Welcome to this month’s round-up of Extraordinary Experiences across all experience sectors and around the globe.
Christmas is over. The crackers have been pulled, the turkey devoured and the eggnog guzzled, but there is plenty to be cheerful about in the experiential world as those of us in the Northern Hemisphere enter the bleakest month of the year. This month’s round-up features a host of epic experiences both for kids and adults keen to indulge their inner child.
In Houston, Meow Wolf is running a series of adult-only evenings at its kooky new Radio Tave venue featuring cocktails aplenty and live DJ sets. Across the pond in Singapore you can go down the rabbit hole (from the King of Hearts’ bathroom) at a quirky punk-inspired take on Alice in Wonderland where you’ll be served mock turtle soup alongside edible toothpaste.
In London, French concept Quiz Room has opened in Spitalfields, offering gamers the chance to live out their TV quiz show dreams, complete with studio lights and canned laughter. Over in Melbourne, things get a little steamy at the city’s new Museum of Desire, which, among other things, features a kissing booth and an orgasm harp that can be plucked into ecstasy.
Digital art is also under the spotlight around the globe this month. At the Tate Modern in London, early pioneers of the movement are given their due, including the inventor of the Dreamachine that inspired its recent reinvention. Breaking boundaries in Kansas is the shiny new Museum of Art + Light; the first museum in the world with a permanent digital art wing.
18. Meow Wolf Radio Tave AdultiVerse
Open now until 23 January 2025
Location: Houston, US
Experience Sector: Immersive Entertainment
For the big kids among us, themed entertainment alchemists Meow Wolf are running a series of evening events for over 21s at their latest pleasure palace, Radio Tave in Houston. Step over the threshold into the Adulti-Verse where you’ll be free to roam around the surreal signals and hidden layers of Houston’s newest immersive wonderland with a drink in hand. Expect eye-popping art installations, interactive spaces, mind-bending experiences, opportunities for play, and cocktails aplenty.
Taking place on 9 and 23 January from 7-10pm, Radio Tave’s Adulti-Verse dials up immersion and interaction, inviting adults to journey through interactive spaces crafted to spark awe, curiosity and connection free from the daytime crowds and to the sounds of a live DJ set. While you’re there be sure to swing by Cowboix Hevvven, a raucous Texas-inspired dive bar nestled within the surreal landscapes of Radio Tave serving Southern-inspired bites and signature cocktails.
17. Mike Kelley Ghost And Spirit
Open now until 9 March 2025
Location: London, UK
Experience Sector: Immersive Art
The Tate Modern is popping right now, with a number of trailblazing new exhibitions. Among them is a Mike Kelley retrospective, which explores the elaborate, provocative and imaginary worlds created by the experimental American artist. Spanning a diverse body of works from the ‘70s up until 2012, the show includes drawings, collages, performance art, found objects and video. Look out for his breakthrough ‘craft’ sculptures made from textile and plush toys, which are presented alongside multi-media installations such as Day Is Done.
Drawing on references from popular and underground culture, literature, and philosophy, Kelley explores how the roles we play in society are entangled with historical fact and imaginary characters from films. Exploring a range of voices and viewpoints in his work, Kelley expects the viewer to be an active participant that questions everything. “The viewer must at least suspect that I am not the thing I claim to be”, he said of his performance pieces, which became an important part of the LA art scene in the late 20th century.
16. Harry Potter Visions Of Magic
Open now
Location: Singapore
Experience Sector: Themed Attractions, Immersive Entertainment
Twenty seven years after the publication of the first Harry Potter book and the world is still entranced with the boy wizard. The latest twist on his adventures can be seen in Singapore at Harry Potter Visions of Magic, which marks the Asian debut of a themed world dedicated to the beloved character. You’ll find the wizarding world at Resorts World Sentosa. Expect cutting-edge light and sound effects and a host of interactive experiences that see scenes and sets from the film franchise brought to life.
The multimedia exhibition, which is also weaving its magic everywhere from Germany to Brussels, boasts no less than 10 immersive themed zones, from the Knight Bus, Grimmauld Place and Newt’s Menagerie to the Ministries of Magic and the Hall of Prophecy via Singapore exclusives the Chamber of Secrets and the Trap Door. If you’re thirsty after all that adventuring then don’t leave without trying the Butterbeer before exciting via the gift shop.
