Immersive Review Rundown: Vegas Special Edition

Vegas!

Whether you are there to go to a convention, take in a concert at the Sphere, do some outlet shopping, gamble, or tuck into the cheesecake at the Junior’s in Resorts World because you’re too cheap to fly out to New York and go to the mothership there is something for just about everyone.

That goes DOUBLE for those of us who seek immersive thrills. So that’s why it’s a joy that two of our key correspondents — Senior LA Reviewer & Executive Editor Emeritus Kathryn Yu and Denver Correspondent Danielle Riha — both found themselves with time to take in some of the new, and some of the classic, immersive attractions in Las Vegas we had yet to have a chance to catalog.

With that welcome to our all-singing, all-dancing Immersive Review Rundown Vegas Spectacular!

Arte Musuem — Arte Museum
$50; Las Vegas; ongoing

If you’ve been to one projection- or screen-based immersive art “museum,” consisting of a series of rooms made of high resolution video walls and floors, you’ve seen them all, right?

Produced by the South Korean digital design company d’strict, The Arte Museum in Las Vegas is a more thoughtful version of this form of digital immersive art, one which adds in unusual twists like using custom scents for different installations as well as an immersive tea shop, in an attempt to engage all five senses. And while the admission price is a wee bit high for an experience that can be completed in 45 minutes or so, two of the exhibits stand out amongst the others, all of which are nature-themed.

“Star Raindrops” was possibly my favorite room out of the ones we found at the Arte Museum. This exhibit consists of a dimly lit room with mirrors on all four walls and the floor, filled with paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling. The piece feels reminiscent of a Yayoi Kusama or Pipilotti Rist exhibit as the lights shift colors in coordination with the gentle soundscape playing. At times these lights would twinkle or plunge us into darkness as well. Or a single lantern gently swaying might become a thousand lanterns when reflected into infinity. The effect was both relaxing and stimulating at the same time. I could have spent hours in this installation.

Meanwhile “Live Sketchbook Night Safari” is another crowd-pleaser, this time mixing the physical with the digital. Templates of animals are provided on large sheets of paper and participants are encouraged to color in these animals and customize their looks, which can then be scanned in at a kiosk and brought to life via animation. Overall, the technology works well, the concept is easy to understand, and it truly is enjoyable to see one’s crayoned drawing of a lion or fox appear on a screen and make its way across the room. And lest you think this is just for kids, I observed nearly a dozen adults eagerly grabbing crayons and scanning in their personalized creations while we were there.

These two installations are interesting and compelling enough that the screen-based ones paled in comparison, though I will say that the final room also used the power of architecture to its advantage. Attendees can climb up to a viewing platform which provides an elevated vantage point as the entire room — including the floor — shifts and animates according to a single theme; this room also has multiple archways in the center, which are made of mirrors and screens, and have their own custom animations. This last large chamber feels reminiscent of a kaleidoscope crossed with a Lego brick set and moving around and choosing different perspectives only enhances the effect. This room also cycles between three different shows for variety.

Although I wished more of the exhibits were like “Star Raindrops” or “Live Sketchbook Night Safari,” The Arte Museum demonstrates how a tech-heavy experience can feel like more than “just” an empty concrete box filled with a looping projection show.

— Kathryn Yu, Senior LA Reviewer & Executive Editor Emeritus

Escape Blair Witch — Egan Escape Productions
From $45.99; Las Vegas, NV; Ongoing

I’ve played a few escape rooms with actors before, but Escape Blair Witch was finally the live escape room experience I’ve been seeking.

We met the actor about halfway through our game, right as the intensity of it all really picked up. We’d stepped from inside a relatively calm (and somewhat typical) escape room scenario into the woods, with the Blair Witch’s haunted house laying in wait. The puzzles we’d just solved in the park ranger’s cabin were surprisingly authentic (we started up the generator, for example, to turn on the electricity) and magically in-world (like the miniature model of the town of Burkittsville).

