Travelling entertainment takes many forms, from blockbuster exhibitions to live character shows, but they all share the common goal of bringing entertainment to the masses. Last week, the International Live Music Conference (ILMC) 2024 gathered the industry in London for the first-ever Touring Entertainment Live, a one-day summit part of the larger ILMC event. This special session examined trends and common challenges the touring entertainment sector is facing.
Held at the Royal Lancaster Hotel, the day featured panel sessions and networking opportunities, as well as quick-fire show-and-tells showcasing the latest and greatest in touring exhibitions and entertainment.
We’ve highlighted four trends from the inaugural Touring Entertainment Live event.
Top trends in touring entertainment
1. High tech
Interviewed by ILMC’s James Drury, attendees heard from Svana Gisla, the Emmy and Grammy award-winning producer behind ABBA Voyage. After producing music videos with Kylie and Jay Z, Gisla was approached by ABBA to do a digital avatar music video. She was then trusted with business partner Johan Renck to create a live hybrid experience.
What started as an idea for a travelling exhibition quickly became too high-tech and too rigging-heavy to travel. So, Gisla looked around east London to find a location and found a perfect spot in Stratford. In partnership with the City of London, Gisla fundraised and built an entire arena for ABBA Voyage whilst contending with COVID shutdowns and Brexit—quite the achievement.
ABBA had a lot of involvement in the process. This, Gisla states, is the reason behind the success of the project. There were no boards, no bottlenecks, just direct answers on decisions for the experience.
The band filmed for hours on the white motion capture stage, capturing every pore in the group’s faces. (Even Benny and Björn had to shave their beards for the first time in 40 years!)
Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), a visual effects company founded by Star Wars creator George Lucas, created the VFX footage in four studios worldwide. “We were a bigger project than Star Wars!” Gisla joked.
The result was a multi-media spectacular blending ABBA digital avatars with live music, sound, and effects. The key to ABBA Voyage’s success was the technology. The system used five different lighting systems, aligning and matching physical and digital light to trick the eye.
“It was very important to get right,” said Gisla. “If not, you are very quickly watching a film – are people going to believe ABBA are on stage?”
Stratford’s platforms full of 70s-clad visitors are proof of the experience’s success. It has also contributed more than £320m to the London economy and had 2 million visitors so far. 25% of guests are international, 80% of whom travel specifically for the show. One über fan has seen the show 51 times to date.
Gisla confirmed the experience is looking at venues in North America, Australia, and Asia. However, to be viable in new markets, it needs at least one million visitors a year.
2. Familiar IP – ‘Comfort food’
In the ‘State of the Nation’ session moderated by Tom Zaller of Imagine Exhibitions, panellists spoke about the importance of good programming and the trends for brands and IP in touring entertainment, especially in a post-COVID world.
“There is a lot of IP out there, and there are lots of new players in the space,” said Zaller.
“People want comfort food,” said Jenny Sirota from RoadCo Entertainment.
“Visitors are buying what they know; it’s nostalgia,” agreed Liz Koops of Broadway Live. “Whilst it’s incredibly important to have new IP, very few venues want to take on the risk.”
Sirota said this risk came from challenges to marketing and advertising a new IP. With the upcoming presidential election in the US, advertising space will be hard to come by or too expensive.
Guests are consuming content in different ways through new mediums. For instance, YouTube-first programming and IP and streaming giants such as Netflix.
“I don’t think streaming has the same pull,” said Nico Renna of ProActiv Entertainment in the Trends in Live Entertainment session. This was moderated by Heather McGill of Unify.
ProActiv recently launched a new exhibition, Mundo Pixar, celebrating ten of Pixar’s most popular movies in interactive and engaging scenes. “It works because the movies are still that good. Toy Story came out in 1997, and people still watch it themselves or with family.”
The show is currently open in Madrid and will tour internationally.
Celebrity IP was also a hot topic following the ABBA Voyage keynote, and how this could be a rich tap of IP content.
Stuart Galbraith, KMJ Entertainment, spoke on the company’s Elvis: Direct from Graceland exhibition at the Arches in London. This has a huge scope for VIP experiences. At Elvis, the £160+ VIP ticket is the best-selling ticket, which includes a chance to touch the iconic white belt. It’s about offering value in unique ways.
However, Gisla did comment on the ethics of AI-generated celeb content. In the case of ABBA, they were recorded in real life, and the band could consent to all footage. But what about deceased celebs where new content is made entirely from AI?
3. Customer expectations are higher, but the attention span is less
“Customers expect to be wowed; it has to deliver on that scale. And, if it doesn’t, you’ll hear about it,” said James Harrison of ASM Global.
