The New Era for Story, Space, and Spectacle
The immersive industry is past its nascent stage and has entered, as Evolving Immersive: The 2025 Immersive Entertainment & Culture Industry Report refers to it, the “awkward teenage years.” As the industry matures and its audiences become more discerning patrons, the current zeitgeist and demonstrable market growth of interactive formats underscores the encouraging glimmer of hope that immersive represents to live and in-person experiences.
While Passive Forms of Experience Decline, Immersive & Interactive Grow
Recent data and research around changes in media and entertainment revenue show that traditional, passive forms of media and live performance are largely stagnant or declining. In contrast, location-based performance, video games, and other forms of experience that center participant engagement and interactivity continue to grow — in some cases almost doubling — even amidst the larger decline in their respective industries.
Despite growing pains, immersive creators are making more strategic work, approaching business more creatively. Organizations, developers, and cultural venues are adapting to find new ways to invite people to participate, and are testing for resiliency, with methods of filling spaces with attractive experiential and interactive work that brings in new audiences and can’t-miss destinations. Audiences, sensitive to marketing and sophisticated critics of the tools leveraged for engagement, find meaning and belonging through these experiences at the deepest level, and entertainment at the most straightforward.
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