But when the alarm sounded and we were suddenly “outside,” in the woods, our new friend and guide Jamie was just as frazzled as we were. From the moment we first encountered him until the very end of the game, Jamie faded in and out of the scene just when we needed him… or when we didn’t.

This was the crucial element of a live actor escape room experience that someone finally got right: the balancing act of being a character and being a Game Master. Jamie let us struggle just enough to keep it fun and challenging, but got progressively more obvious with his clues when we needed to be moving on. He was always in character, always on our side, and always very animated.

Once we solved additional puzzles in the woods and got into the house, Jamie kept us on track without telling us what to do, all while maintaining a chaotic sense of urgency. But what I hadn’t expected was the physicality of Jamie’s performance, which really made the experience memorable, if not totally believable.

My favorite part was when Jamie made the mistake of trying to open a door that The Blair Witch was waiting behind, which sent him flying backwards, smashing into the closed door behind him, leaving him lying on the floor inside.

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The details of exactly how we wrapped up the search for our friend and actually escaped the wrath of the Blair Witch are all fuzzy to me, but that’s because I was pumping full of adrenaline and fully immersed in the game’s finale. Escape Blair Witch has set the bar very, very high for an interactive, horror themed experience… but I’d wager a bet that they hit it with their other two rooms, Saw and It.

— Danielle Riha, Denver Correspondent

John Wick Experience — Lions Gate Entertainment Inc. and Egan Escape Productions
$49.99 to $65.99 per person; Las Vegas, NV; ongoing

“Your room is ready,” says a mysterious text message from an unknown number. My husband and I are enjoying a quiet moment in the lobby bar of a fancy hotel. But this is no ordinary hotel: it’s the Las Vegas Continental, one of the infamous luxury hotels frequented by members of the criminal underworld in the John Wick films.

We join a group of ordinary-looking folks waiting by the elevator. Our bellhop reminds us that — just like in the films — no “business” is to be conducted while on the grounds. And, of course, shortly after something happens and it all goes wrong. Our group is informed that we have upset the High Table, so now we’ve got an hour to prepare before every assassin in the world tries to murder us. Tick tock….

We’re lucky because various folks in the Hotel offer to come to our aid as we go from room to room, each depicting iconic settings from the films. Fans of the franchise will be delighted at the meticulous production design, where it seems like every detail has been considered, down to an ashtray full of used cigarette butts next to a vintage computer to the jar of in-world gold coins on a desk. Attendees should be prepared for some good-natured ribbing from the actors and to find themselves in some genuinely thrilling, Wick-appropriate scenarios. This experience will definitely get your adrenaline pumping and increase your heart rate.

The roughly fifty-minute walkthrough also borrows a few times from escape rooms to keep things interesting (unsurprising, given the portfolio of Egan Escape Productions). These interactive tasks are smartly designed to be either very straightforward or guided by one of the actors. But one of the activities feels out of place compared to the others, as it reads more like a video game (though it’s understandable why) and is clearly labeled a simulation; it’s also the most difficult activity you end up doing.

And that’s one of the challenges of bringing this particular IP to life: how do you give participants a taste of what it’s like to be John Wick when doing John Wick-like things is much, much harder compared to watching Keanu Reeves play an unnaturally talented hit man on a big screen? How do you also design this immersive experience to be action-packed yet safe, approachable, and achievable for a mainstream audience? An impossible task, one might say.

As guests, we get to inhabit the world of these films during the experience but it becomes clear we aren’t expected to physically roleplay as elite killers possessing superhuman skills and would probably fail if we were tested in that way. There’s an inherent tension between the two sets of expectations running under the (somewhat thin) plot tying the whole experience together and the loose “role” the audience is placed in.

That said, I found many cool surprises and clever callbacks from the films waiting around each corner, and. And I’ll admit, my jaw dropped twice after an impressive reveal or stage trick. Plus, as someone who’s seen all the films multiple times, I found it delightful to verbally spar with the wonderful and surprisingly humorous actors in this universe. It’s hard not to when you sense the performers are having just as much fun as you are. So if your group is especially down to play, as mine was, I suspect you’ll have a blast.

