On August 29th and 30th at AREA15 Las Vegas, Epic Immersive welcomed immersive industry luminaries from Secret Cinema, Marshmallow Laser Feast, David Byrne’s Theater of the Mind, Broadway, Swamp Motel, Meow Wolf, Delusion, Mycotoo, AREA15, Boomtown Fair, Les Enfants Terribles, The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and more. As well as international guests from companies in China, India, Singapore, Russia, and Europe.
Epic Immersive is an immersive experience agency that has created 14-acre fictional cities and underground wonderlands. Companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook have commissioned Epic Immersive experiences.
The 2-day event included speakers Mycotoo’s Fri Forjindam, Fifth Wall Forum’s Stephanie Riggs, AREA15’s Michael Beneville, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Nataki Garrett, and the team behind VR theatre experience Welcome to Respite (Tribeca Film Festival 2021 Official Selection), with many more.
Alt Ethos caught up with Steve Boyle, co-founder of Epic Immersive (co-created with Kimberly Flynn) to discuss event curation, announcements, and exciting future plans.
The Alt Ethos team really enjoyed The Immersive Industry Homecoming Summit. What was your process for curating the speakers; how did you go about choosing them?
We (Steve Boyle and Kimberly Flynn) worked together to identify the most compelling movers-and-shakers from the global immersive scene across a number of genres and mediums. It was of supreme importance to us that we threw a truly global event, and that our speaker roster reflected the incredible diversity of our field, highlighting femme and BIPOC creators.
We noticed that there were some announcements made at the event from the speakers. Can you please share some of those?
Two big ones come to mind: Stephanie Riggs announced the creation of Odeon Theatrical, a new platform that delivers AR content for live theatre, and Kim Adams announced the return of Adventure Lab.
What was the moment that surprised you the most at the event? Or a “wow” moment that comes to mind?
Steve: The wow moment for me was really just being there — those first moments especially when the energy is so high and the anticipation is there and we’ve really, truly come together for the first time in 18 months, with tons of safety precautions in place, and we’ve made it together safely. That was an amazing moment I’ll never forget.
Kim: Wow moments for me were in all the excitement and enthusiasm throughout the entire process from the speakers to our attendees, the positivity, excitement, support and joy from everyone involved and from everyone that attended was really magical. It was wonderful to feel the community excited to be sharing an experience again after such a long break.
Any shout-outs you would like to share?
Huge, huge thanks to projectionist and technical director Jacob Vorperian, and our tech wiz Christie Casey.
What are the future plans for The Immersive Industry Homecoming Summit?
Stay tuned! We’ll definitely be back in Vegas, and you’re going to want to be a part of a whole circuit of events we are planning in 2022.
What’s next for Epic Immersive?
A return to large-scale immersive experiences in 2022. Once again, stay tuned for big announcements!
We thank Steve Boyle for taking the time to chat with us and appreciate all of the effort that the Epic Immersive team, speakers, and collaborators put forth to make this Summit such a special event. Bringing together a group of visionaries, technologists, and storytellers is no small feat. Alt Ethos enjoyed the projection mapping within the space, the deep conversation from the speakers, the diversity of the group, and the pace of the presentations. We learned deeply about different companies and artists doing cutting-edge immersive work. Also, let’s not forget about the unique container that the summit took place in. If you’re ever in Las Vegas make sure to visit Area15.
AREA15 is an immersive playground, all rolled into a vast and vibrant space. Throw an axe, wander through a bamboo volcano, race on a zip line, or explore other mesmerizing realms. From the futuristic to the thrill-seeking, there’s an experience for everyone here.
Epic Immersive creates story-driven immersive experiences with explorable, 360-degree worlds. From ticketed experiences to corporate events to marketing activations, they deliver epic, unforgettable journeys.
Meow Wolf’s biggest attraction yet has finally come to Denver. But that’s by no means the whole story. For years, Denver has been preparing for Meow Wolf’s arrival in ways that are impacting not just the city but the entire region – and very likely beyond.
Millennials across the globe increasingly value experiences over material possessions.
For a while now, Denver has been the number one choice of those among them wanting to move to a new city in the US, and a third of Denver residents are now millennials (CNBC). City government took notice, and laid plans to stay ahead of the curve with a multi-year community-generated cultural plan designed to fully integrate arts, culture and creativity into daily life, work and play. These ingredients of Denver’s special sauce are part planned, part serendipitous – and that recipe is the reason Meow Wolf and Alt Ethos CEO and Founder Ethan Bach (who had worked together in Santa Fe on helping to elect a new mayor and in Denver for the Meow Wolf announcement party) recognized the potential and established their primary operations in Denver.
Years in the making, the Meow Wolf Effect is still unfolding.
Early predictions were for 1.5M visitors per annum, but the surge of advance ticket sales suggests there may well be a lot more. Whatever the number, this massive new influx of visitors will have major implications for the creative economy (“Is Meow Wolf good for artists? Overall, yes” – Denver Post), the tourist industry, and the culture at large. It will transform opportunities for growth in entertainment offerings, art sales, retail, and dining, which will have a ripple effect across the region. It’s never been just about the Meow Wolf site itself.
As Ethan says: “The Meow Wolf Effect is an intimate and intentional look into a cultural phenomenon sparking the creative economy in a way that I have not witnessed in my lifetime.
This is our moment of opportunity. If we keep harnessing our collective energy with strategic planning in order to make the best possible outcome, we can make a huge shift in the new economy.”