15. Museum Of Desire
Open now
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Experience Sector: Museums
Guaranteed to get Victorians hot under the collar is Melbourne’s new Museum of Desire, which has just flung its doors open to those of a curious nature. Strictly for adults, the provocative space features 25 sensory-rich interactive zones. Hoping to spread a message of sex positivity and empowerment, it’s a space where you can explore desire without judgment. Expect thrills (but hopefully not spills) aplenty, from a kissing booth and a Joy Room featuring a ball pit full of breasts to a giant neon vulva artwork and projections from the Huxleys.
Equal parts wild, whimsical and wicked, visitors who are feeling amorous will be able to pluck the orgasm harp to a musical climax and check out the Confessions of a Photocopier installation for some off the record office antics. Promising to be a bold, avant-garde exploration of love, sex and desire through the power of art, touch (of the exhibits) is very much encouraged, and curiosity is rewarded. Don’t leave without taking a photo of your favourite body part and adding to the communal wall projection.
14. Living Dream
Open now
Location: Austin, US
Experience Sector: Museums, Immersive Entertainment
Texas has become quite the experiential hub, and its latest plaything sounds like a trippy wonderverse. The brainchild of Mesmerize, a collective that specialises in creating dynamic, large-scale immersive art events in Austin, Living Dream features a series of mazes and installations by local artists. Guests can move through, interact with, and take psychedelic photos of the space. Think Meow Wolf but smaller and with a different storyline and theme, and an original score created by Alex Scott, Austin Ray and Andrea Magee to boot.
In Living Dream, the story goes that an unassuming warehouse in South Austin has been fractured by an eight-foot-tall Colossal Crystal, blurring the lines between fantasy and reality. The giant crystal forms the centrepiece of the show. Other art installations include a rainbow mural by Inne Aguilar that you can step inside; a projection-mapped room featuring Bill Tavis’s signature psychedelic paintings; a hidden crawlspace by Hannah Buserkus; a dark but whimsical Mulligrub Meadow by Liza Fishbone; and a rainbow stairway to the clouds.
13. Quiz Room
Open now
Location: London, UK
Experience Sector: Competitive Socialising
Having blazed a trail in France, and with successful sites in Sydney, Dubai, Brussels, Geneva, Montreal, the Quiz Room concept has finally landed in London’s Spitalfields. It offers gamers a TV quiz show-style experience, complete with studio lights, a podium, a quiz master, secret powers and a laughter track. With room for up to 18 participants, there are four quiz modes to choose from, including a classic pub quiz, a music quiz, and a child-friendly quiz.
The original quiz combines general knowledge, sports, TV and cinema and popular culture, with players having to be the first to buzz in. The music quiz sees players having to name that tune to earn their team the win. The Christmas quiz features festive questions, while the child-friendly quiz includes rounds on superheroes, animals, film, science and cartoons. Each one-hour slot consists of two quiz games, making it perfect for team-building events. Best of all, there’s a licensed bar on the premises.
12. Ah, Amália
Open now
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Experience Sector: Immersive Entertainment
If you’re beguiled by the melancholic melodies of fado, then this immersive experience celebrating the popular Portuguese folk music genre is for you. The experience tells the story of Amália Rodrigues, known as the ‘Queen of fado’, who was instrumental in popularising fado worldwide by spreading its haunting refrains around the globe. Marking Portugal’s first immersive experience dedicated to a national personality, Ah, Amália in Lisbon features virtual reality and video footage that combine to bring Amália’s story to life.
Taking place across eight themed rooms over 700 square metres in Lisbon’s new cultural centre in Marvila, visitors embark on a journey through the artist’s life via cutting-edge video-mapping technology and interactive content that fuses the physical with the digital and explores the various aspects of the singer’s career, from her artistic achievements to her personal life. Don’t miss Amália’s performance at the Olympia stage in Paris, which has been recreated via a full-scale hologram.
