Illuminarium Experiences to Open at Las Vegas’ AREA15 in January 2022

With a mission to “democratize the world’s most amazing experiences,” Illuminarium will redefine what an immersive experience can be by creating a place that can take you anyplace

Illuminarium Experiences, a breakthrough global experiential entertainment company created by worldwide leaders in cinematic and interactive content, architectural and theatrical design, and venue operations, announced today plans to open Illuminarium at AREA15, Las Vegas’ newest immersive events and entertainment district in January 2022. 

The 33,000 square-foot, purpose-built building will be on the western side of the main AREA15 complex and will be the second Illuminarium location in the U.S., following the inaugural venue set to open in Atlanta in July 2021. Illuminarium Experiences will also open in Miami in 2022, with plans for 40 or more venues in major cities across the globe within the next five years. At maturity, Illuminarium Experiences intends to be one of the world’s most innovative and prodigious location-based entertainment companies, with the distinct mission of democratizing the world’s most amazing experiences. Audiences will be transported to an environment unlike any other, while participating in a shared and connected experience.

The Illuminarium Experience and Venue:  A place that can take you anyplace

What museums are to art, cinemas to movies, and concert halls to music, Illuminarium is to experiential entertainment. Illuminarium’s immersive venues will transport millions of visitors to places they only dream of experiencing by placing them “inside” the narrative, whether on a safari, at the bottom of the ocean, in the celestial universe, on top of the world’s highest peaks, surrounded by a once-in-a-lifetime musical performance or visual art exhibition, or being with the world’s most iconic personalities. Produced by the world’s finest storytellers, cinematographers, visual effects specialists and creative technologists, Illuminarium combines and amplifies techniques used in traditional motion picture production and virtual reality that allows visitors to experience real world, filmed content (like a safari) and authentic, re-created worlds (like the planet Mars) in an immersive environment, all without wearable hardware. Think VR, without the glasses. 

Located in megacities and mega-tourism destinations around the world, Illuminarium venues are super scaled, reprogrammable technological marvels that bring the immersive experience to a rarefied level. The Illuminairum “cinematic immersion” will engage one’s entire visual and sensual framework at a breathtaking scale: visitors are completely surrounded by a massive canvas, 350 feet in length, over 20 feet in height, with state-of-the-art laser projection, rich spatial beamforming audio (where natural and musical scores change with the listener’s location), in-floor haptics, scent and lidar-based interactive technologies.

To contribute to the illusion of transporting audiences to the places, people and experiences they may never see in real life, Illuminarium has assembled a team of world class technology partners. Such partners include Panasonic for 4K laser projection, Holoplot for its beamforming sound, Disguise for unprecedented media playback systems, Lightware to create the most immersive experience possible, and Electrosonic for total system integration. Illuminarium seeks the highest standard of immersive technologies available today with an ongoing commitment to research and development going forward.

Debut Spectacles Include WILD: Safari Experience, Followed by SPACEWALK in Early 2022.

Following its debut in Atlanta,WILD: Safari Experience will open at Las Vegas’ AREA15 as a first-of-its-kind entertainment experience showcasing the beauty and splendor of Africa’s most exotic animals in their natural habitats. The spectacle will transport visitors to Africa through cinematic content shot by Radical Media, using custom camera arrays that provide a 240-degree native field of view (versus the average 210-degree human field of view), on location to capture majestic animals in their native habitats across South Africa, Botswana, Kenya and Tanzania. Complementing the exotic sights of a safari, visitors will also be immersed in its authentic sounds and scents, all without leaving Las Vegas.

WILD will be followed by SPACEWALK, a mind-blowing journey through our Solar System, where the Illuminarium audience will experience what it’s like to walk on the surface of the Moon and Mars! From the familiar Rocky Planets of the Solar System’s inner regions, to the Gas Giants dominating the outer regions, to the distant and remote ice worlds and comets of the Kuiper belt, and finally to the celestial beauty of the stellar Nebula beyond — SPACEWALK is a visually rich, immersive spectacle that transports visitors across space and time. 

“AREA15’s immersive playground is the absolute perfect location for Illuminarium Las Vegas,” said Alan Greenberg, CEO, Illuminarium Experiences. “In Illuminarium Experiences, we have created a global experiential brand that will produce unprecedented entertainment spectacles to transport consumers to many of the most coveted places and experiences on Earth, and beyond. Through the extraordinary storytelling of Radical Media, the theatrical and architectural design of Rockwell Group and the operational expertise of Legends we have a team of best-in-class partners proudly democratizing the world’s most amazing places, people and experiences through highly engaging, socially conscious and educational immersive digital spectacles.”

The Illuminarium Partners

Illuminarium Experiences has been created by partners who bring extraordinary leadership, content creation, architectural and theatrical design, and operational expertise to the enterprise. They include:

CEO: Alan Greenberg, a seasoned global entrepreneur and co-founder of Avenues: The World School, Greenberg News Networks, Travel Holdings and former Publisher of Esquire Magazine. 

Content Partner: Radical Media, an award-winning (Academy, Emmy, Grammy) communications company, led by Jon Kamen, that produces content for film, television, music, digital platforms, projections, and experiential / immersive installations.

Design Partner: Rockwell Group, one of the world’s most admired and awarded architecture and design firms, founded by David Rockwell, with a specialty in hospitality, cultural, theatrical, experiential and interactive project design and development. 

Operational Partner: Legends, a leading operator of more than 150 venues, attractions and experiences around the world, provides planning, sales, partnerships, hospitality, retail, technology and operational solutions to the entire Illuminarium enterprise.

“AREA15 is a curation of best-in-class immersive entertainment providing authentic connections to everyone who steps through the doors. We are thrilled to have Illuminarium join the growing collection of experiences that transport and transform,” said Winston Fisher, CEO AREA15. “Illuminarium’s new location marks the official expansion of the AREA15 campus, and the evolution of Las Vegas’ newest immersive entertainment district.”

Illuminarium After Dark

In the evenings, Illuminarium will transform into an immersive generative environment, allowing guests to have cocktails and curated eats surrounded by an ever-changing lush and stunning atmosphere. Through state-of-the-art projection and audio systems, guests will be invited to gather in a different far-flung and fantastic setting every night of the week.

Designed and developed by the LAB at Rockwell Group, each environment evolves throughout the night to deliver ever-changing visual destinations rendered in real-time. Guests may toast friends as they float on billowing clouds that overlook a glowing sunset; the following night they may encounter the fluorescent light animations and holograms decorating the surfaces of a futuristic street in Tokyo. One of the largest examples of real-time rendered content at this scale, Illuminarium After Dark’s constantly shifting canvas delivers moments of surprise and serendipity that may never appear in the same way twice.