. Your testimony will decide which version survives. Your mission is to distil its components and trace its patterns: where it appears, who names it, who carries it, how it mutates across borders, fashions, and generations. Working in pods under live supervision, you will classify specimens, perform field tests, and debate paradoxes. Will you argue? Will you contradict each other? Will you contradict yourselves? This is a participatory research facility. All findings will be archived by the Office of Terrestrial Confusion to prepare the next upcoming missions to Earth. Observation commences now. 💰 From £24.00 🕒 26th - 27th September 2025 🎟️ Book via tickets.colabtheatre.co.uk Andy's Coming by Chronic Insanity Image: Chronic Insanity Toy Story meets Kill Bill, the audience becomes the revenge seeking childhood toys of a university student after they've been abandoned at a charity shop. With the guidance of their magic 8 ball, the toys plot their comeback in this fully interactive TTRPG theatre show. Journey through the high street to find allies and supplies, before confronting your one time owner in a thrilling climax. 💰 From £18.00 🕒 13th September 2025 🎟️ Book via tickets.colabtheatre.co.uk TATE Accompli by Chronic Insanity Image: Chronic Insanity You've gotten the gang back together for one last heist, and the prize is a big one; the centre piece of the brand new exhibition at the Tate Modern. However, when you break into the gallery that evening, the clock strikes midnight and something changes in the air. It's like you've crossed over into some other reality where up is now down, the sleeping have awoken, and nothing will be the same again. Tate Accompli is the new TTRPG live show, from award-winning theatre company Chronic Insanity, about what happens if you try and steal art from the public for your own private gain. 💰 From £18.00 🕒 27th September 2025 🎟️ Book via tickets.colabtheatre.co.uk Imprisoned with the Pharos by Chronic Insanity Image: Chronic Insanity Chronic Insanity invites you into an immersive horror experience inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s Imprisoned with the Pharaohs. As magicians and archaeologists exploring a pyramid, your choices will determine the story’s twists and turns. Will you confront the ancient foe or escape to safety? Every performance is uniquely crafted by you; How you respond to the adventure, how it responds to you, and whether the tower of bricks at the centre of it all, ready to be excavated, will instead topple and seal your fate. This is a TTRPG theatre show from award-winning theatre company Chronic Insanity. 💰 From £18.00 🕒 20th September 2025 🎟️ Book via tickets.colabtheatre.co.uk The Clocktower Image: The Clocktower Step into the heart of a storm-battered oil rig, where steel walls groan, machinery hums, and suspicion lurks in every shadow. Clocktower is a social deduction game in a gritty, nautical setting. Over the course of the game, you and your fellow players will take on key roles aboard the rig — each with unique abilities that could save the crew… or sabotage it. Together, you must uncover who among you is working against the group before it’s too late. If you enjoy Werewolf, Mafia, Traitors or Blood on the Clocktower...you're gonna love this! The setting creates a tense, industrial atmosphere: a common space where alliances form, secrets unravel, and trust is tested. As the game unfolds, expect bluffing, bold accusations, and clever strategy — with no one ever fully out of the action. Whether you’re a seasoned social deduction player or brand new to the format, Clocktower promises a thrilling experience of mystery, betrayal, and high-stakes decision-making deep at sea. 💰 From £20.50 🕒 22nd October - 1st November 2025 🎟️ Book via tickets.colabtheatre.co.uk COLAB Invitational Festival runs at COLAB Tower near London Bridge from 26th to 27th September 2025, with select shows running across various other dates in September and October. For more information and to book tickets, visit tickets.colabtheatre.co.uk

Photo: Harry Johnson From Saturday 18th October to Sunday 2nd November, families are invited to enjoy a limited-time Halloween Trick-or-Treat adventure at The Paddington Bear Experience, London’s award-winning immersive attraction, located at the iconic County Hall on the South Bank.   From 3pm daily, guests can upgrade their visit with a special Trick-or-Treat package (£10 per child), which includes a souvenir pumpkin sweet bucket, a selection of sweet treats throughout the experience, and a pair of exclusive Paddington Bear ears.   Children will meet beloved characters from the Paddington stories who will be handing out treats along the way, ending in a safe and joyful Halloween celebration in Windsor Gardens. As visitors step into Paddington’s world and embark on an exciting immersive adventure through some of the most memorable locations from the Paddington stories, they begin with the hustle and bustle of Paddington Station, greeted by a friendly Station Master and taken on a lively train journey through London’s most famous landmarks all the way to the Browns’ charming house at No. 32 Windsor Gardens. Once inside the famous tree-adorned hallway, the Brown family whisk guests into a whirlwind of multi-sensory activities as they need to help Paddington and his family prepare for a very special occasion - The Marmalade Day Festival!   With numerous themed rooms to explore, interactive games, character interactions, and lots of surprises along the way, the adventure culminates in a very special Windsor Garden Street party where visitors have the chance to enjoy the Marmalade Day festival. A range of food (including Paddington’s famous marmalade sandwich) and beverages are available to all, as well as an opportunity to enjoy fun and games with the Brown family. The Paddington Bear Experience will capture the hearts of the entire family, no matter the age. The Paddington Bear Experience is a unique and fun-filled interactive experience inspired by the nation’s favourite bear, spanning more than 26,000 square feet of London’s iconic County Hall on the riverside of the Southbank. Photo: Harry Johnson The Paddington Bear Experience is currently running at County Hall on South Bank. To find out more and book tickets, visit paddingtonbearexperience.com