11. Balloons At The Palace
Open now until 26 April 2025
Location: Dubai, UAE
Experience Sector: Wellness, Food & Beverage
We’re noticing a mini trend for upscale venues delivering Jules Verne-inspired experiences via the addition of hot air balloons to al fresco seating areas, and we’re here for it. Sadly not able to take off and whisk you into the clouds, as the baskets are anchored to the ground, the latest iteration of this trend can be found at Jumeirah Al Qasr in Dubai, which is offering Saturday morning sunrise yoga sessions followed by breakfast in one of their balloon pods.
Forming part of the hotel’s Balloons at the Palace pop-up, the morning begins with a 60-minute hatha yoga session on the fifth-floor terrace led by Talise Spa’s instructors followed by breakfast in the private pods, which offer gorgeous views across Arabian Gulf. Designed to nourish body and mind, the menu includes quinoa croissants, banana bread, cranberry chia muffins and seasonal fruits. For those seeking something heartier there’s avocado or tomato and stracciatella on toast.
10. Mrs. Christopher’s House
Open now
Location: Pittsburgh, US
Experience Sector: Immersive Art
One of the quirkier new experiences taking place this month is Mrs. Christopher’s House in Pittsburgh, created by Massachusetts-born artist Mark Dion as part of the Troy Hill Art Houses project that includes a group of sculptural installations in formerly occupied homes. Preserving the house’s original architecture, dating to 1880, the space features a series of themed rooms that take the viewer back in time. Each room is dedicated to a different era, spanning the 1920s to the ‘90s, and features various motifs from Dion’s career.
Taking its name from the name of the house’s former owner, on the ground floor you’ll find a glass-walled diorama of what Dion imagines the house looked like on Christmas Eve in 1961; the year he was born, giving guests an immersive experience akin to time travel. Up a level the bathroom has been transformed into a brick-walled prison with a barred window where a life-size teddy bear resides. Down the hall is the Extinction Club boasting interiors evoking the old explorers’ clubs. Twisting on the theme, the room’s wallpaper features extinct animals.
In the attic the artist encourages visitors to take on the role of researcher. In a room lined with jars full of natural specimens, guests can explore a series of memory boxes filled with swizzle sticks, nappy pins and game pieces that are designed to spark nostalgia. Dion’s art explores how the classification of the natural world shapes our experience and understanding of it, and how we can shift the dominant ideologies by reframing those narratives.
9. Electric Dreams
Open now until 1 June 2025
Location: London, UK
Experience Sector: Immersive Art
With digital art becoming an increasingly important genre, the Tate Modern has used the opportunity to do a deep dive into the early innovators of optical, kinetic, programmed and digital art who pioneered a new era of immersive sensory installations and auto-generated works. From the birth of op art to the dawn of the internet, artists have found new ways to engage the senses and play with our perception that harness the latest tech. The show offers viewers a fascinating look back at how artists imagined the visual language of the future.
Immersive installations feature throughout. Highlights include Otto Piene’s Light Room, which surrounds viewers in a continuous light ‘ballet’; Carlos Cruz Diez’s captivating Chromointerferent Environment, which uses moving projections to create a mind-bending lattice of coloured lines that challenges our perceptions of colour and space; and Brion Gysin’s trippy Dreamachine, which creates kaleidoscopic patterns that induce a dream-like state in the viewer. The exhibition ends with a look at some of the earliest artistic experiments in virtual reality that paved the way for today’s immersive digital technologies.
This major exhibition brings together ground-breaking works by a wide range of international artists that engaged with science, technology and material innovation. In the show you’ll get to experience the psychedelic environments they created in the 1950s and ‘60s, built using mathematical principles, motorised components and new industrial processes. It also explores how radical artists embraced the birth of digital technology in the 1970s and 1980s, experimenting with machine-made art and early home computing systems eons before Insta.
8. Bluey’s World
Open now
Location: Brisbane, Australia
Experience Sector: Themed Attractions
Move over Peppa Pig, Bluey’s in town now as news reaches us that the anthropomorphic Blue Heeler puppy has his own dedicated world in Brisbane for fans to paw over. Bringing the hit TV show to life, interactive experience Bluey’s World features the dog’s on-screen home with dad Bandit, mum Chilli and little sister, Bingo, which has been reimagined in real life on a 4,000sqm set in Northshore Pavilion built for guided tours and creative play.
