‘Crimson Cabaret’ hides secrets in LA. Photo Credit: Destiny Petrel for The Unmarked Door

Everything Immersive This Week (12/07/2019)

We’re back, and there’s so much to share

No Proscenium
No Proscenium
Published in
8 min readDec 7, 2019

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It’s a big week for us, as we launched pre-registration for next year’s HERE Summit in Pasadena (March 27–29) and gave the world a sneak preview of the programming.

Badge pre-sales to previous attendees of the 2018/2019 Immersive Design Summit begin on Monday, so now is a good time to pre-reg if you’re in that group.

But that’s not all that’s been going on, in fact, since we took a week off last weekend there’s a lot to go over. Seriously, this issue is huge. So let’s get to it…

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The Next Great Gathering of the Immersive Creative Community

March 27–29, 2020 <— — — — — — — — — — — —> Learn more HERE

ON THE PODCAST THIS WEEK

Director Lola Kelly joins us to talk about her new work with The Unmarked Door — ‘Crimson Cabaret’ — which invites guests into a den of spies at the height of the cold war. With original songs by The Unmarked Door founder Rolfe Kent, and puzzles woven into the show by MOON/SHINE Experiential, the cabaret is an unexpected holiday treat for Los Angeles.

Join us for a talk about the show and the art of acting and directing for immersive.

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Submit your show to us here or at pitches@noproscenium.com.

REVIEWS

From No Proscenium:

From David & Lisa Spira of Room Escape Artist:

Paradox was a fantastic escape room from Rabbit Hole Recreation Services in Denver, CO. Set in a steam-punkish time machine with Tardis overtones, Paradox was puzzley in the best kind of way.

The Puzzle Effect’s Grim Stacks in Devner, COwas the kind of Harry Potter-inspired game that we wanted to explore. It stood on its own, but its allusions made fans feel at home.

The Official SAW Escape was a horror-themed escape room featuring traps and puzzles. The wow factor of life-size props and gamespaces (several pulled directly from the SAW movies) made up for some of the clunky and frustrating puzzle interactions.

Paradox was second fantastic escape room from Rabbit Hole Recreation Services in Louisville, CO, near Denver. Set in a steam-punkish time machine with Tardis overtones, Paradox was puzzley in the best kind of way.

STORIES

From NoProscenium.com and our Twitter feed:

From Kathryn Yu of No Proscenium:

Blogger Andy Baio had some interesting observations regarding the “Visit Eroda” campaign — an ad campaign for a fictional island that turned out to be marketing for Harry Styles’ new album — including the clash of cultures that occurred as ardent ARG players found themselves in the same digital spaces as Harry Styles’ fans as it became clear who was behind the project.

While ultimately the reasons for putting VR headsets on cows in Russia turned out to be fairly mundane (an attempt to increase milk production), the Internet still had a blast making moo-related puns for a few days last week. I, for one, still believe that they’re probably just playing… Beef Saber.

The New Yorker does a deep dive into the uses for virtual reality outside of gaming by sending one of their writers home with an Oculus Quest; writer Patricia Marx speaks to a number of prominent folks in the field as she explores the technology’s uses in non-fiction documentary, sports, workplace training, medicine, and even under water.

Our friends over at Odyssey Works have put out a call for their next Odyssey: a durational, singular, immersive experience designed by a cross-disciplinary team for one person. And I don’t mean one person at a time — the entire experience is designed around one specific individual. Would you like to be that participant? They’re accepting applications now through January 5th. And the experience is always free for the participant, you just have to get yourself to Portugal next July. If you’d rather be one of the people making the experience, you can apply to join the Odyssey Works Master Class in the days leading up to the Odyssey.

From David & Lisa Spira of Room Escape Artist:

You can now stream Escape From Goopiter, the pilot episode of Create The Escape, a show where kids create an escape room for their parents to play. Room Escape Artist is proud to have worked on this show!

Every year Room Escape Artist assembles a unique list of puzzles, tools, and other items that we think escape room lovers — and other puzzle loves or experience creators — would love to give or receive.

From Michael Andersen of ARGN:

Harry Styles released a new music video this past Friday…and spent the previous two weeks teasing it with an ARG about the video’s setting, a fictional isle called Eroda.

The ARGonauts podcast tackled I Love Bees in their most recent episode, deconstructing the classic alternate reality game for Halo 2.

THE DISCOURSE

Discussions and posts from Everything Immersive & Twitter:

PROFESSIONAL OPPORTUNITIES

Jobs, Grants, Gigs, and more

Governors Island, NYCExhibition Space Availible

We’ve extended the deadline to submit proposals for indoor exhibition space on Governors Island in 2020. Arts, culture, and education organizations can apply now to present their public programs for an engaged audience here in the Harbor next year. We’re accepting proposals for both full-season (May-October) and half-season (May-July or August-October) programs to be presented inside one of the two dozen historic houses of Nolan Park and Colonels Row. Submit your proposal by Wednesday, December 11 to hear from us by the end of 2019.

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The Guide to Everything Immersive: immersive theatre, virtual reality, escape rooms, LARPs, site-specific dance/art.