NoPro’s Best Immersive Moments of 2024

The end of the year gives us a chance to reflect on the moments that have shaped us over the last twelve months.

With that on our minds, we challenge the NoPro Review Crew each year to look over their own record of immersive experiences and try to identify THE moment in the year sticks out in their memory.

Because at the end of the day immersive is a quintessentially ephemeral artform. It may take millions of dollars and tons of steel and concrete to create the perfect set for an experience, or it might just take someone holding your hand in a quiet room.

In either case, the moment comes and then it is gone.

But some memories last forever. These are the ones that endure in 2024.

NoPro’s End of 2024 Coverage

NoPro’s Best Immersive Moments of 2023
Next Up: 2024 Journalist Round-Up — London Edition
Later on Friday: Best Shows & Experiences of 2024
Coming Next Week: 2024 End-of-Year Pod

Emma’s Loop
Life And Trust — Emursive

Of the many, many characters in Life And Trust, Emma, a young activist, was the first person I ended up following. I can’t quite remember how or where I found her, but that’s often how these things work.

Emma’s loop is, frankly, not one of the more interesting, exciting, or fun loops in the show. It’s actually fairly straightforward, there’s nothing flashy, and she doesn’t end up in any of the “big” scenes that get people talking.

From what I can remember (and I definitely didn’t find her right away), she puts up some posters, dances and flirts with a lady or two, goes on a date, and dances around her apartment. At one point, she gets righteously fucking mad when she discovers one of her lady friends has been keeping tabs on her and works for a doctor who’s into phrenology. Then she gets real sad and works out her emotions in a boxing ring.

Compared to a titan of industry, a boxer, a thief, an adventurer, Dorian Gray, and a demon (or five), it’s a small story of someone just trying to get by. But that’s what makes it work! Emma gets a compelling, if small, story all to herself with highs and lows and everything in between.

The willingness to feature a loop like Emma’s is demonstrative of what Life And Trust does best. It wants to tell a bunch of stories with full narratives that are connected on a thematic level. From what I can tell, not all of the stories tie neatly into the “main” story, and some, like Emma’s don’t seem to connect with it at all. But it also doesn’t really matter because they’re focused on the idea of living in a world built on money and power and how those affect everyone from the top to the bottom.

Now, if I had to pick just one moment from Emma’s loop to actually keep with the brief here, I’d pick the one where she returns to the lovely lake set and performs a sad solo. That was the moment where I started to realize that Life And Trust might be offering rich story arcs for all of its characters.

— Kevin Gossett, LA Reviews Editor

Dinner Takes A Turn
The Key of Dreams — Lemon Difficult

At dinner on the first night of our stay, our group of about 20 investigators sat at two tables, one around my group’s mentor, and the other around the mentor of my group’s rival, played by Emily Carding. At one point, Emily’s character began speaking loudly to their neighbors with a snide comment about my group’s actions earlier that day. Having overheard it, I turned to say something to Carding to confront them, which led to them confronting me, which led to my mentor defending me, which led to a fight between the two mentors that destroyed their relationship and committed our groups against each other as we headed into the evening’s intensifying events. As the host of the manor returned to demand everyone sit down and behave, all the players knew that something irrevocable had happened and everyone looked at me as the cause of it.

I wasn’t of course — all the actors had this scene planned and Carding simply used my interjection to kick it off. But that’s what the duration and dedication of Key of Dreams made possible. A day-and-a-half-long escape-room/LARP experience set in a manor in Wales, Key of Dreams allowed you to solve puzzles and interact with Lovecraftian horrors as you tried to reveal the mystery of the house. But the joy of Key of Dreams for me was getting to play with the actors as they maneuvered through their curses and dark ambitions. Since Galactic Starcruiser, I’ve been looking for shows where I could throw with actors, knowing that they would meet me truthfully yet still guide me to a good story outcome. In Key of Dreams, I found that moment and I applaud the performers who brought it to life so powerfully and gracefully.

— Nicholas Fortugno, NYC Correspondent

Taking My Parents to a Perfectly Normal Grocery Store
Omega Mart — Meow Wolf

“I’m taking you to a cool grocery store just off the Vegas Strip.” That’s the only context I gave my parents prior to visiting Omega Mart. Mom was excited, Dad was confused. That mixture of excitement and confusion remained with them in varying degrees throughout our visit. As I ushered them through the freezer, one of the many portals connecting the quirky grocery store facade into a fantastical world, I watched their expression soften into childlike wonder. In that moment, I think they finally understood why I’m drawn to this magical world of immersive.

— Katrina Lat, Toronto Curator

Manifesting Disneyland & Matthew Barney
Lightscape — Doug Aitken w/Los Angeles Philharmonic & Los Angeles Master Chorale

Coming in under the wire, Doug Aitken’s Lightscape, now on view at the Marciano Art Foundation, represents a fascinating collaboration between the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, and multimedia artist Doug Aitken. Manifesting as a piece that feels like the nexus between Godfrey Reggio’s iconic film, Koyaanisqatsi, Matthew Barney’s magnum opus of the Cremaster Cycle, and Disneyland’s Circlevision, this hour-long experience creates an environment that is at the same time meditative and frenetic. Various musical compositions, some by Aitken himself, tie the experience all together, and instill hope that the disparate blue-chip arts organizations of Los Angeles can collaborate and make new work!