Photo: Universal Studios/Amblin Entertainment Inc The dinosaurs are still roaring at Battersea Power Station, after Jurassic World: The Experience   has become one of London’s most popular family attractions of the year. Since opening in spring 2025, the  must-see family-friendly experience has  already welcomed over 180,000 visitors through its iconic Jurassic World gates.    With demand showing no sign of slowing, NEON has confirmed they are extending the experience’s run and releasing a new wave of tickets, including sought-after peak dates for October half-term and the Christmas holidays. Families and fans of the franchise now have until 4 th  January 2026 to catch the experience before it leaves London.   Excitingly,  guests can also take advantage of special September midweek afternoon prices, with adult explorers able to visit for £23 and children for £18, valid for all sessions from 2pm onwards.  As we enter Autumn, students can also now enjoy 35% off tickets on weekdays by showing a valid student ID at the box office. Photo: Universal Studios/Amblin Entertainment Inc 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 iconic London landmark. Bringing one of the biggest blockbuster franchises in cinema history to life for dinosaur fanatics of all ages, the experience is the first of many live entertainment spectaculars set to be staged at this new attraction.   Visitors to the experience are transported into Jurassic World as they walk amongst prehistoric giants and encounter different species across two floors of immersive environments. Highlights include  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 can also interact with baby dinosaurs, discover and engage with actual fossilised dinosaur bones. In the coming months, NEON Battersea Power Station is set to host a rolling programme of world-class experiences, with the next major show due to be announced in October. Photo: Universal Studios/Amblin Entertainment Inc Jurassic World The Experience runs at NEON at Battersea Power Station until 4th January 2026. Tickets are priced from £28.95 per person. For more info and to book tickets, visit feverup.com

This interactive experience, based on the multi-billion-dollar franchise, lets visitors get up close and personal with over a dozen dinosaurs from the Mesozoic Era. Photo: Universal Studios/Amblin Entertainment Inc After a successful run at ExCel London in 2022, Jurassic World: The Experience returns to the capital in an updated form within NEON at Battersea Power Station. This walkthrough experience, which lasts between 45 and 55 minutes, is packed full of outstanding animatronics, offers endless photo opportunities, and lets visitors get up close and personal with a number of dinosaurs from across the Jurassic World series, including Blue (Jurassic World) and Bumpy (Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous). As someone who grew up visiting the Natural History Museum and marvelling at its T-Rex animatronic, which was also likely the first encounter with the size and ferocity of dinosaurs for countless children in the 1990s and 2000s, it's fair to say that the dinosaur-loving kids of today don't know how good they've got it... Photo: Universal Studios/Amblin Entertainment Inc The experience begins with a journey on the ferry to Isla Nublar, which features a slickly produced introductory video as in-ferry entertainment. The video explains that upon docking, guests will be welcomed into the world-class tourist destination as VIP guests and have been granted exclusive access to see parts of the park not usually open to the general public, including the Genetic Creation Lab and Raptor Training Facilities. There's a notable lack of familiar faces from the film series in this introductory video, which would have helped solidify the link between the experience and the multi-billion-dollar franchise, but in all honesty, no one is attending Jurassic World: The Experience to see a pre-recorded video of Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard - they're here to see dinosaurs. Photo: Universal Studios/Amblin Entertainment Inc After disembarking, visitors enter through the Jurassic World gates and find themselves immediately face-to-face with a number of the show's animatronic dinosaurs, including a family of Pachyrhinosaurus and a two-storey tall Brachiosaurus, whose head and neck sways back and forth above the foliage. The attention to detail in these animatronics, and all of the ones that follow, is truly impressive and stands alongside, if not exceeds, the quality you'd expect from any of the Universal theme parks' Jurassic-based offerings. While these dinosaurs are great to admire from afar, there are more up-close and personal interactions to be had with several baby dinosaurs, which are cradled in the arms of Park Rangers throughout the venue. With the dinosaurs on show