1: U2 at the Sphere, Las Vegas: Beamforming 3D Audio Conjures Real-Life Sensory Wonder

Launched in September 2023 with a residency by Irish mega-band U2, entertainment venue Sphere in Las Vegas has established a new technological standard in cinematic-grade hyperstimulating immersive live performance – creating a wonder-inducing communal cultural experience. The appetite for live music is on the up: ticket sales for real-life music events are up 65% from 2022 (Statista, 2023).

2: Free Your Mind at Aviva Studios, UK: Multiplicity Via Moving Spaces & Immersive Sound

Free Your Mind, the inaugural production at Aviva Studios, a new arts venue in Manchester, UK, that opened in October 2023, used the building’s uber-flexible modular design to redefine spatial storytelling. Primed for warehouse-scale music gigs, mega-multimedia exhibitions and immersive theatre, the destination features moving acoustic walls, flexible stages and sound and lighting rigs that can traverse the entire 13,350 sq m space.

3. Smile with Box Office VR: Priming Theatre Audiences with XR Disruption

Globally, 26% of adults are “extremely” interested in attending a virtual reality (VR) theatre production (Statista, 2023), indicating an audience ripe for nurturing, especially as awareness of what VR can add to traditional theatre increases.

4: To Be Continued: AI-Human Dialogue Mines Tech Anxiety to Conjure Challenging Entertainment

More than half of global consumers are nervous about the impacts of AI, while 66% say they expect AI-powered products to significantly change their daily lives in the next three to five years (Ipsos, 2023). This growing tension was the basis for To Be Continued, a (Netherlands-wide) touring theatre production hinging on audience interactions with AI chatbots, by Dutch contemporary theatre collective Nineties. 

5. Saint Jude by Swamp Motel: Gamified AI Powers Provocative Interactivity

With a pared-down approach demonstrating how a focus on tech can amplify entertainment experiences to generate both physical and mental immersion, British entertainment company Swamp Motel’s production Saint Jude (London, January to July 2023), offered an hour-long site-specific concentrated dose of interactive AI, making individual audience members pivotal to the story in their own isolated experience.