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The Trend Towards (new) Immersion

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter undoubtably set in motion a new immersion standard.
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter undoubtably set in motion a new immersion standard.

Alrighty, a big topic to start off with lol. Just as a warning, this post doesn’t exactly have a thesis – there’s a lot of ground to cover, more it’s a bunch of half developed observations. Take it as fair warning that my biggest flaw as a writer is keeping myself focused.

Has anyone else noticed just how prevalent the terms “immersive” or “immersion” have become in the themed entertainment world? It seems I can’t even read a press release for a  new merry-go-round without coming across a sentence like,

“this ground-breaking new attraction featuring a brand new type of rotating mechanism immerses the rider into the world of wooden horses and carousels of old like never before.”

Hyperbole and the focus on ride system aside (topics for another day) there’s that damn word again: a concept encompassing perhaps the absolute pinnacle of themed design being reduced to a buzzword completely devoid of any of it’s original meaning. The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is immersive. Radiator Springs is immersive. The Rivers of America is immersive (I can hear some shouts about that last one coming my way already – I’ll get to it). The Simpsons land at Universal Orlando is not immersive. Nor is the despicable me attraction. Nor is a lot of the theme park world. But that’s not a bad thing, especially when the focus on immersion in the modern era seems ever so more emphasized not on the concept of immersion itself, but on a particular subtype of it. Continue reading “The Trend Towards (new) Immersion”

Hi there and Hello

 

Disneyland aerial view drawing
Herb Ryman’s original concept of Disneyland

This is the beginning I guess of a more complete website for me and my never-ending interest in theme park and themed entertainment design and also will function as a online repository for my growing amount of work related to it. I’ve been slowly trying to acquire skills necessary to change careers to do design full time, and I intend on posting that progress here. I also have often wanted to just write my views on various topics in the themed entertainment world forever now, and it’ll be nice to finally have a place to put that that’s a little (or a lot) less toxic than many of the fan forums – and hopefully discussion that’s a bit more theoretical and deep in nature.

I’m basically planning on it being a more organized and expanded version of my tumblr blog Theme Park Concepts (go follow that if you haven’t already lol). And so yeah…we’ll see how much I keep this updated and what happens from here on out.