Immersive theater opens new worlds for audiences, industry

Use your illusions

According to the 2024 White Paper on the Development of China's Immersive Industry released in May, the sector's consumer market size in China reached 92.7 billion yuan by the end of 2023.

The immersive industry includes escape rooms, immersive performances, virtual reality shows, light and shadow art exhibitions, immersive indoor theme parks and various other entertainment ventures, according to the paper prepared by the Illuthion International Immersive Industry Platform.

Immersive theater traces its roots to the 1960s and experimental site-specific, or environmental, performances. Pioneers like the United States theater director and innovator Richard Schechner emphasized audience integration into the performance narrative, challenging traditional theater conventions.

"Immersion describes a psychological state where individuals invest all their energy in an activity, forgetting the outside world and even themselves," said Wu Fan, an associate professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University's USC-SJTU Institute of Cultural and Creative Industry. "The key elements that create true immersion are presence, interactivity and imagination."

"We're witnessing a broader economic shift toward the experience economy," Wu added. "When experience becomes one of the dominant economic drivers, immersive entertainment naturally flourishes."

Ma, the SMG Live president, said Shanghai has fertile cultural ground to nurture new ideas.

"The audience here, and the city itself, are considered the most innovative and receptive to fresh concepts in China. New arts take root here first — if they resonate, they spread nationwide," he said.

Statistics support this observation. By 2023, China hosted 32,024 immersive projects, an 81.5 percent surge from 2019. Shanghai leads in performance numbers nationwide and, together with Beijing, commands a third of national immersive spending, according to the white paper.