rotating frequently, there's nearly always a baby pterodactyl or velociraptor on hand for photos and pets. With blinking eyes and heads that move in response to human touch, these puppets are full of life and deliver on the promise of the show being an interactive Jurassic World experience. For the children visiting, it's an instant draw, with groups of people quickly forming around them, but ample time and attention are given to every group that wishes to pet them, so there's no missing out. Photo: Universal Studios/Amblin Entertainment Inc The first half of Jurassic World: The Experience, in which guests spend time around the herbivores, is completely free-roam and allows groups to explore at their own pace. Beside every large-scale animatronic, there are staff members dressed in Jurassic World Park Ranger uniforms, who are all incredibly friendly and happy to chat about the dinosaurs on show and take photos on your behalf without any upsell. Further into the experience, there's both a Parasaurolophus hiding amongst the trees looking for its offspring and a massive Ankylosaurus with its club-like tail standing behind a fence. Opposite, a Gyrosphere, which featured prominently in the films, offers a photo opportunity for guests, and more Park Rangers are on hand to tell visitors about the dinosaurs. Photo: Universal Studios/Amblin Entertainment Inc After encounters with a Parasaurolophus hiding amongst the trees looking for its offspring and a massive Ankylosaurus with its club-like tail, guests enter the Genetic Creation Lab, which rounds off the herbivore portion of guests' Jurassic World experience. Featuring a trio of baby Parasaurolophus inside an incubator, numerous fossilised mosquitoes on display and an opportunity to compare dinosaur droppings from both herbivores and carnivores through gloves, there are plenty of things to discuss with the white lab coat-wearing staff members, who roam the space alongside guests. The baby dinosaur interactions also keep on coming within the Creation Lab, with a female Stygimoloch, complete with reinforced skull, offered up for the admiration and affection of visitors. Moving upstairs in NEON, guests enter the carnivore area of Jurassic World as groups and proceed through a series of spaces together, guided by Park Rangers. In the first space, a small waiting area, there's a five-foot-long Tyrannosaurus Rex skull and a chance for younger guests to try their hand at palaeontology by uncovering bones from within a sandpit. Photo: Universal Studios/Amblin Entertainment Inc The real start of this section, and perhaps the entire experience, however, is Bumpy. Within the Jurassic World universe, they're the main dinosaur protagonist of Camp Cretaceous - the animated Netflix series set on Isla Nublar, which takes place in the same time period as 2015's Jurassic World film. Within Jurassic World: The Experience, they're presented as another baby dinosaur puppet that guests can meet one-on-one to pet. To describe Bumpy as cute is an understatement, and the reactions of our group confirmed that they immediately stole the hearts of everyone in the room. Moving into the final rooms of Jurassic World: The Experience, guests come face to face with Blue, the dinosaur protagonist of the recent Jurassic World trilogy, which is the only full-size dinosaur in the experience puppeted by a human performer. Their feeder explains that Blue is the alpha in their family, and we should maintain a distance for our own safety. Jurassic World: The Experience is one of the few attractions where guests actually expect things to go wrong, and true to form, the sirens soon alarm, and guests are told they must evacuate due to nearby dinosaurs having escaped. In the final room of the show, guests find themselves trapped between a life-sized Tyrannosaurus Rex, which stomps across the room and stops just feet away from guests behind a fence, and a Carnotaurus, which is equally massive and intimidating. Photo: Universal Studios/Amblin Entertainment Inc As Park Rangers frantically try to unlock the gate that stands between the group and safety, both dinosaurs wreak havoc on the space by destroying lamp posts and engaging in an extended rally of roars as the sirens and flashing red warning lights continue to blare. While everyone attending Jurassic World: The Experience knows that at some point, they'll be faced with the film's scariest and most iconic dinosaurs, and it'd be a pretty terrible experience if the Jurassic World staff didn't put guests in a perilous situation, the intensity of this final sequence may well catch some families with young children off guard. For adults and big kids, however, it's a pulse-raising set piece that places guests in a situation on par with that of the films, and the production value more than justifies having the 'Jurassic World' name attached to the experience. With plenty of meticulously well-crafted animatronics, engaging interactions with both the Park Rangers and dinosaurs, and an action-filled finale, Jurassic World: The Experience is a great time for families and adults alike, even if it's a little short. The only way this experience could be better is if they dressed all the dinosaurs up in Christmas jumpers , but we'll keep going to South Kensington to see that instead... ★★★★ Jurassic World: The Experience runs at NEON at Battersea Power Station until 4th January 2026. Tickets are priced from £28.95 per person. For more info and to book tickets, visit feverup.com For more reviews of immersive experiences like Jurassic World: The Experience, check out our recent Reviews .

