Vikings: The Immersive Experience

The immersive industry has spent a decade turning cultural subjects into projection surfaces. Vikings tests the opposite proposition: that a cultural subject can carry a full dramatic production, on a ticket, in a rented hall, without a single explanatory label.

Vikings: The Immersive Experience is a touring cultural format about the Viking age and a TSC Originals production, produced by Alegría Exhibition under the creative direction of Mitch Sebastian, with FKP Scorpio Entertainment as UK presenter. The Storytelling Company holds concept, design and build, from first sketch to installation. Design by flora&faunavisions, part of The Storytelling Company.

There is no collection behind it. No permanent building, no lender, no object to fall back on. A period nobody can visit has to become present, and a visitor has to want to pay for it: regular tickets in Vienna start at 25.90 euro. If the room does not work, nobody buys a ticket.

The narrative follows Ragnar Lodbrok and Aslaug, drawn from the historical and literary sources, and it is staged rather than displayed. It opens in 793 AD, the year Scandinavian raiders reached the monastery at Lindisfarne. Across five stages, ritual and belief are the conditions the visitor stands in. We call it narrative immersion: story as the architecture of the room itself.

Prologue, 793 AD. A cinematic opening on the raid on Lindisfarne sets the historical stakes.

Forest of Time. Physical trees, runic stones, atmospheric haze and projected light carry Norse daily life, ritual and belief. Interactive stations and a personal audio guide let visitors go deeper where they choose to, so depth is optional and the route never stalls.

Yggdrasil, the Tree of Light. A seated sanctuary built around the Norse world tree, holding a collective VR journey into the beginning of Aslaug’s saga. Synchronised headsets, one shared start, no free roaming.

Cloud Room. A volumetric fog chamber dense enough to erase orientation. Time and direction dissolve. The threshold between worlds.

The Show. A full-scale longship at the centre of the room, working as physical object, projection stage and character at once. Monumental projection floods walls and the floor the audience stands on. A sail descends from the ceiling mid-show and becomes a projection canvas, so the projection geometry changes shape mid-story. An original score of horns, flutes and drums, cued to the media, carries the audience from calm water into storm.

Touring exhibitions usually survive the move by getting smaller: fewer rooms, lower ceilings, a shorter route. Here the truss systems, scenic elements and projection geometries were engineered for modularity from the first drawing, with touring as a structural premise rather than a retrofit. Each venue is rebuilt, but rebuilt to hold the same language: the same five stages, in the same order, at the same scale, with projection throws and mapping recalculated per hall against a fixed set of scenic dimensions.

Hamburg and London share no architecture, no ceiling height and no floor plan. World premiere in Hamburg in November 2025, then Dock X London from March 2026, the largest immersive Viking experience built in the UK. Vienna’s Marx Halle is the third venue, opening 23 September 2026.

The approach has been tested outside the ticket office as well. At the 16th Eventex Awards, Vikings won gold for Set Design and gold for Use of Audiovisual, silver for Immersive Experience and bronze for Multisensory Experience.

That is the condition a narrative-led cultural experience has been missing. Storytelling of this depth has generally been affordable once, in one building. This one was designed to open again.

Partners

COMMISSION & PRODUCTION

Producer: Alegría Exhibition GmbH
UK Presenter: FKP Scorpio Entertainment
Creative Director: Mitch Sebastian

THE STORYTELLING COMPANY
Concept & Design, Set Design, Spatial Design, Software, VR Development, Content Production, Projection Content, Motion Design, Delivery & Launch, Installation Hamburg and London

Designed by flora&faunavisions, part of The Storytelling Company

PARTNERS & DOCUMENTATION
Soundtrack: Studio Kreuzberg, with contribution by Ilja Coric
Photo credit (Hamburg): Morris Mac Matzen

Alegría Exhibition GmbH commissioned and produced the format and holds it commercially across the tour. FKP Scorpio Entertainment presented the London run at Dock X.

Mitch Sebastian held creative direction across all three venues and authored the dramaturgy that the build serves.

The Storytelling Company held the whole chain from first sketch to installation: concept and design, set and spatial design, the software and VR development behind the Yggdrasil journey, content and projection content production, motion design, and delivery, launch and installation in Hamburg and London. Design by flora&faunavisions, part of The Storytelling Company.

The modular engineering sits inside that same scope. Truss systems, scenic elements and projection geometries were specified for repeat build, with projection throws and mapping recalculated per venue against fixed scenic dimensions rather than the dramaturgy being redesigned per city.

Studio Kreuzberg composed the original score, with a contribution by Ilja Coric.

Morris Mac Matzen produced the photographic documentation of the Hamburg premiere.