Roomless productions
Virtual immersive theater
Remote experience design
Why limit ourselves to in-person interactions when it is possible to have remote experiences that surpass the real world in expressiveness, engagement, and customizability?
Roomless productions is a collaborative blue sky project that proposes a new approach to remote experiences by bringing immersive and interactive theatre into the virtual space, creating experiences in which distance no longer has to be a limitation that prevents us from sharing memorable and meaningful experiences with the people we love. Below you can take a look at the pitch for the project.
The team behind this project is made up of Ducky Anderson, Charlie Jacobs, Sally Cho, Arthur Siprut, and Pablo de Larrañaga Aramoni.
As technology advances in remarkable ways, the theater industry has been blessed with the emergence of immersive and interactive media. When this media is used for performances, it allows the audience to feel like they are an essential part of the production. This enables them to enjoy a much more pleasurable experience than one-sided performances. Moreover, immersive media gives actors and designers the opportunity to experiment with new mediums within the theater.
We are providing a revolved form of performance by bringing immersive and interactive theatre into the virtual space. Our performance will enable people to actively participate in a live experience while remaining in the safety and comfort of their own homes. We view the limitations brought by our current situation as an opportunity to translate interactive performance into a digital format. It is important to keep live entertainment alive, and our performance will provide you the solution to it.
Roomless Productions is excited to unveil our first pilot project, "User Unknown" . This dark and thrilling experience will put participants in the center of their own murder story as they try to catch The Cyber Stalker, a notorious killer on the loose. As incoming FBI agents, participants will have to work together and use crime scene evidence to catch the killer. They will join a remote meeting where they’ll be able to meet and interact with characters and physical sets.
Participants can book their experience on our website by choosing the date, time, and show. Upon registration, they will receive a confirmation email with the event link and additional backstory.
Backstory
A mysterious killer that the public has dawned "The Cyber Stalker" has been terrorizing many for years, with victims turning up all around the US. The officer assigned to the case has been missing for months, and you have been brought in to take over the case. There has been a new lead from a link found on Dark0de, a cybercrime forum and a black marketplace on the Dark Web. This information has been passed on to you, along with evidence found from many of the murder sites. The FBI needs your help to investigate the Cyber Stalker's suspicious link and evidence to catch the killer and save lives.
Before the experience begins, each participant will receive a unique package filled with items, including props, costumes, and evidence from many of the Cyber Stalker's crime scenes. These themed props will help further immerse the participant, and they make fun keepsakes from the experience. Some of the items will have been ripped apart and split between participants and participants will need to work together and communicate in order to use the items.
In terms of market size and audience, We have limited our participants to people in the US, mainly because there are limitations in shipping the packages and props in the current COVID situation. Another reason is that the showtimes would be pacific standard time-oriented and that it will be performed in English. Our biggest demographic is teens to young adults, as our story's content could have age restrictions and because of our video game-like components can attract them. But for our future production, we are planning on making family and kid-friendly experiences as well.
Our central vision can be summarized in three words Connect, Collaborate, and Entertain. In the current COVID era, people feel disconnected and departing from their friends, neighbors, or even families. Through our immersive experience not only can you feel the connectivity with anyone in the US, but can also gain the experience of collaborating together and breaking through problems, which is what we all are trying to do today. And of course, it provides a source of entertainment to people who are seeking for something fun that can be done at home.
Our business model consists of 5 different phases.
The first phase is Booking.
This is when the participants book their experience on our website at least 2 weeks in advance. There will be 4 shows per day from Monday to Friday every week. Each show allows 4 to 10 participants, so we recommend booking as a group amongst your friends or family. When a show is booked, each participant will fill out a form with questions that will be used to customize their experience. Our primary income source in this phase is based on ticket sales, as they will cover all the costs to run the show and leave some profit. Each show has an average price of $500 and the cost will be evenly distributed amongst the audience members.
The second phase is Designing.
In this phase, our team will customize the experience by using the information that the participants provided when booking their experience. Customizable props, costumes, and story elements may use information such as names, ages, or even photos to make the experience unique and special for each participant. The essential props are included in the ticket price, but participants can choose to purchase additional props or costumes at an additional cost.
The third phase is Preparing.
