By: Jared Darensbourg

Themed entertainment and immersive experiences have grown into a world of their own, bringing virtual jungles, expansive art exhibits, and more into the hands, and eyes, of consumers.

The immersive industry’s motto has always been the bigger the better. The larger and more complex, the greater the demand from customers. The growth of the industry—in both size and demand—comes down to consumers’ requirement for more engaging, personalized experiences. Meeting that priority requires advanced technologies.

Immersive experiences harness technologies like high-brightness 4K projectors, professional displays, professional audio, PTZ cameras, and more to manipulate and transform environments for visitors. While an engaging and realistic guest experience relies on these technologies to produce high quality visuals, truly immersive experiences only happen if each of these technologies work together as a cohesive ecosystem. Seamless transitions throughout the content are imperative.

The ingredient to a cohesive ecosystem is a flexible live video production platform. Live production platforms offer unlimited control and flexibility so users can deliver content to multiple screens and streams. When used alongside projectors for projection mapping, these platforms tie the whole ecosystem together, bringing the immersive environment to life. Live production platforms ensure the transitions between different images flow seamlessly and create an exciting visual experience to captivate audiences. Beyond that, it streamlines the experience for production professionals, as network I/O and control support simultaneous productions from one system. This means production crews can easily manage the visuals for different immersive experiences all at the same time.

The ability to control all facets of your production via one singular platform also makes it easier to scale the experience. When expanding a venue, AV teams don’t want to worry about how they’re going to integrate new technologies. Instead, they can utilize an IP network standard I—like SMPTE 2110—to directly operate, feed, and control their content to the production platform. We’ve seen the benefits of this type of technology more recently in venues that experience rapidly growing attendance and interest, like AREA15 in Las Vegas.

The digital capabilities of live video production platforms also make it easy for teams to open multiple locations of the same experience. Rather than having to develop an entirely new ecosystem, AV teams can “plug-and-play” these production processes from one venue to another via the production platform.

The scalability of a cohesive ecosystem isn’t just useful for expanding experiences; it helps minimize them as well. Recently, the immersive experience industry noticed that business leaders are trying to incorporate these unique exhibits into everyday life in places like houses of worship, retail stores, restaurants, and even exercise classes. Why? The demand for engaging experiences is trickling down into what consumers want in their everyday lives. And the numbers don’t lie—two-thirds of customers would be interested in visiting a brick-and-mortar store if their experience was more personalized and immersive, according to a 2023 study. The ability to scale immersive experiences and have them fit in more traditional spaces makes it easier for everyday businesses to incorporate them into their daily operations.

And the integration in large scale and more traditional venues is a tell-tale sign the industry is only going to get bigger and better. Keeping up with consumer demands rests on event planners, AV teams, small businesses, museums, and retail to adopt ever-evolving next generation technologies. With cohesive and connected ecosystems, the sky is the limit for creativity and innovation.

About the Author: Jared Darensbourg serves as the national live events manager at Panasonic Connect North America, leading the company’s strategic efforts across the live events market. Alongside his team, Darensbourg brings the creative vision of the themed entertainment industry to life by working alongside customers and partners to innovate and implement Panasonic’s technological ecosystem.