As for my group’s fate? Luckily, we all made it out alive in the end. Though I am still worried about that bounty on my head. I guess I’d better watch my back, now. Tick tock. Tick tock.

— Kathryn Yu, Senior LA Reviewer & Executive Editor Emeritus

Omega Access Quest at Omega Mart — Meow Wolf
$3 per group, plus general admission ($48 and up per person); Las Vegas, NV; ongoing

Eagle-eyed visitors to Meow Wolf’s Omega Mart, the surreal grocery store-themed installation art venue, may on occasion spy other guests running around the exhibit tapping plastic cards at various terminals and kiosks. This is the optional Omega Access quest, bonus content in the immersive experience enabled by an RFID card which is available for purchase once inside the store. (More than one guest even asked us where to get the card when they saw us using it.)

A group can share a single card and your progress during the game is tracked via tapping the in-world kiosks or on a custom web site available on your phone. Thankfully, there’s no special app to download and redundancy is built into the system so if you’re a very thorough player (like I am) you’ll soon realize that some of the quest content is repeated multiple times throughout the building. Some of the key Omega Access content can also be saved to your account or your “DramDrive” for later consumption.

Attendees with the card (aka a “Boop” card) are cast as new employees of Dramcorp, the family-run corporation behind Omega Mart, and must finish their new employee training to progress in the quest. Tasks include finding and tapping one’s card against red kiosks scattered throughout the exhibit and following any instructions presented, which takes you all over the building at times. But those aren’t the only places you can tap the card; participants have the opportunity to log in to different computers belonging to characters in the world like CEO Cecelia Dram and her daughter Marin Dram, to learn more about their backstories.

Mysteries abound around at least one family member who has gone missing, the true nature of The Source, and the things Dramcorp has allegedly done to a town nearby by building a factory, all against the backdrop of the maximalist art all around you. To be clear, though, there aren’t puzzles to solve during the quest — at least based upon what we encountered — so be sure to turn the “escape room” part of your brain down; the tasks are quite often as simple as “tap your card” and the level of difficulty remains approachable for all ages. And if you get stuck, there are multiple employees in lab coats available to give you a nudge. There was one interaction that appeared like it might be a puzzle but we solved it quickly, and seemingly by accident, which leads me to guess that the design team have simplified the experience behind the scenes. Consequently, more than a few of your given tasks don’t feel very satisfying upon completion.

I’ll note here that the reliance on screens to unlock video recordings and documents during the quest means that players will spend quite a bit of their time in Omega Mart standing or leaning over a desk and watching or reading, in a less-than-ideal, noisy environment. The exhibits have music and sound effects going at the same time in the background so reading long documents aloud became a challenge; instead, I would skim and report back any juicy nuggets found in email or a diary entry, for example. Thankfully, all the video content in the quest has closed captions available or already baked in, making it easy to watch even if there are screaming kids next to you. Additionally, we encountered multiple groups also doing the quest, all at varying points in the storyline, which meant that their actions sometimes inadvertently previewed future content for us, an unfortunate side effect in an open-world scavenger hunt like this. Be prepared also for some moments of downtime waiting for a kiosk or computer to free up as well, especially if the venue is busy that day.

As a scavenger hunt or alternate reality-esque game, the Omega Mart Access quest does take a while to get going, and I found the latter third to be much more interesting than the first two-thirds. So I would probably only recommend this activity for those who are competitionists about the various Meow Wolf locations or those on their second or third visit to Omega Mart, as it greatly increases the length of your visit and the amount of running around you’ll do. It took us about two hours to complete the whole thing at a leisurely pace. However, the big payoff moment for finishing the Access quest was great, surprising some of the folks who happened to be standing nearby and had no idea what was going on. Taking an action and having the physical environment around you react in a cinematic, large-scale way is extremely cool and definitely worth the effort for any folks who want to go deeper into the Dramcorp universe.

— Kathryn Yu, Senior LA Reviewer & Executive Editor Emeritus

Discover the latest immersive events, festivals, workshops, and more at our new site EVERYTHING IMMERSIVE, home of NoPro’s show listings.

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