Bluey fans will be able to explore the living room, girls’ bedroom, playroom and kitchen, play iconic Bluey games like Keepy Uppy and Magic Xylophone, try a Pizza Girl’s pizza and shop at Alfie’s Gift Shop for exclusive Bluey’s World merch. The hands-on immersive experience is expected to contribute over AU$18m to the local economy. Created, written, animated and post-produced by Ludo Studio in Brisbane, Bluey is broadcasted in over 60 countries.
7. Nickelodeon Land
Opens: 15 January 2025
Location: Antalya, Turkey
Experience Sector: Themed Attractions
And if one children’s attraction wasn’t enough, kids can get their cartoon fix at the soon-to-open Nickelodeon Land at The Land of Legends in Antalya, Turkey. The shiny new theme park and hotel will feature themed rides and zones inspired by some of Nickelodeon’s best-loved characters, from SpongeBob and Dora the Explorer to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Fans will also have the chance to meet and greet their favourite characters while they’re there. The outdoor pool area features an Aqua Tower, Spray Area and a chance to be slimed.
Boasting three themed entertainment areas, in underwater Bikini Bottom from SpongeBob SquarePants, guests can ride the giant Jellyfish Jam swing, there’s an adventure through space in the Star Trek: Wild Galaxy 5D cinema, and helicopter-style ride Skye’s Flyers in the open-air Adventure Bay from PAW Patrol. The collaboration between The Land of Legends and Paramount Global’s Nickelodeon, one of the world’s biggest entertainment brands, reflects the growth of the Turkish hospitality and entertainment industry.
6. Museum Of Art + Light
Open now
Location: Kansas, US
Experience Sector: Museums, Immersive Entertainment
Kansas is now home to a cutting-edge immersive exhibition space that is the first in the world to include a permanent digital art wing. The Museum of Art + Light is betting big on immersive experiences and their growth. Backed by a team of 3D motion graphics designers, its first floor space, The Mez, is a 21,500-foot area furnished with over 100 projectors. Look out for Bloom Unfolded, a 13-foot sculpture made from acrylic and LED lights by Mads Christensen. Not turning its back on the past, the museum also includes a gallery for fine art.
French impressionist Renoir is the first artist to be given the immersive treatment there. Visitors will be submerged into hundreds of his vivid works and will be treated to a peek into his personal life through family photos and homespun films that bring his story to life. On the second floor, De Coded is a permanent home for digital art and NFTs. The space is being used like a lab in which leading digital artists are invited to display and sell their work, with the proceeds being split between the artist, museum and digital art platform Iconic. Its debut show includes works by Erick Calderon, Tyler Hobbs, Sasha Stiles, Grant Yun and Emily Xie.
5. Wonderland Upside Down Dining Experience
Open now until 31 January 2025
Location: Singapore
Experience Sector: Immersive Dining
Alice in Wonderland is the experiential gift that keeps on giving. Her latest adventure takes Alice to Singapore, where her curiouser and curiouser antics have been turned into an immersive dining experience by the brains at ANDSOFORTH. Taking place in a secret location, it transforms the classic tale into a bold, Victorian punk-inspired experience. Guests are taken on a journey through mind-bending installations, interactive storytelling and whimsical performances led by the Cheshire Cat and the Queen of Hearts with a Singaporean twist.
The adventure begins with a walking tour that explores the real-world inspirations behind Lewis Carroll’s characters. After being led down the rabbit hole in the King’s bathroom, a five-course feast awaits where each dish reflects a chapter from Wonderland. Expect the likes of Mock Turtle Soup, Toothpaste, Caviar and Crackers, and Peaches, Paint and Cream with playful presentation. Themed drinks add to the whimsy. We particularly like the sound of the themed merch, which includes quirky playing cards and the King’s own cleaning supplies.