In Bloomberg Opinion, writer Tae Kim talks about Facebook’s recent announcement to become a Metaverse company, explains the origin of the term, and reasons why he’s skeptical. Yet another step from Facebook in wanting to take over the Metaverse is its release of Horizon Workrooms. This new virtual-reality remote work app allows users of the company’s Oculus Quest 2 headsets to hold meetings as avatar versions of themselves.
CBS recently sat down with Mark Zuckberg to chat about the Metaverse and Workrooms for virtual offices: “So I think of the metaverse as the next generation of the internet,” Zuckerberg said. “So you can kind of think about it as, instead of being an internet that we look at, right, on our mobile phones or our computer screens, it’s an internet that we are a part of, or that we can be inside of.”
As Bloomberg Opinion states “If it is not going to be Facebook, who is poised to do well in the metaverse? Apple, Epic and Nvidia are well positioned, given their respective technological leadership in these hardware and software areas. And the two main mobile operations systems — Apple’s iOS and Alphabet’s Google Android — will likely benefit as apps and devices run on their dominant billion-user platforms.”
Curating unique experiences for audiences is becoming an essential part of any event. These carefully crafted experiences leave people with a memorable experience associated with your brand. People love to share their amazing experiences via social media, so having an experience that is easily captured and tags to associate it with are key. Check out Ex Awards list of the best experiential marketing campaigns of 2019 and see examples of how brands are taking their events to the next level. Alt Ethos can help with our popular interactive rental items as well as custom designed experiences to make your vision come to life.
Celebrate 10 years of Anythink with whimsical experiences and dynamic entertainment by Alt Ethos
Anythink Foundation’s most-talked-about fundraiser, returns September 7, 2019 for an evening of food, drink and creativity. Anythink Library is dedicated to supporting innovative thinking and creating. Alt Ethos will be there showcasing our latest experiments with holographic and hidden displays. Stay tuned to our social channels Facebook, Instagram and Twitter as we will be experimenting more with different forms of holograms. We’re excited to show you what we’ve been up to, so don’t miss out and get your tickets soon! RSVP Here
Alt Ethos Selfie Stations For Your Next Event
We provide several unique rental items that draw people to interact, dance and take pictures with. We offer items like our Balloon Wall, Digital Mirrors and a human sized kaleidoscope. Most of them can also be branded with specific logos, colors and themes to match the event. Head over to our rentals page on our website to see if we can help provide a memorable experience for your next event. We also have items that aren’t listed, and we would love to hear your vision to see if we can help bring your ideas to life!
Reach out to our producer Erin to discuss ideas and details here
As a growing creative startup, finding a place to work and build in a rapidly growing city can be a challenge often overlooked. After working out of our home for over two years at The Commons on Champa we were ready for some growth into a space where we could work and build.
We still love The Commons and visit, hold events, or work there often. Searching for something at the scale we needed for the price we could afford was proving to be difficult. After scouring the market for a couple months our good friends at TVL Creative let us in on their secret.
They rented a space in an artist, maker, and creative workspace called Prism Workspaces. This conglomeration of a couple buildings sits on the outskirts of downtown just south of Mile High Stadium in an industrial park just a gust of wind away smells of greenhouses full of Colorado’s cash crop. The unassuming warehouse style buildings contain a labyrinth of workspaces for some of the most phenomenal creatives in Denver.
Outside of Prism workspace.
We moved into Prism in October of 2017 into a 1300 sq. foot unit for a fraction of the price of other spaces we had been looking at. Apart from the size, location, and price what has really excited me was the community and the passion people had for the work they did.
Day in and day out the noises from people building, and making things fills the air at Prism reminding us of the creative energy flowing heavily through the space.
This place is special.
In the social and political climate since the Ghost Ship fire, creative spaces have been uprooted in many places around the country. Makers, creatives, inventors, artists, and musicians have been reeling to find places to live and work since their displacement. The tragedy rocked the community and has touched many of our lives so very deeply.
Preventing something like that happening again is certainly important however the implementation of the enforcement has caused a lot of discomfort and even suffering among people in our community. Although Prism doesn’t solve any of the housing issues, the feeling of the DIY community workspace seems to thrive, while also maintaining a healthy relationship with the City.
The synthesis of professionalism and creativity shouldn’t be feared, and the feeling of the community can still flourish.
Our office inside of Prism.
After almost 8 months, we have really found a home at Prism. Our office and studio space allows for us to work together in a space we can be proud of. With ample space for desks and individual workspaces paired with a great meeting area and a large fabrication and build space, we have a natural and efficient flow to get a good volume of quality work built and designed. We have ample space to build out installations for testing or prototyping before we deploy final products.
Welcome to the Alt Ethos interactive installation factory.
Coming up 7 months after our first open house not long after we moved in, the Prism Community is hosting another open house. We are so excited to show you what we have been working on the past half of the year.
Please come by and see what we have in store for this event and also check out what our neighbors will have to show. The theme of this open house is Ultraviolet, so expect a lot of purple!
Come celebrate with us at the Prism Workplaces facility-wide open house to take in the work of talented artists, designers, and creatives. We are grateful to be a part of this community as we continue to expand our organizations into new possibilities.
The open house will be held on Friday, June 1st, 2018 from 5:30pm to 11:30pm at Prism Workplaces 999 Vallejo Street, Denver Colorado. Alt Ethos is located through entrance 2 at space #30.