This is when the participants receive their confirmation emails with the background story, and the props are delivered. Depending on the show they booked, they might get additional pre-show elements such as text messages, images and videos that they will get to use to solve problems during the live experience. In case something doesn't arrive on time, our team will be ready to make the adjustments necessary so that the experience runs smoothly.
The fourth phase is the live experience.
Our production team will capture videos and photos of memorable moments throughout the live experience. This experience will be hosted in a branded and completely customized remote meeting. Also, the show is rehearsed and prepared remotely for our safety.
The fifth and last phase is remembering.
In this phase, the participants will get the opportunity to purchase additional products such as souvenirs, photos, and videos that our team took during the experience. Different items will be unlocked by the participants depending on how they solve problems and make decisions, giving them a reason to come back and explore the different possibilities that the show has to offer.
Just like other theatrical performances, each show will be seasonal and only available for a limited time. After a show's season ends, our team will produce new shows to attract new and returning audience.
In this pandemic era, people are looking for an online alternative that can give them a similar experience to live entertainment they used to enjoy, such as escape rooms. Though other online escape rooms exist, none will reach the theatricality of our project. Each of our shows will include actors, who are the characters of the story that interact with their environment and each other in interesting and unique ways. Unlike our competitors, the characters within our escape room will talk, move and have a mind of their own just like a real theater production, but with the critical difference being that decisions and puzzles will be left entirely up to the participants' discretion. We want our experience to be less like a video game and more like a theater production in which the participants can influence the choices the characters make and the puzzles they solve.
What also makes our experience unique is that it combines the real world with the virtual space. The physical items we ship to our participants provide a source for them to touch, see, and use while still protecting them from the danger of the virus or having direct contact with other people. We found that the limitations of virtual experience is that it is hard to be fully engaged. So, we aimed to lead their engagement by mixing interactive media with an immersive virtual experience. Our team also focused on providing an experience for the audience that is special and memorable for them. So, although it is time-consuming and requires a lot of effort, we have decided to customize each experience before, during, and after the show, which will create an unforgettable experience that can be found only in our Roomless Productions.
Our go-to-market strategy starts by targeting an audience of teens to young adults with our first production, "User unknown." We believe that our first production will play a critical part in attracting more audience, that’s why we will work hard to make it the best experience possible. As this is a virtual experience, we think that the best way to advertise our productions is by taking advantage of the interactivity and engagement that only social media can provide. We will create Roomless productions social media accounts to share interesting content that shows fun moments and previews of our productions.
Our team didn't stop here but began to think about how we can help our society through our production. We have decided to partner with local escape rooms in California. As seen in the graph, the in-person escape room industry has been facing a downfall for the first time since it has been popularized in 2014. Our partnership with local escape room companies will support the industry by giving them 2% of our profits and filming our experience in their escape rooms, which can be a great marketing source when people can revisit them after the pandemic. In the long run, our contribution to the development of virtual entertainment will support people with disabilities by providing more variety of entertainment options that do not require active movements or going outside. Our team was very interested in supporting these groups of people, so we have also decided to partner with AAPD(American Association of People with Disabilities), an organization that supports higher education for people with disabilities. With this partnership, we will dedicate the 4 productions every Monday for AAPD by providing the experience for free while working with AAPD to develop a separate experience specialized for people with disabilities. The initial ideas we have are things such as an audio-oriented experience for people with visual impairment or a visual and signs-oriented experience for people with hearing impairment.
Our team is the best team to create this production because we are composed of scenic and lighting designers. We have the strong spatial designing skills necessary to create the various atmospheres of the different roomless experiences, which we believe are the most important aspects of our experience. Also, we have a costume designer who can design different costumes we need for the actors and for those shipped to participants. As the stage manager, Ducky will overlook the whole production and contribute to the smooth running of the experience while maintaining artistic integrity when designers are not present. Moreover, our team never gets tired of brainstorming and experimenting with new ideas. We are passionate about planning every detail of our production to result in the best outcome.
New forms of entertainment must arise in these unprecedented times that tell stories in unique and interesting ways without the danger of spreading the virus. Our company will be able to fill the void that live theater left safely and compellingly as well as helping local businesses and organizations. With our extraordinary team of creatives, this event will come to life and create a new form of entertainment that no longer relies on theaters or other in-person physical spaces to tell their narratives. Moreover, we will provide a chance to interact with each other and regain energy in this challenging time.