Photo: Race Across The World: The Experience CityDays has announced plans to launch the first-ever playable experience based on the hit BBC series, Race Across the World with Race Across the World: The Experience, which is set to launch in London this Spring. Pre-sale tickets for the experience will be available at 10am on Wednesday 2nd April, with a general sale following on Friday 4th April 2025. Tickets are priced from £25 per person.   This high-stakes experience will offer players the chance to live out their  Race Across the World  dreams by navigating the streets of London, working as a team, outwitting their competitors, and unlocking hidden secrets of the city in a race to the finish line.   The experience will require strategy, teamwork, and quick thinking, as players are given a budget to manage as they race through the city. This budget can be spent on valuable clues to help navigate the next leg of the journey, giving players the freedom to decide how daring they want to be. Players can also complete “work” tasks to earn extra funds. A high-stakes race against the clock, where every decision counts, and influences the race. Players will be scored based on their time and how much budget they have left, with their final score ranked on a live leaderboard throughout the day and week. The team that completes the challenge in the fastest time with the most budget remaining will earn a shot at being crowned the daily or weekly champions. The race takes participants on a 4-5 km mission through the capital, typically spanning 2-3 hours. Like Race Across The World , this experience highlights the treasures people miss when speeding beneath London on the tube. Passing through key partner venues, including renowned pubs, cultural hotspots, or famous landmarks, each serving as a 'checkpoint' where teams must solve escape room-style puzzles. These puzzles will guide them toward the next leg of the race, offering clues that unveil new parts of the city, all while providing a true taste of London’s hidden gems. Those who sign up for the waitlist can access discounted presale tickets from Wednesday 2 April, with 20% off and 48 hours of exclusive booking before the general release on Friday 4 April. Tickets are priced from £25 per person. Photo: Race Across The World: The Experience  Tom Rymer, Founder of CityDays, said: We are beyond excited to bring the Race Across The World experience to life in London. It’s a dream come true for fans of the show, offering them the chance to dive into the heart-pounding action and strategy that has made the show a hit. What makes this experience truly special is the unique combination of exploring London’s hidden spots while working together in a race against time. We can’t wait to see who comes out on top!   All3Media said : It’s thrilling to be able to bring this iconic TV show from Studio Lambert to life in one of the most vibrant and culturally rich cities in the world. We’re beyond excited to partner with CityDays, true pioneers in urban adventures, making them the perfect team to turn this unforgettable experience into a reality. Together, we’re giving fans the chance to immerse themselves in the heart-pounding action of Race Across The World, and it’s going to be nothing short of spectacular! Race Across The World: The Experience will launch in London on 13th May 2025. For more information, and to book tickets, visit feverup.com

Image: DARKFIELD Renowned for their trademark shipping containers popping up across the UK and internationally, DARKFIELD bring four of their most critically acclaimed productions to London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park from Tuesday 7th October to Sunday 2nd November, in their biggest and longest ever presentation in London. Audiences can find themselves boarding a new airline, slipping into an immersive dream, lost in a labyrinthine hotel, or navigating a war-torn world, across FLIGHT , COMA , EULOGY , and ARCADE . Fresh from sell-out runs at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, BFI London Film Festival, Shoreditch Town Hall, and a region-wide collaboration across Greater Manchester; DARKFIELD present their largest ever collection in the heart of East London, with containers returning to the city for the first time since 2022. Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic Using the nostalgic 8-bit aesthetic of 1980s video games, ARCADE’ s  interactive narrative explores the evolving relationship between players and avatars. Over 30 minutes, players will guide their avatar through a world ravaged by endless war: you can choose a side, win or lose the war, search for a peaceful route, or join a cult promising a better version of reality. Players will ask themselves difficult questions as they navigate a world where some will win and others will lose. No two journeys through the experience will be the same. Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic COMA  invites audiences to take part in a mass experiment, and together, slip into a collective dream, encouraged by a mysterious voice in their headphones. Harnessing all of the skills in DARKFIELD’s  technical arsenal, COMA  takes place in the pitch-darkness, utilising 360-degree binaural sound, and with some unique additions developed specifically for this show that leave audiences wondering what’s real and what’s a dream.  Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic EULOGY  is a surreal, otherworldly journey through a dreamlike, labyrinthine hotel that exists entirely in your mind. How you arrived is a mystery, and why you’re there remains unclear. Just make sure you read the pamphlet. This intense and exhilarating ride uses speech recognition technology to deceive the senses and transport audience members through rooms, down corridors and into the bowels of this strange and not altogether comfortable hotel. How your dream unfolds is, in part, up to you.  Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic FLIGHT  takes place in a shipping container, the interior of which exactly resembles an Airbus 320 economy cabin, and over 30 minutes explores the Many-Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, taking audience members through two worlds, two realities and two possible outcomes to their journey. There are many worlds in which this plane lands safely. Photo: Mihaela Bodlovic Bordering their two home bases in Hackney Wick and Silvertown - where the DARKFIELD offices and studio reside - the company are embedding themselves in their local community, building on a rich and growing creative presence in the area. DARKFIELD will work with local creatives and businesses throughout their residency. In addition to the four container experiences, Darkfield will provide a bar area and buzz for audiences to enjoy in between experiences. Will you take on all four containers? Glen Neath, Co-Artistic Director of DARKFIELD, commented: It’s long been our dream to establish a site where we can host all our containers in one place, so we’re very excited to finally open DARKFIELD LONDON so close to our two bases in North-East London. It’s great to have such a long residency at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, which is fast becoming a mainstay in London’s cultural scene. This is the first time we’ve presented our containers in London since 2022, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to be back! Immersing audiences into total darkness, using DARKFIELD’s trademark 360-degree binaural sound delivered through headphones, each container will immerse audiences in a new world where everything is not quite as it seems.  DARKFIELD will be at Queen Elizabeth's Olympic Park from 7th October to 2nd November 2025 with ARCADE, COMA, EULOGY and FLIGHT. Tickets for each show are priced from £14.00. For more information, and to book tickets, visit darkfield.org/london2025

Image: Warner Bros. Pictures/New Line Cinema Warner Bros. Discovery and New Line Cinema will next month open a terrifying immersive museum experience based on Lorraine and Ed Warren’s infamous artefact room, home of the demonic Annabelle doll and hundreds of other possessed artefacts.   Haunting East London from the start of September, The Conjuring Occult Museum will transport fans into the terrifying world of the renowned paranormal investigators like never before, ahead of the final chapter of New Line Cinema’s hugely successful Conjuring Universe films, The Conjuring: Last Rites, released in cinemas on September 5th from Warner Bros. Pictures. Photo: Justin Lubin Taking over the 10,000 sq ft White Rabbit Studios just off Shoreditch High Street, the horror experience will combine over fifty actual props featured in The Conjuring: Last Rites and other films in The Conjuring Universe, including Annabelle and The Nun. The Conjuring: Last Rites stars Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, who play Ed and Lorraine Warren throughout the franchise, have also recorded special content for the experience. Those brave enough to complete the experience will earn a free drink and a short video of their experience. Tickets for the experience are free of charge and will be available from 20th August, whilst walk-ins may also be available on the day. Tickets will be available on a first-come, first-served basis, with limited availability. UPDATE: All tickets have sold out for this event. A second batch of tickets will be released at 2pm on 1st September, with three time slots available. The Conjuring Occult Museum will run from 1st to 3rd September 2025 in Shoreditch. Tickets are free and can be booked via eventbrite.com

Photo: Alex Brenner Immersive Rumours: Hi Owen and Tom. Thanks for speaking to us today! Do you mind introducing yourselves and telling us what your roles are at Bridge Command?  Owen Kingston:  I'm Owen Kingston, I'm the Artistic Director of Parabolic Theatre and Bridge Command. Tom Black:  I'm Tom Black. I'm the Executive Director of Bridge Command, working closely with Owen and the whole team to operate this wonderful ongoing sequential story that we're able to tell. IR: For those who have never been, what’s the Bridge Command experience like? Owen:  It's like being in your own sci-fi series. That's what we're going for. To come to Bridge Command and be a punter is to step into your own sci-fi world, and you be the hero of your own sci-fi story. IR: The first time you both spoke to Immersive Rumours was ahead of the show opening back in March 2024. A lot of the site was still under construction, but we were able to get a hands-on demo of the experience ahead of the public opening. Looking back at that time, what are your overwhelming memories of building and opening the show? Owen:  I think launching a new show is always, to some extent, quite a chaotic process, because it doesn't matter how well you plan it; no plan survives contact with the enemy. Unexpected things happen. When you've got something with as many moving parts and as complex as Bridge Command, it's nearly impossible for it to all go completely smoothly. This is by far and away the biggest thing we’ve ever done. Parabolic has always done quite small shows, and in the past, we've always been able to launch a new show softly and quietly to iron out the kinks without anybody really looking at it. We used to do a lot of stuff with the Croydonites Festival, and it was great because we had two or three weeks to perform to people who were either our hardcore fans, who were willing to come to Croydon to see us, or just the good people of Croydon who didn't really know who we were. You could try something new out of the public gaze and have a chance to fix it before that lens of publicity hit you. That's something that we didn't have with Bridge Command because it's that much more high-profile. The other thing that was memorable from that time is that we were not prepared for how different it would be to run this show for fourteen people than it is to run it for nine people. When we did the first version of Bridge Command back in 2019 on a shoestring budget in the basement of COLAB Factory, it was for six people. We ran that for months and months and months, and it worked really well. When we started planning this new version in January 2020, we thought we could expand it to nine people quite comfortably, and it would work similarly well. About six months before we were due to launch, we had a bit of a crisis with our investors when we were looking at the budgets and thinking, ‘Oh, crumbs, is this actually going to make enough money?’