UEC Preview
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Houba City: the AV, VR and mixed reality attractions making BoldMove Nation’s
new Urban Entertainment Centre tick By now, readers should be familiar with what makes an Urban Entertainment Centre different to a family entertainment centre. After highlighting the intellectual property at the heart of Houba City, let’s now look in detail at the potential attractions guests will enjoy when they visit.
H
ouba City will be home to a rich world of cartoon characters and stories. The leopard-like Marsupilamis come courtesy of BoldMove Nation’s intellectual property (IP) partner Mediatoon Licensing. Yet with the Urban Experience Centre (UEC), the two parties want to offer more than just a branded family attraction. Designed to increase footfall and retention with fun experiences that cannot be matched from home, one of the strengths of the UEC concept is its flexibility. Both in the choice of individual experiences available, and in the way they can be spread throughout the shopping mall or other retail/leisure destination. This may include vacant units – making it an attractive option for those malls showing the scars of the pandemic. “The flexible and scalable aspect of the UEC is really important,” says experience creator and art director Sven Riegel. “We all know that
the media can be changed in a media-based attraction. However, we thought how can we make it modular so that you can plug in and plug out the attractions themselves? In this way, we see Houba City as a ‘pop up’ solution for site owners.”
The media-based attraction mix Linking all the different experiences together will be AR Egg Hunt, based on BoldMove’s groundbreaking mixed reality game AR Hybrid Quest. Players can collect points and find the Marsu nest by completing challenging virtual assignments along the trail on their smartphone. Guests can initiate the game at home and build a high scoring. Yet the action takes place on site following a route of different stations, marked with QR codes to activate the assignments. Virtual portals can open a complete virtual environment, fully immersing the guest into the adventure. A photobooth at the destination allows guests to take a picture with their favorite character and share the high scoring via social media. To the venue owner this application opens a wealth of opportunities in terms of data capture, loyalty programmes and community building, but also for visitor flow and crowd management.
Up to 12 different media-based experiences are available at Houba City. Typically they would occupy a combined 1,200 to 1,600 square metres, however the concept is fully scalable to fit larger spaces. For larger areas and depending on audience targets, BoldMove can plug in some traditional attractions like a droptower or mini-coaster.
A key offering is the interactive dark ride Marsupilami’s Incredible Supply Chase. BoldMove has combined years of expertise in designing and building dark rides around the world to deliver a compact UEC-friendly solution. Two ride vehicles, each seating six people, circle a room surrounded by six screens. Using hand gestures, passengers must catch food supplies for the hungry Marsu kids waiting back in the nest. The easy gameplay and engaging IP make the ride fun and accessible for all ages. A hall
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of fame gives high scoring players their moment in the spotlight, whilst encouraging all riders to return and better their scores.
Sing, dance …and keep guests coming back Repeatability is key feature of the UEC concept, and three Houba City attractions in particularly should really keep guests coming back. Sing Along is a karaoke challenge. Using voice recognition software, virtual coaches encourage kids to improve their vocal skills, while a live audience cheers them along. But
there’s
no shame if you sing out of tune, just fun and glory! Needless to say the Marsu friends are accompanying our brave singers in whatever song or style they choose. Let’s Dance challenges guests to get into the groove with their moves mirrored by our Marsu friends. The better they dance, the more points they score. Keeping fit has never been such fun! Positioned back-to-back with Sing Along, this song and dance combination can be a real audience puller. At the Houba Academy, visitors can participate in regular creative workshops on comic strip drawing and street art, baking, learn fascinating facts about rainforest animals and vegetation, plus loads more. To develop the Houba Academy programme, BoldMove will work with local educational organisations as well as experts in integrated storytelling and experience design, such as Klaus Sommer Paulsen of AdventureLAB, to ensure the content is never dull and fits the venue audience profile.
VR, magic drawing and a treadmill challenge
One of the Marsupilami’s favourite pastimes is fishing using his extraordinarily long tail. At Houba City, visitors will be able to join him in Piranhas VR Racing, a virtual reality attraction with bite! Sat on motion platform resembling a raft and positioned on water, they will feel the wind in their face as they career down a virtual rapid river. Players must help our Marsu friend catch the deadly fish …before they get caught themselves!
IAAPA EXPO EUROPE EDITION
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