At the end of every year we pull together a roundtable of journalists covering immersive to look back on what was and this year we’re talking with our colleagues in London, starting with NoPro curator Shelley Snyder, the Voidspace’s Katy Naylor, Immersive Rumors' Graham Fitzgerald, and Franco Milazzo stage critic for Broadway World UK.

• Voidspace
• Immersive Rumors
• Franco Milazzo, Broadway World
• The Next Stage Immersive Summit
• NoPro's Best of 2024: Immersive Moments

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This week Ilana Gilovich, Chief Storyteller for Emursive Productions, joins me for our first-ever conversation and yes, we get into just what the Chief Storyteller for the production company behind Life And Trust and the McKittrick Hotel – home of Sleep No More in NYC — does and nerd out as only two theatre kids meeting for the first time can do.

Happy Holidays: it’s one of THOSE No Pro episodes and a good one at that.

Plus: the latest updates on The Next Stage Immersive Summit including HASBRO & DISNEY LIVE ENTERTAINMENT. –Noah

• Life And Trust
• Sleep No More
• Speakeasy Magick
• Emursive
• The Next Stage Immersive Summit
• Contact Noah about that thing he mentioned.

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This week Shawn Kittelsen SVP Creative at Skydance Interactive, the creators of the just released Skydance’s Behemoth (available now on PSVR2, Steam VR, and Meta Quest) joins us to talk about the game which puts players into the role of Wren, a lone hunter who sets off for the Forsaken Lands to lift a terrible curse. The only way to do so is by saying the towering gods known as Behemoths.

In this talk we get into storytelling in VR, the way dynamic, spatial games systems lead players to embody characters, and a whole lot more. It’s another very fun conversation about VR at the precise moment when the medium is hitting a stride on narrative focused experiences that rival the best traditional video games can offer.

• Skydance’s Behemoth
• Ann Morrow Johnson, of Gensler, Joins Board of The Immersive Experience Institute
• The Next Stage Immersive Summit: Speakers & Guests
• The Next Stage Immersive Summit
• The Next Stage Immersive Summit: Badges
• No Proscenium Gift Subscriptions

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This week we have a delightful doubleheader. 

First up we have Ryan Payton, director of Batman: Arkham Shadow. I’ve been following Ryan’s career since he founded his studio Camouflaj back in 2011 back when I was doing stories about the rise of crowdfunding and here we are on the cusp of 2025 talking about the greatest game to be released on the Meta Quest platform so far.

In this conversation we get deep into the storytelling that drives the action of Batman: Arkham Shadow, which is some of the best I’ve encountered in any video game in years. With that in mind, we avoid spoilers for almost half the conversation. Spoilers start at 19:23 of the pod and end at 37:20. We get into some of the big character beats. So consider yourself forewarned.

Then we settle in for a long chat about the state of XR with friend of the show Alex Coulombe — chatting it up about everything from the Unreal Engine classes he’s teaching to folks who are working with the Apple Vision Pro to the recreation of the Halcyon — aka the Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser — an open source project in Unreal that he’s been helping to lead pretty much since he got back from visiting the ship.

• Batman: Arkham Shadow
• Camouflaj
• République
• Get Cast In A Dream Role In ‘Batman: Arkham Shadow’ (The NoPro Review)
• A Christmas Carol VR
• GitHub - AgileLens/HalcyonVR
• Alex Coulombe (@ibrews.bsky.social) — Bluesky
• Alex Coulombe Presents Unreal Engine Training
• The (Unofficial) Unreal Engine Podcast - YouTube
• The Weeknd’s ‘Open Hearts’ Drops On Apple Vision Pro
• The Next Stage Immersive Summit

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This week we have a doubleheader as first we are joined by Third Rail Project’s Co-Artistic Director Jennine Willlet and musician Coyle Girelli to talk about their new collaboration True Love Forever, which has just opened in NYC.

Then Immersive Experience Institute co-founder Kathryn Yu joins me as we break down just how next year’s Next Stage Immersive Summit — coming up Jan 17-19 in Pasadena, CA — is going to work as the event evolves some new forms and formats.