. The decision was taken, rather than to scrap the whole thing entirely, to up the audience capacity again. We did it to survive, really. If we didn’t find more capacity from somewhere, we weren’t going to be able to even open. We put work into that, but I think we didn’t have enough time left to put enough work into that. I think it's fair to say that when we opened, really full shows did not work as well as the shows that had eight to ten people. When we had an absolute maximum capacity audience of fourteen, there were problems because there were people who didn't have enough to do. I think we’ve fixed that problem now, but it took us longer than I would have liked to fix it. Making fixes just took longer than it has on any other show we've ever made in the past. I think it's the difference between - to use a naval analogy - trying to turn around a small boat as opposed to trying to turn around a supertanker. We really felt that with Bridge Command. It's so much more of a bigger proposition, so many more staff, so many more shows that we are running in a day, that to make a meaningful change just took way longer - four or five times longer. Tom:  With Bridge Command, we could meet the next morning and go through it, but then that night, whatever we did, we would be running not one version of the show, but four or five. We'd get loads more data, and of course, not every single one of them would have responded to the change we've just made in the same way. I’d underestimated the scale of being reactive; it became much harder, and it became more of a supertanker. We also had a lot of focus on the onboarding process and the training process. There’s two distinctions there - welcoming people in, literally both off the street and then through the various stages to get into the show and into the world of the show and making clear what's going on, but also the process of training people how to use the ship, the software on the screens, the mechanical things on the ship, all those things. You need to be shown how to use those. It's fair to say that it took us longer than I would have liked, but because of the problems we've mentioned, we didn’t 100% get it right when we opened. I'm really thrilled with how training now works for the show, and we've seen a huge change in feedback. It's been months and months and months, and pretty much no one has raised any issues with it, but it just took time to handle that. Owen:  Those first few months, I remember we used to try and teach people how to use the ships before we'd even put them on the ships. We used to have terminals in the bar and try to get people to play tutorials, but none of that stuck. It took us at least six to eight weeks to settle on what worked in terms of getting people to learn how to fly the ships quickly so that they could then do a meaningful mission afterwards. Photo: Alex Brenner IR: When you first conceived Bridge Command back in 2019, was it ever designed to be an experience that would appeal to absolutely everyone? You're trying to do one thing incredibly well, and that thing is obviously somewhat niche. Some people just don’t like sci-fi, right? Owen: Exactly. I think immersive works best when the product that you've made appeals very strongly to a particular audience. If I'm looking at the advertising, either it makes me go, ‘Yes, I want to do that immediately’, or it makes me go, ‘No, I'll never do that in a million years’. I think one of the problems that immersive theatre has had historically is that it's been all about massive spectacle. It's been about appealing to a very large audience. The economics of the industry have all been built around that. You can look at Punchdrunk or Secret Cinema, who’ve done great shows in the past, and that's been their business model. They want something that's going to attract loads and loads of people every night and justifies a colossal spend and an enormous set. That's one way of doing it, but I think the economics in the last few years have shown that that's not actually the sustainable, brilliant model that maybe it's been made out to be, or maybe even has been in the past. What we're looking at is something different. Parabolic's early work was all about taking much smaller-scale audiences, spending less on it, but making something that is really going to appeal to enough people to be able to see that. The beautiful thing about For King and Country was that you’d look at the advert for that, which said, ‘Can you win the war?’, and if you are in any way a World War II nerd, you're going to want to come and do that. If you're not, you're not. I think Bridge Command does the same thing. If you want to fly a starship, if you want to be like Captain Picard, Captain Kirk or Captain Janeway, then yes, that is going to be for you. If that doesn't float your boat, then maybe not so much. Building shows that are sustainable for a niche but large enough audience to sustain it - I think there’s an interesting business model there which can work. IR: Have audiences' reactions to the experience matched up with what you hoped it would be prior to opening? Owen: Broadly speaking, I’d say yes. Wouldn’t you say so, Tom? Tom: Yeah. I think so. I think in hindsight, we expected people to get really invested in their own naval careers, for want of a better term, and getting promotions. People earn medals and collect different patches. We've got a fan Discord now. It's run by us, but it is full of regular attendees, and we can see how much people are really interested in the ongoing stories of the main cast, so to speak.  Everyone who works here, from front of house through to the people running your ship, they're all actors. Everyone has got a character with a named role and a backstory and everything like that. We sell bar tickets, and there are people who come a couple of times a week; they'll maybe do one mission, but they'll come two or three times to hang out in the bar and play a game, read a book, do some knitting, but also chat to people. They might say ‘I've got a theory as to what's going on in such and such part of space’. Then the character who's in the bar with them will maybe chat to them about that. People really care. I would actually say that is a bit of a surprise. They care even more than I thought they would about hanging out with the characters on an ongoing basis. People always like the characters in Parabolic shows; it was always about the story and about the audience themselves becoming the main characters in a story, but the fact that there is this recurring cast, of us being the people who are on the ship with you when you're doing your adventures, and you can see them over a much longer scale than just the two and a half hours of Crisis, What Crisis?, or For King and Country, I think that's something we didn't… Owen:  We didn’t plan for that did we? Tom: Maybe unconsciously. We created these characters with it in mind, I suppose, without realising, but it's gone down way better than we thought it would be. Owen:  It’s become a soap opera in space for the people that become really invested in it. That's been fuelled by some of the special events and other things that we've done. We've been able to expand that a bit for those who are keen on it. Photo: Alex Brenner IR: Previously, you’ve done one-off events like War Games, and you’ve had two Treaty events so far, right? Owen:  Yup. We've had a couple of others since then as well. You know when there's the novelty episodes of Star Trek where the holodeck breaks or things like that? We did one that felt a bit like that, where all of the crew played by actors succumbed to a weird disease, and they had to be fixed by the audience. We've played with several different things now. We’re about to do one about ██████████ .  