neodigital, a creator of immersive hybrid experiences, is reflecting on a recent successful project, the creation of The Klub Extraordinaire in France’s Centre-Val de Loire region. This interactive and immersive experience for people seeking career advice or a fresh start has been praised by the French government and employment professionals as an innovative solution for attracting people to jobs. It has also proved popular with visitors.
The firm was chosen for this project as part of the Regional Pact for Investment in Skills. The initial brief was a good fit for neodigital’s values, as the idea was to create an experience that would “transmit knowledge”, “arouse curiosity” and “make people want to learn”.
Creating a unique experience
The main goal when the studio came up with the idea for the Klub Extraordinaire was to create something different from what the public was used to seeing about careers and orientation.
The firm did this by coming up with a unique location with a welcoming atmosphere that was open to everyone and where everyone would feel comfortable thinking about their professional future. This project was designed to increase awareness and educate everyone on the value of understanding themselves in order to plan for the future, whether it be personal or professional.
“I imagined the Klub Extraordinaire as a precursor, a unique place in Europe to bring audiences together so that their creativity can, through art, exploration and play, think the world differently,” says Basile Bohard, creator and art director of the Klub Extraordinaire. “We had to take up a real artistic, technological and educational challenge. In order to deal with a subject of great social importance, with poetry, aestheticism and magic!”
Concept and design
“The Klub Extraordinaire is an immersive experience that was built with the support of our educational teams and our scientific backers in the fields of psychology, career guidance and careers,” says Delphine Reboux, the studio’s editorial director.
The team needed to create a story that was as inspiring as possible, to better engage visitors in their quest for self. After this, for the visual concept stage, they then had to transcribe the ideas of Bohard, the designer of the experiment, in the most accurate way possible. To achieve this, the concept artists got on the same wavelength as the art director and the editorial director. During this phase, hundreds of concepts were produced before the final result is chosen.
Unity is power in the neodigital studio. The Klub Extraordinaire was constructed and born by the collaboration of around forty different trades. Each partner contributes their area of expertise to produce immersive settings and content, where interaction, special effects, sound, light, and architecture come together to make an ordinary curiosity into an extraordinary experience/
Making the idea a reality
The next challenge was to test the concept: Le Klub Extraordinaire was going to have an audience, so every idea needed to be feasible. Here, 3D modelling and virtual reality helped to put visual concepts into perspective.
The Klub Extraordinaire is an artistic, technological and, above all, human adventure. Neodigital brought together technical and creative partners that were driven by the same spirit to create Klub Extraordinaire, as well as a desire to push the envelope. The end product of the immersive roadshow reflects this commitment made by all staff members.
Following the conceptualisation, the realisation and the manufacturing, the goal was for the audience to forget the extent of the technologies that were utilised. The result is an experience that will allow everyone to discover themselves through emotion. This is done through scenography, lighting, music and storytelling.
Since the roadshow first opened in 2020, it has continued to travel the Centre-Val de Loire region and has been recognised as a “remarkable action” by the state. It will be on the road for four to five years. It has won many awards, such as the ‘Tiqets Remarkable Venue 2022’, ‘Remarkable project of the year’ by the french government, ‘2022 Innovation Award’, ‘2022 CSS Design Award’ and the ‘2022 CSS winner award’.
