(Disclosure: I am a member of The Gunpowder Plot’— the network for the immersive and interactive industries that was hosting this event, and have friendships with some of the companies presenting.)

At the end of last month the creatives and specialists of the Immersive world descended upon the Potemkin Theatre in London to ask the big questions:

“How does one create immersive worlds?”

“How do I cater for a diverse audience?”

“Money?”

The event was hosted admirably by Becky Brown of SPECIFIQ and, most recently, the Legitimate Peaky Blinders festival. This symposium was a test run for the possibility of a more international and larger gathering in 2020.

The title of this article came from an introduction from scenic designer Meg Cunnigham from her time in working on theme parks. She stated that the Imaginer Tim Kirk spoke of three sorts of participants:

The Wader who will stay on the surface of an experience.

The Swimmer who will go deeper.

The Diver who will fling themselves in to the search for treasure.

In making immersive shows you need to be able to cater for all three. Being aware that a Wader may be terrified into inaction or a Diver may rip off a door in order to explore. (There were many stories of errant audience members over the weekend. Becky Brown told a story of the show Heist when a player, panicked by a guard, smashed the fire alarm as a distraction, and actually brought the fire brigade to the venue.)

It was a long couple of days listening to nearly twenty different practitioners explain their backgrounds and processes. Time limited the amount of questions or allowance for breakaway discussion groups. This was a shame as there was an interesting mixture in an audience of around 40 people. I talked to lawyers, architects, museum programmers, and a good number of drama school students who wished to network. This was reflected in the talks with designers, producers, and representatives of various London museums.

Of particular interest for me as a practitioner was the passionate talk given by Owen Kingston of Parabolic Theatre. He talked about the fact his show For King and Country lacks a story tree to pre-decide what effects an audience’s choices might have. An example he gave was an audience who made it their ultimate goal above everything else to assassinate Hitler. Rather than block this, he installed an emergency meeting where he entered as a member of the Admiralty and said pretty much, “We can get 100 men and drop them in Berlin with a gun, a map, and a picture of Hitler. This is a bad idea!” But they went ahead with the plan. The 100 men all died. But he honoured the insane decisions of his audience within the world.

In the final talk of the symposium, Jane Gauntlett stated that there was no Lyn Gardner (UK theatre critic and reviewer for the Stage) for Digital Shows. That all the reviewers were all artists and afraid of badmouthing each other.

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There is truth to this. But no one has programmed me in a while. SO THESE ARE ALL THE PEOPLE I THINK ARE RUBBISH:

I jest.

I’m an idiot. I’m not stupid.

But I do think we need to be more willing to look at the cracks that are forming in our business. The weekend was a lot of people introducing themselves and their previous shows. As was commented a few times “It was nice to know you had a good time.”

Here are a few of my takeaways:

  • The term immersive. People seemed very averse to using it. I, myself, call my work relational. This is an avenue of theatre that has yet to slot together. Everyone creating their own terminology and arguing over it. It was stated we had to wait for THE paper that some academic will publish that will finally settle this problem. But no one seemed convinced.
  • The fact the derelict spaces of London are vanishing and we are being priced out. Is it going to become up to larger companies to claim a space and rent out to the newer companies? The Business Rates Tax means landlords will sever the electrics and smash the toilets to make a building unlivable, and thus very difficult to convert into a functioning locale.
  • People seemed keen to trap the panellists by asking “How do you make your work accessible?” In which sense? Do you mean for disability? Culturally? Can we ever be truly accessible while having to rely on alcohol sales? Or do you mean financially accessible? Because you are asking a room of people who have paid over a hundred pounds to sit in a warehouse for two days.
  • Safety. To me this is the biggest thing at the moment. (Mostly because they keep using a picture in The Stage with me in it when they talk about the subject. People are asking questions). There is a clear reticence to discuss the tactics of individual shows with good reason. But the more we talk about the skills we us to protect our performers and audiences and the unspoken contract between the two groups, the more we can develop solutions.

Ultimately I enjoyed myself and feel I learnt some things. But I felt, to use the established terminology, a Diver in a crowd of Waders. Maybe this was due to an all-round politeness or a group who were still coming to learn the lexicon of the artists? But we didn’t go as deep or as analytical as I would like.

But Gareth White put forth a challenge about the use of immersion as a term. He claims that an actor can never truly immerse. They are not pulled outside of themselves. They think of their next line or how much time is passing before they can move to the next space. Also the idea of immersion as a metaphor, to be put into water and brought down. Can you not get into trouble when you are diving? Isn’t it wiser to wade and keep your feet on sand?

A lot of questions to think about for the next time.

Roll on Sandbox 2020.

Sandbox: Immersive Worlds and Playable Spaces hosted by SPECIFIQ was held September 28–29 at Potemkin Theatre, London.

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