Although I don't think we're allowed to talk about that yet, so that's a big spoiler… Tom: Please don’t print that. Our staff has been very good at not dropping any hints about it, so we’re pretty sure the audience are going to have no idea what’s going to happen in that. It’ll be a nice surprise.  For a while now, the special events have been selling out before we really release any details at all. We've ended up in the situation where we haven't needed to reveal the really juicy element of it to sell it, because people are keen and they trust us, I suppose. IR: Are all of these one-off events non-canon or do they feed back into the ongoing narrative? Owen:  Oh, they're very much part of the story. What's happened with those, and it's happened organically rather than us specifically planning it this way, but each of those events has become a milestone moment in the ongoing story of the Adamas Belt and has actually shifted that story along a little bit.  When we ran the treaty, that then affected the missions that we were running. All of the different factions that people were encountering suddenly all of them had signed some form of treaty with each other, and that affected the interactions people had, and it became part of the ongoing narrative. Similarly, in some of the other events we've run, we've had a political election cycle running alongside as part of the story content, so that's fed into some of the things that have happened. It's all part of creating that sense of a world that isn't just static, you know? It continues to build and change and thrive. We're currently shooting a whole load of new content to update the news channel that we run in the bar. When we opened, we had about an hour's worth of TV news that was all relevant to the world. Some of that is very out of date now, so we're in the process of updating it. The plan for the events going forward is to try and do them every couple of months and have that be a way of moving the story along. When you watch Star Trek of old, you'd get lots of monster-of-the-week episodes, lots of things that are very inconsequential are all contained within one episode, and then every now and again, you'd have a big milestone story moment, like Captain Picard becoming a Borg or something like that. That's what we've tried to do with those special events. IR: You’ve also introduced bespoke campaigns recently. Can you tell us a bit about that? Owen:  Honestly, they’re peak Bridge Command. It's the best version of the show you can possibly create, I think. The first one that we did was with people who had met through playing Bridge Command. None of them were friends beforehand, but they had met just doing random pickup shows, and then they decided they got on well. They approached us and said, ‘Would you be willing to do this?’. We thought, ‘Absolutely, that sounds amazing’. So we crafted a story for them, which was over five shows. That story was a linked narrative, and their actions very much determined the outcome as well. We were able to be responsive to that specific group of people. It worked as a format, and it was terrific fun. It's like running a D&D campaign and has very much got that vibe to it.  We assign a member of staff to be the campaign manager, and that member of staff coordinates what's going to happen for the campaign, makes sure they get the staff they need for it, and makes the necessary tweaks to the story. It's terrific fun. What’s nice about it is that it works for people who have never played Bridge Command before but love the concept in principle. If they're willing to trust us upfront with the big wodge of cash, then we can very much give them the time of their lives. It’s one of those things that in your wildest dreams, you hope one day you might be able to make happen. It was one of the bucket list things to do with Bridge Command, and it's incredible to have had a chance to do it and to see it really work as well. Tom: It was huge fun to make, and one of the players in the first outing described it as a ‘love letter to Season 1’, because the campaign itself pulled on various threads that regular participants were used to from all the missions in Season 1. Characters, factions, even a couple of ‘whatever happened to x’ kinds of things.  Without giving anything more away I will say that this went down very well with that group, and we’ve now got half a dozen other groups playing through the same story - though it’s important to say that part of the luxury of a campaign is that the story and how it unfolds is tweaked to reflect your crew’s unique actions, even more so than a normal Bridge Command mission.  And the original group have now booked again, so we need to do it all again! We’ll be continuing their adventure, but it’s a whole new story. So there’ll be a ‘second campaign’ set of 5 missions available to anyone in a few months’ time. Photo: Alex Brenner IR: There’s something really interesting about how more and more immersive shows are operating with ongoing, multi-year narratives nowadays. The Key of Dreams is moving into a new story chapter later this year, Phantom Peak is constantly evolving, and of course, you’ve recently debuted the new chapter of Bridge Command. I think that structure goes a long way to explaining how those kinds of shows have managed to build a loyal fanbase, who return often. Owen: It's just really important to balance it against that first-time experience. If you focus too heavily on fan service and pleasing the returners, you get the same problem that TV series have, which is, if I see a TV series that's run for ten seasons, I'm going to think twice about starting at the first season. It’s a huge investment of time. What we’re always trying to be careful to do with Bridge Command is not put off people who are coming for the first time. We're always trying to be aware of how we frame the experience to people who are encountering Bridge Command for the first time, and making sure that we don't put too high a barrier to entry. Tom: Yes, the overwhelming majority of people experiencing Bridge Command are still brand new to it, though to get statistical for a second, we have seen the number of returning regulars go up, not down, while our overall number of sales increases – so that’s felt really good for our momentum, as it means we aren’t just maintaining the same number of people wanting to come back again and again. We’re winning over more and more new people all the time. Our regulars are very, very welcoming to newcomers, too. There are many happy stories of people coming on their own or in a small group and