Secret Cinema brought us in to help win one of the most competitive immersive entertainment pitches in the industry.

They had theatre in their DNA.

What they didn’t yet have was the strategic, technological, and commercial framework needed to convince a major global studio group that this could scale into a long term experience platform.

The real challenge wasn’t “make something impressive.”

It was simpler, and harder:

How do you turn blockbuster IP into a repeatable, profitable, future-ready live format that audiences actively participate in?

Over six months of concept development, working sessions, prototyping, financial modelling, and on-site collaboration with Secret Cinema’s leadership, production teams, and studio stakeholders, we helped design █████ Live: a large scale immersive entertainment platform that brings multiple film worlds into a shared, participatory environment where audiences are part of it.

At the core, we defined a strategic positioning framework we called Wicked Joy, a working system that mapped the emotional territory the brand naturally owns:

– playful mischief
– misfit heroes
– rule-bending fun
– collective laughter
– surprise

Wicked for the energy. Joy for the warmth. This became the decision filter for everything: creative direction, experience design, technology choices, marketing behavior, commercial structure. From there, we co created:

• the experience architecture
• the interaction logic
• the real-time storytelling framework
• the technology ecosystem (internally called the █████ Live Engine)

In parallel, we worked shoulder-to-shoulder with Secret Cinema’s production and finance teams, and in direct collaboration sessions with the IP owners, to pressure test the business model:

Ticketing logic
Dwell-time strategy
Capacity modeling

Creative ambition and commercial reality were built together from the beginning.

█████ Live was designed as a rhythm rather than a straight line.

1. Guided narrative adventure

A room based interactive quest that introduces the world, establishes emotional stakes, and actively trains guests to participate before releasing them into open exploration.

1. Free roaming worlds

Multizone environments where guests explore at their own pace, encounter characters, discover mini-games, access food experiences, and generate shareable moments.

1. Integrated retail layer

Designed as both narrative endpoint and operational asset. Accessible from inside the experience and directly from the street.

This structure balances story control and guest agency; cinematic pacing and social energy; emotion and operational reality.

We intentionally avoided VR headsets. Not because they’re unimpressive, because they isolate people.

Instead, the experience uses mixed reality layered onto shared physical space, keeping participation visible, social, and collective.

Technology here is the invisible engine that keeps the world responsive:

reacting to group behaviour
adapting content in real time
enabling personalization without breaking social plan
supporting scale without losing magic

Participation stays visible and collective, the story stays alive.

The pitch was won.
The work was approved.
Then timing shifted, and priorities reshuffled.

So █████ Live is currently paused.

And that’s fine, because the platform is built and the system is ready.

When the moment is right, this doesn’t restart from zero, it just switches on.

We’re proud of what was created, grateful for the partners who trusted us, and genuinely excited about what happens when audiences finally get to step inside it.

Some stories just take time to arrive.