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— Martin Gimenez, Reviewer At Large

An Intergalactic Meditation
Söm-Sãptälahn — itchy-O

Not quite a band, not quite a theater troupe, itchy-O is one of Denver’s most celebrated treasures in local entertainment. Their devoted fans enjoy regular helpings of itchy-O lore distributed via Patreon, while casual fans delight in an ever-evolving show format and venue with each new event announcement.

That’s how I found myself comfortably reclined in the plush Fiske Planetarium on CU Boulder’s campus anxiously awaiting the commencement of Söm-Sãptälahn this past February. Much like an album release party, the core purpose of gathering in the planetarium was to experience the group’s latest original music, which they say was “born of a collaboration with the prestigious School of Mines, where [they] cast several custom instruments in [itchy-O’s] custom septa-tonic tonal scale.”

Ultimately, the experience was one of relaxation, reverberation, and guided meditation with a high quality audio recording playing on surround sound while distinctly itchy-O-ian visuals projected and transformed on the dome overhead. But before we sunk into the meditations, we had to kick it off properly.

The lights dimmed and millions of stars appeared overhead. A perimeter door opened and, although I could not see them, I could tell members of Itchy-O had entered the room by the rhythmic clank and clunk of their bells, gongs and cymbals accompanied by the silhouetted procession of their tall, rounded tophats.

Next, several Kriechen — itchy-O’s iconic, female-presenting dancers with creepy, pointy fingers and fully-shrouded heads and torsos — performed a tribal-like movement sequence at the center of the room that had the effect of controlling the rotation of the stars above us.

Soon after, the performers exited the room, leaving us to focus on the recorded sound and synchronized visuals for the remainder of the show. But, reflecting back, it was that kick-off moment that stuck with me the most — the mystery of their presence paired with the novel venue and format — and left me once again in awe.

— Danielle Riha, Denver Curator (for her absolutely most memorable moment check our Best Shows & Experiences of 2024 for a truly incredible sequence)

You’re At A Place Called Vertigo
U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere — U2

A concrete wall. Perfectly laid out, a simulacra of the real thing (even better than the real thing?) taking over the entire interior of the Sphere, a 160,000 square foot high-resolution screen. A small window of cloudless blue sky at the top of the dome. Once in a while, a white bird appears and flits around, briefly, before landing and resting again. After a while, I realize it’s on a loop.

That’s the scene before me as I wait in my seat, eager to experience U2 for the first time and eager to attend a concert at Sphere for the first time. And so we wait. In the very back row of the highest section, I feel so far away from the band, perched high above the rest of the crowds. It’s a little dizzying, realizing how high up we are.

Suddenly: the lights dim and a slow, languid melody begins to play. The band takes the stage but the lights are still down low; the crowd is expectant, cheering in anticipation. Bono begins to croon. The mood is electric. I’m on the edge of my seat.

Then Bono gestures towards the screen right as I hear the drums crash. The concrete wall before me cracks open, with clouds of dust in the air. One crack appears in the previously monolithic wall, then a second crack materializes. The crunch of Edge’s guitar quickly follows. Lines of virtual light spill into the venue and the concrete wall splits into four parts, the negative space turning into the shape of a cross, with bits and pieces of concrete appearing to fall down to the floor. And my seat feels like it’s vibrating as the opening of “Zoo Station” washes over me. Thousands of people around me gasp and scream all at the same time. The visuals and music and haptics, all working in perfect unison. My jaw drops. I feel the music in my bones. I am speechless.

Now that’s how you make an entrance.

—

Honorable mentions: Perfect Partner by Phoenix Tears Productions; INERTIA by Drew Petersen; Undersigned by Yannick Trapman-O’Brien; CLAWS by Candle House Collective; Lennox Mutual by Candle House Collective; The Keeper and the Fungus Among Us by Headlock Escape Rooms

– Kathryn Yu, Senior LA Reviewer & Exec. Editor Emeritus

The Shadow of the Bat
Batman: Arkham Shadow — Camouflaj & Oculus Studios

I’m cheating here a little because my real moment of the year is from the climax of the story. When hours of gameplay come down not to a boss fight but to a dramatic gesture which by this point we’ve been primed to carry out.

But to get into the details would be to spoil the story, so instead I’ll focus on a light spoiler from the very beginning of the game: the first time I saw my shadow and realized that I was now Batman.

It wasn’t a big dramatic beat, but just a moment where I passed in front of a light fixture and the dynamic shadows of the game were projected in front of me. Batman’s silhouette is huge part of the character’s identity, indeed that he can be rendered almost as a living shadow in the comics is a large part of the visual appeal.

Seeing my shadow and having it be that of the Bat sent a thrill through me, and gave me hope that I was about to experience something truly special.

I would not be disappointed.

— Noah Nelson, Publisher

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