Or perhaps the police will. At the recent ‘Willy’s Chocolate Experience’ in Glasgow, UK, a drab warehouse with sparsely decorated chocolate props and theming, poor costumes, creepy unofficial IP villains and poor event logistics made some families so furious the police had to ease the situation. All ticket holders have been given refunds. The show was nowhere near the expectations that the AI-generated Willy Wonka artwork and £40 ticket price led to believe.
Blooloop’s Charles Read interviewed Richard Lewis of Fierylight about his years creating IP-focused children’s live entertainment. After learning about the intricacies of puppeteering Peppa Pig for his hugely successful international tour, Lewis spoke about the importance of knowing your audience. There were many learnings from another major IP show, Spongebob, that was trying to do too many things for too many people.
A key trend is that touring entertainment is increasingly going to tertiary markets post-COVID. The popularity of second cities and smaller venues is rising to reach more guests, who are less willing to travel to the major cities yet expect higher-quality shows.
McGill also spoke about the shorter dwell time. Just 60 minutes is the optimum experience time to maximise throughput and capture the guests’ attention throughout an experience. Kate Bailey, from the V&A Museum, spoke about her work on DIVA and the new Chanel exhibition. Both were too successful, and she needed to tweak them to get people to go through the exhibition quicker!
With all the talk of AI’s perils and nervousness around it, Bailey also spoke about the incredible opportunity that AI creates to curate exhibitions and showcase content rarely seen outside the archives.
4. A tough landscape
“My world is getting smaller,” said David Pit of Cirque du Soleil. With the ongoing war impacting Russia, Ukraine, parts of Finland, and Israel, there are fewer venues and even whole territories where live entertainment and exhibitions can no longer travel.
A common trend in the discussions was the rising costs of touring entertainment. Pit told an eye-watering story of last-minute shipping and logistics changes, meaning an entire Cirque show had to get on two rented 747s to make the show in time.
Koops says some shipping costs have tripled, and lead times are much longer. A route that used to take one week between Australia and New Zealand now takes two weeks. You can see the impact that will have on the entire tour’s plans and movements.
In some parts of the world, touring operators are struggling for venues, such as in the Middle East. Or, some older venues may have very rigid formats, ones without a high enough ceiling for Pit and the Cirque gang! Venues are so booked out they are confirming two years in advance. This is complex for the tour operator to plan that far ahead. Especially in such a volatile market, and post-COVID when so many skilled artists and professionals had to leave the industry.
To mitigate this gap of venues, several promoters are investing in their own venues to showcase and tour their own and other’s content, such as KMJ International and The Arches in London Bridge.
What’s new in touring?
In the quick-fire session hosted by Manon Delaury of teo and Jessica Willig-Rosenstein of Fever, we heard about new and upcoming content that is touring.
Semmel Exhibitions revealed that Disney100: The Exhibition is reopening in London and opening in Kansas City in May. The exhibition was named Time Out’s best thing to do in Chicago 2023. Semmel also showed its Marvel: Earth’s Mightiest Exhibition, currently in Wellington, and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Beyond Amazing – The Exhibition.
Meanwhile, Universcience spoke about its new Dance touring exhibition. The team also teased the ‘Beyond the Magic’ exhibition, which explores the interception of science and magic tricks. Path Entertainment presented Monopoly Lifesize, which has just opened in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as well as its touring shows We Will Rock You and Jersey Boys. Plus, lililillilil showcased its new immersive exhibition, Imagine Paris.
ProActiv Entertainment highlighted the new blockbuster Mundo Pixar, which brings to life 10 of Pixar’s greatest films. Imagine Exhibitions spoke about the huge success of Harry Potter: The Exhibition, which has been travelling the US and Europe since 2022. It is currently in Macao, Barcelona, and NYC and will launch in Munich in May 2024.
Grand Palais Immersif spoke about its new exhibition: Loading, Urban Art in the Digital Age and Science Museum Group spoke about Food, Poo and You and its Flying Scotsman VR experience, while newly rebranded Barbican Immersive spoke about their upcoming multi-sensory music exhibition.
EXPONA also showcased the new Art of Hipgnosis travelling exhibition, which looks at the art from the legendary design studio Hipgnosis. The studio worked with music legends Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Paul McCartney, and many more on their iconic album covers. This includes Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, one of the most recognised album covers of all time.
Upcoming opportunities for the touring exhibitions calendar include the Touring Exhibitions Group meeting on Wednesday 17 April in Coventry, UK and Teo Live taking place virtually on 23 May, as well as Ecsite from 5 – 8 June in Slovenia.
