Kyle Flubacker
“Disney Animation: Immersive Experience” opens at the Shops at Crystals on March 30.
Monday, March 27, 2023 | 2 a.m.
Immersive entertainment — specifically in the form of artistically creative, interactive attractions that wow visitors with hi-tech visuals, sound and other sense elements — has become nearly ubiquitous along the Las Vegas Strip. It almost seems like these buzzy experiences could be the next stage of tourist-attracting fun in the entertainment capital of the world.
And immersive could be the next stage of film and television, according to Academy Award-winning producer J. Miles Dale, who was tapped to lead the creative team of the latest attraction to land in Las Vegas.
"Disney Animation: Immersive Experience" opens at the Shops at Crystals on March 30.
Produced by Lighthouse Immersive Studios in collaboration with Walt Disney Animation Studios, “Disney Animation: Immersive Experience” premiered in Toronto in December and has already exhibited in eight U.S. cities from Boston to Denver. It will open on the Strip at the Lighthouse ArtSpace inside the Shops at Crystals (between the Cosmopolitan and Aria) on March 30, with tickets available at disneyimmersive.com.
“This is a medium that didn’t exist four years ago, and now there are hundreds of immersive exhibitions around the world,” said Dale, known for his frequent collaborations with director Guillermo del Toro and their 2018 Best Picture winner “The Shape of Water.” “I do love this new level of artistic expression the medium can offer and I think it’s growing into something very special. It’s such an interesting challenge for me and I’m fascinated to see where it can go.”
Lighthouse previously displayed “Immersive Van Gogh” in this Vegas space at the Shops at Crystals, one of the more popular versions of these attractions to open in the city in recent years. The company’s founder Corey Ross said in a statement that his lifelong love of Disney films powered the desire to collaborate with the iconic brand, and the goal is to “give our guests the opportunity to be engulfed in the world of Disney, making them feel like they’re standing next to their favorite characters and seeing the world through their eyes.”
“They [Disney] don’t tend to have a lot of partners, and they have a high bar of excellence,” Dale said. “I knew some people in their innovation lab and when we started talking, we said we would like to do a celebration of animation.”
The exhibition includes much of the music and artistry from the extensive collection of Disney animated films, from modern hits like “Encanto” and “Frozen” back to classics like “The Lion King,” “Peter Pan” and “Pinocchio.” Dale said the team was given unprecedented access to Disney’s archives and animation research library. “They’ve been exceptional preservationists over the years and it was inspiring to go in and see these old pencil sketches and animation cells,” he said.
That access inspired the structure of the immersive experience, which includes an in-depth behind-the-scenes look at how these animated favorites come to life, as well as some highly interactive segments that will find guests diving to the ocean floor with Ariel from “The Little Mermaid,” and flying on a magic carpet as in “Aladdin.”
“It’s been kind of the whole process that has resonated with me the most,” Dale said. “I’ve gone from creating something for one screen for people to sit and watch to creating this 360-degree world where we’re asking, how can you feel like you’re inside the movie? Not to give spoilers, but when you’re in ‘The Little Mermaid’ and the whole gallery fills with bubbles, or we’re putting interactive bracelets on people so they walk into a room where the walls light up and everyone in the room, their arms are lighting up in the same color scheme, those are what I call the gasp moments in the show.”