being nervous, and then being ‘adopted’ by experienced hands on their crew, who afterwards encourage them to join our Discord server and become part of the community. IR: We're a couple of months into Season 2 of Bridge Command now. When you started to structure and work out the plans for these new missions, what were the big takeaways from the first year or so of running missions? [Owen laughs] Owen:  I'm laughing because there was a massive one. When you look at any TV show, particularly sci-fi TV shows, you see the same plots recur over and over again, redressed. You see it a lot in sequels to movies, too, where essentially people are coming to see it because they loved the first movie, so you want to give them enough of the first movie that they liked, but you also need it to feel different so they don't feel like they're just watching the same thing again. Star Trek's a perfect example of something that does that all the time, and Stargate SG-1, which I love, does that really noticeably. I was having a bit of a thought experiment in the lead-up to beginning to write for this new season, and I was thinking, ‘What are the basic plots of Bridge Command?’ The process of analysing that brought me to the conclusion that every single episode we had up to that point was basically the same plot redressed - ‘Save the Guy’. We would send the crew out to go and do something, and they would save a character and bring them back. Every mission did that in some way or another. IR:  And how many mission stories did you have in Season 1? Owen:  I think 10 or 11 missions, and they all did that in some way. The thing was, we hadn't noticed! So we’d done a reasonably good job of making it different every time, but we said, ‘We have to do some different plots’. So we actively went into the new season saying ‘We're going to, at most, do one or two Save the Guy plots and everything else; we're going to really work hard to think of different things that the audience do’.  IR: So what caused you to end up making so many ‘Save the Guy’ missions in Season 1? Owen:  It had arisen, I think, because of how we staff the shows. We put three performers on each show. One of them will be the flight controller, who is the games master. They’re a performer, but they’re also making things happen behind the scenes. We have somebody who goes on with the crew at the beginning to train them in how to use the ship, and then we have an actor whose job it is to play whatever the prominent character is. One of the best ways to get a character onto the ship is to have them pick up or rescue somebody. That was one of our big takeaways - just spotting what we'd done by mistake.  As Tom was saying earlier, we also underestimated how invested returning audiences would get in not just the world of the show and the stories we're telling, but the characters on the Warspite that our actors played on the regular. We purposefully built in more plot points and story points that allowed for character developments and interesting things to happen to them. That was part of it as well. Photo: Alex Brenner IR: When we first spoke 18 months ago, you mentioned that you had ideas for the next four or five years’ worth of Bridge Command. Is that still the plan now that you’re some way down the road from opening? Owen:  Absolutely, yeah. What we found actually is that it's going to stretch further than we thought. We'd come up with quite a lot of ideas, and what we found, again, is part of that supertanker analogy of it taking a long time to steer Bridge Command in a particular direction. It's taken us longer to get some of that content out there because, actually, if we make new content, it doesn't just sit there for a couple of weeks or even a month. In order to get it through our whole fan base, it takes several months for people to play through all of those things. I think that elongates that timeline a little bit. We're anticipating at least being there until the end of next year. We'll see beyond that. I think how we're doing financially will dictate whether we extend. We have a 10-year lease on our site with a three- and five-year break. We'll make a decision at some point before the end of next year as to whether we want to go on past the end of that three-year break and into the five-year break. That will be purely a financial decision at that point. Is it still making enough money to cover its cost and also making money for our investors? I think that's the critical thing. They won't want to take the risk of us being there another two years and then dipping down into being loss-making. That's for the future to see, but we're pretty committed to being there throughout most, if not all, of next year. IR: Outside of Bridge Command, are there any new Parabolic shows on the way in the not-too-distant future? Owen:  There’s not much to say there, apart from there being some huge opportunities that have opened up, which we would love to take advantage of. Currently, we're not on any kind of ticking clock time scale to take advantage of those, which is great, so we can keep ploughing a lot of effort and attention into Bridge Command for as long as it needs it, but I think we're looking at least one more, really high-profile show in the next few years. I can't really say anything about what that will be. There's also the back catalogue of things. It's now been maybe six years since we did the last performance of For King and Country. I think that is still probably my favourite Parabolic show. There's been some talk of late about trying to bring that back again. I know certainly all the original cast feel as fond about it as I do, and it's been absent from the world for a while. There's a whole generation of new immersive theatre fans who've never seen it. I think it would be worth doing that again for people at some point if we can. IR: I think it’s fair to say you’ve got your hands full with Bridge Command at the moment. Owen:  Yeah. Any new Parabolic show will largely depend on Bridge Command. If we get to the end of next year and we're like ‘Okay, we've had a good time doing Bridge Command, but we think it's time to close’, then that would create space for us to work on something new. If Bridge Command goes on beyond the end of next year, then we may be looking at another couple of years before we make something new. It's a win-win as far as I'm concerned, because Bridge Command is a wonderful privilege to work on. There's nothing else out there that's quite like it, and as long as it can go on, I'd be very happy to be working on it. Photo: Alex Brenner Bridge Command is currently booking until 31st January 2026 in Vauxhall. For more information about the show, and to book tickets, visit bridgecommand.space