• True Love Forever
• Third Rail Projects
• Coyle Girelli
• Love Kills
• The Next Stage Immersive Summit
• The Next Stage Immersive Summit F.A.Q.

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On this episode: a preview of our 2024 Holiday Gift Guide with Kathryn Yu, Kevin Gossett, Patrick McLean, and Noah Nelson. Find the perfect gift for the immersive fan in yourself (even if that's just you).

• Box TWO by Neil Patrick Harris and Theory11
• Clue: Treachery at Tudor Mansion
• The Morrison Game Factory
• Star Trek: Resurgence
• Alan Wake 2
• Star Wars: Outlaws
• Life & Trust Gift Experience
• McKittrick Snow Globe
• Star Wars Etsy Universe
• Meow Wolf Vista Boss
• 2120

• Denver Immersive Invitational Accolades (Facebook Post)
• The Next Stage Immersive Summit

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The last time British-Iranian theatre maker Javaad Alipoor joined us was way back in May of 2021 when we talked about Rich Kids: A History of Shopping Malls in Tehran — which at the time we said was “an incredible multi-media theatre piece that links a constellation of Big Ideas into an incredibly human story.”

His most recent work Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World is just about to wrap up it's tour of the US and is the final part of a trilogy of plays – after The Believers Are But Brothers and Rich Kids – that interrogate how technology, global politics and fracturing identities are changing the world.

Exploring the themes of the trilogy is exactly what we do in this wide ranging conversation with one of our favorite artists to talk with.

Warning: there is a description of a fairly gruesome murder, but we do not dwell on it for long. We do dwell on geopolitics on this episode which was recorded before the election in the United States.

• Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World - Washington D.C. Dates
• The Javaad Alipoor Company
• The Denver Immersive Invitational
• LA Fall Immersive Meetup
• The Next Stage Immersive Summit

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After our annual break we are back this week on a double header.

First up, the one and only Nick Moran of Phantom Peak will be joining us to talk about the London favorite, which has conjured a Wild West town not far from the Canada Water station. What is in that Canada Water and why are there so many platypuses involved?

We WON’T learn the answers to those questions but we will learn all about Phantom Peak and why it’s taking so long for it to make it to the United States in this dynamic conversation with Nick.

THen we have a visit with Rita Orlov of PostCurious to get the details on the game at the center of their latest Kickstarter Campaign: Ministry of Lost Things: Lint Condition - A Puzzletale which has just 12 days left in its already successful campaign. 

• Phantom Peak
• Ministry of Lost Things: Lint Condition - A Puzzletale
• The Denver Immersive Invitational Showcase
• LA Immersive Meetup for Fall '24
• The Next Stage Immersive Summit

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This week on the show we gather the Review Crew to chat about our various Spooky Season and Autumnal Escapades. Nick Fortugno, Blake Weil, Katrina Lat, Laura Hess, and Patrick McLean join host Noah Nelson as we go coast to coast over to London, and into the wilds of VR in search of chills and thrills.

• The Next Stage Immersive Summit
• Denver Immersive Invitational
• Beetlejuice Beetlejuice: The Afterlife Experience
• Jimmy Fallon's Tonightmares
• House of Exquisite Corpse IV: Superstitions
• Phantom Peak
• Shadow Traffic (Lost Horizon Night Market)
• You Can't Scare Me

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This week on the show we’re joined by Wesley James and Dallas Nichols of Phoenix based design + build firm LINE LAB for a conversation about building unique immersive environments for places like The Nemesis Club, and Platform 18 and the UnderTow Tiki Bar at Century Grand - all of which have received glowing reviews and accolades.

But before we do that we’ll we kick things off with Tia Shearer Bassett, organizer of The From Home Fest to tell us all about this immersive festival which you can experience from your own home starting on Oct. 26th. 

• Line Lab
• The Nemesis Club
• Century Grand
• The From Home Fest
• The Next Stage Immersive Summit

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