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“You don’t find the swimming pool, the swimming pool finds you,” says Nick Chambers, co-founder of Beat-Herder Festival. “It’s like a trapdoor spider – an arm will grab you at some point on the street and be like ‘you’re coming swimming, bring your friends’.” So, rumours of a swimming pool

The summer of 2025 heralds the birth of a new kind of immersive event, and it’s one that offers us unprecedented opportunities to step inside our favourite films. Last month, The Matrix premiered at COSM in Los Angeles in an entirely new format. COSM is a kind of big screen

Immersive Arts is a three-year national programme of funding and support for creative practitioners which launched in 2024. The organisation held its first conference earlier this month, and chose Bradford – the 2025 UK City of Culture – for the occasion. Over three days and seven venues, delegates listened to talks,

“You don’t need to wait for the perfect situation to take on that new project. While your design journey may be unconventional, if you remain adaptable, attentive, and willing to adjust along the way, you might discover something far more extraordinary than you ever envisioned.” Soph Shaw from Wake The

THE DEFINITION Five years ago, everything was curated: playlists, menus, holiday packages. Today, everything is immersive: shops, gyms, cafes. The adjective has well and truly entered the kingdom of buzzwords and is brandished at every corner as an oft-disappointing promise that any interaction with culture will stimulate all your senses

Reconsidering “Immersive” I really struggle with the term “immersive,” or maybe I don’t struggle but am really critical of how it is being used, as so many people have different definitions for it. It has become a keyword, a buzzword used to sell tickets, rather than a concept explored within

Have you ever felt so terrified, yet exhilarated? This is the primary aim of scare entertainment. This form of entertainment has been existing since 1915 when travelling showman Patrick Collins constructed what is believed to be the world’s first Haunted House named the Haunted Cottage for his wife, Flora. This

The entertainment world is full of experiences that can be called “immersive” – video games, movies, books – and most of these can now be experienced in the comfort of our own home. Yet physical immersive experiences – immersive theatre, theme parks, escape rooms – are more popular than ever

Immersive theatre can be a mysterious scene to enter! But if you’re interested in getting involved, I can offer you some veteran’s advice to get you going. I’ve worked in immersive for about 8 years now, and done everything from large scale shows like Secret Cinema to corporate walkabout gigs

Riptide create immersive, interactive and digital experiences across many forms. Audiences are swept through the narratives, spaces and cities in which our performances occur.  Since 2014, Riptide have been making work which places the audience at the heart of the experience, combining innovative storytelling with digital technologies. These experiences may

Alternate reality games (ARGs) are the closest that creatives can get to acting in live performances without physically getting on a stage. ARGs span a surprisingly wide range of experiences, from months-long massively multiplayer games taking place across dozens of websites like The Beast to smaller experiences occurring on TikTok

Access All Areas have been making immersive performances with learning disabled and autistic (LDA) performers from our home in East London and nationally since 2013. Access All Areas are a company of 22 associate artists (LDA artists) who have all undergone a 2-year Performance Making diploma programme at the Royal