4. Parallel Worlds
Open now until 31 January 2025
Location: Baku, Azerbaijan
Experience Sector: Immersive Art
Gazelli Art House in Baku’s new show, Parallel Worlds, brings together works from international artists and asks thorny questions around what is natural and what is artificially made. The artists use a range of tech and processes to consider our connection with the biosphere. London-based Marshmallow Laser Feast presents Poetics of Soil, which shines a light on the hidden kingdoms of life in our soils. Elnara Nasirli, meanwhile, offers Air Oasis: BreathCore-7; a tree trunk programmed by electronic plant signals to breathe through kirigami lungs.
Michael Takeo Magruder embarks on a reciprocal dialogue with AI in his Reconstructed Landscapes series, while Nye Thompson transmits postcards intended for satellites out into space, and decodes the satellites’ replies. The works prompt reflections on how humans impact on, and interact with, the ecological systems of the planet that support us. The show ponders what it means to create alternative visions of the natural world using the latest tech. Do these parallel worlds represent a call to action, or are they merely a seductive distraction?
3. The Last Drop
Open now until 14 February 2025
Location: Los Angeles, US
Experience Sector: Food & Beverage
To celebrate the launch of season two of hit Netflix show Arcane, Koreatown bubble tea and hookah hotspot Boba Bear in LA has teamed up with Riot Games to bring the animated steampunk action-adventure to life in glorious technicolour. The result is a kooky pop-up bar called The Last Drop, which will stick around until the middle of February, popping down just after Valentine’s Day. Inside Arcane fans can order from a themed menu featuring signature cocktails inspired by the show, including drinks served in glowing glass tubes.
Among the soju-themed cocktails on offer is the Knuckle Sandwich, a spicy mix of soju, jalapeño, habanero and mango, and the Pow Pow, made with soju, blue raspberry, honey, lemon juice and pop rocks. Boba drinks are also available, naturally. Looks-wise, expect a LED-lit bar, Over Zaun windows and a Jing-inspired photo booth. To keep things fresh, a variety of daily, weekly and monthly special events will be going on at the bar. The aim is to transport fans inside the show and give them a welcome dose of main character energy.
2. TeamLab Planets Tokyo
Opens: 22 January 2025
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Experience Sector: Immersive Entertainment
teamLab Planets Tokyo is soon to unveil a bold new expansion to its site that will include a host of new immersive experiences. The venue’s expanded area more than doubles the exhibition space, and features four new spaces for digital art, including an Athletics Forest that serves as a creative sports space. In the new Catching and Collecting Forest, meanwhile, visitors can use their phones to capture and study extinct creatures. Another new area is Future Park, an amusement zone where guests can co-create an endlessly evolving artwork.
Ten immersive pieces will be displayed throughout the new zones, and the creative collective will also be launching the Sketch Factory, a retail space where budding artists can take home products featuring their own creations. The expansion adds to teamLab’s current offering, which comprises four large-scale artwork spaces and two gardens. The art collective recently opened an outdoor experience in Osaka that uses the wind, rain and sun to create artworks.
1. Yayoi Kusama
Open now until 21 April 2025
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Experience Sector: Immersive Art
Ninety five and still going strong, Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama has brought her special brand of polka-dot magic to Melbourne with a solo show that spans her whole career. Yes, there will be pumpkins, but the retrospective goes beyond infinity rooms to give you the 360-degree perspective on Kusama’s life, work and unique world view. Featuring work spanning nearly nine decades, taking in her childhood right up to the present day, the show runs the gamut from her experimental years in post-war Japan to her contributions to New York’s avant-garde scene in the 1960s, through to her re-emergence as a world famous artist.
Comprising nearly 200 works, this is the largest exhibition of Kusama’s work presented in Australia and one of the most comprehensive retrospectives of the artist ever presented globally. Expect a visual feast that includes painting, sculpture, collage, fashion, film and installation that unite to reveal the astonishing breadth of Kusama’s multidisciplinary practice. While her 10 immersive installations and mirror rooms are likely to be the highlight, the show goes beyond her current fame and charts the path that got her there. Her goal has never wavered – with her art Kusama seeks to convey the complex beauty of the natural world, and to explore her place within it.
