What immersive performance can learn from the TravelTech Industry
If you thought GPS was just for Sat Nav, think again.
When Claire Walker and Hannah Essex took over as joint-Chief Execs of SOLT / UK Theatre, one of their pledges was to increase advocacy around theatre’s role as a driver for tourism. The two sectors have always been inextricably linked. Now that TravelTech is a booming industry — various start-ups are springing up offering services and products focused on growing travel, tourism and hospitality — it’s time us immersive theatre makers paid attention.
Two products from this world have recently caught my attention: The UK’s Geotourist and the Danish Storyhunt. Both are aimed at tourists (audience) and tour-guides (creator) alike. Storyhunt promises to ‘unlock’ stories around the user and GeoTourist boasts ‘audio will trigger as they walk along your path, in an immersive experience like never before’.
I enjoyed walking the streets of London listening to various creators’ location-triggered audio. London wasn’t the only city I explored last week. As well as ambling around the historic streets of the City with my tour guide in my hand, I found myself weaving in and out of an even more ancient cityscape. Punchdrunk’s The Burnt City allowed me to dart around the backstreets of Troy. It’s extraordinary in a multitude of ways. One of the things that blew me away was the smoothness of the performers’ timing. Their inter-scene choreography seemed seamless.
This is difficult enough inside where music and light cues can guide you. Outside, it’s even harder. Having experienced both the Geotourist app and the Punchdrunk show in the same week, I got thinking about the logistical difficulties performers who make outdoor promenade work face. In the opening Act of our inaugural production Recollection, audience members wove through the backstreets of Borough and London Bridge before breaking into an old office block.
We ended up spending a small fortune on radios so that performers and stage managers could keep track of everyones’ movements. Life would have been a lot simpler — and cheaper — if we’d utilised GPS in the way Geotourist and Storyhunt tours do.
Let’s just remind ourselves what GPS actually is: The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a navigation system using satellites, a receiver and algorithms to synchronise location, velocity and time data for air, sea and land travel. There are five main uses of GPS:
- Location — Determining a position;
- Navigation — Getting from one location to another;
- Tracking — Monitoring objects or personal movement;
- Mapping — Creating maps of the world;
- Timing — Making it possible to take precise time measurements.
Most people use it regularly when using GoogleMaps or CityMapper, and it’s already used in the entertainment industry by the likes of Pokemon Go or Geocaching. Geotourist uses it to show tourists experiences available nearby and to function as a digital brochure with active location-based entertainment. When you walk over Millennium Bridge, you automatically hear some audio about The Globe that you can see in the distance. By toggling to the AR function, you can also see where the next cue is.
Tours on both platforms are pre-recorded; indeed their other core function is ‘to scale the personal tour guide’. Location-triggered promenade radio-plays or podcasts could already be built on either of them. I’m interested though in how live performance could enjoy the adoption of such technology.
When your set consists of streets, courtyards or towpaths, indeed if all the world’s your stage, what a useful stage manager GPS could be!
If we know the location of our audience, can track their movements and navigate our journey to them with precise timings, we can cue ourselves. We could even have GPS-triggered audio cues too, so we don’t actually have to be looking at our phones. With a pair of AirPods in, we have our own headset on, our own Deputy Stage Manager whispering in our ears. When your set consists of streets, courtyards or towpaths, indeed if all the world’s your stage, what a useful stage manager GPS could be!
For me, The Burnt City was a piece of performance art, punctuated by emotive choreography and peppered with bold visual imagery. It’s rubbed off on me. Imagine listening to a (location-triggered) monologue, whilst voyeuristically seeing moments of visual storytelling. Your back is to The Globe. You are walking across Millenium Bridge, looking over towards St Paul’s Cathedral. You are listening to Juliet’s Nurse in your ears. Someone rushes past you. Another runs towards you. Before you know it, you’re feet from a passionate dance between two star-crossed lovers. To the unknowing, it’s a flash-mob; to the special few, it’s an illicit moment you’re granted access to.
Games could be played with the audience blurring fiction and reality. Imagine an audio trail leading you from one point to another. As you go, you pass a group of people, some sitting, some standing, but seemingly connected. Are they taking a pause in their busy lives or are they in a tableaux deepening the particular narrative beat playing in you ears at that very moment? Or maybe you are experiencing a promenade piece with a friend. Without knowing it, you’re both listening to a different audio track. The two different tracks are triggered by the same location, and you’re both looking at the woman in the red coat. Is she protagonist or antagonist? Trustworthy or not? Is your narrator reliable? In both these scenarios, the performers are perfectly placed. They’ve moved into position at the perfect time privy to their audience’s location.
As ever, the magic will be greater if the tech can fade into the background. In an ideal world, you would have your phone in your back pocket rather than holding it in your hand. The narrative would lead you from place to place and you wouldn’t need to be staring down at your screen. In this way, it is different from the Tourism Trade. This isn’t about locating yourself. Neither is it about driving footfall or promoting a particular place. But the satellites in the sky, the receiver in your back pocket, and the algorithms in the ether equip performers. With these tools at our disposal, we can indeed make outdoor immersive experiences like never before.
With thanks to Sarah Dowling, Associate Director at Punchdrunk for talking things through with me when researching this post.
This blog is part of a series I’m writing on what’s hot in both the software and experiential worlds. Follow me to get my latest discoveries straight to your inbox.
You can also find me on social channels @sophielarsmon and Any One Thing @any_one_thing
