At the Shanghai World Expo Museum, located at 818 Mengzi Road, Shanghai, the exhibition "A Dream of Huaxu—A Shadow Play and Light and Shadow Art Exhibition" is underway.

"Traditional shadow puppetry meets light and shadow technology, ancient culture merges with digital technology, intangible cultural heritage comes alive!" said Xiao Ying, a self-media person who came to the exhibition.

Immersed in the "A Dream of Huaxu" shadow play and light and shadow exhibition, it's like entering a colorful dream of ancient China: The exhibition is named after the ancient myth "The Yellow Emperor's Dream Journey to Huaxu Kingdom" from Liezi, Huangdi of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. In the evocative storyline, Liezi's clear realm of mind without compliance or opposition is fully revealed in a fantastical world of light and shadow created by shadow puppets, showcasing the bustling ancient imperial city, romantic scenes of talented men and beautiful women, and the daily lives of villagers. Characters from Journey to the West, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and Water Margin appear in a parallel universe, vividly illustrating Liezi's spiritual realm of riding the wind and traveling freely through the eight wildernesses in spring.

"Time travel and an international perspective are the hallmarks of this light and shadow exhibition." Xu Cheng, co-founder of Shanghai Yingfang Culture Technology Co., Ltd., said that a team of nearly 100 people composed of Chinese and French creators, together with Ma's shadow puppetry inheritor, created this grand shadow puppet dream with a strong Chinese style.

Currently, this grand shadow puppet play is touring in Canada, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Dubai, UAE.

This is a case of the Chinese immersive industry going global. "During creation, we tapped into the international art market's excitement for traditional Chinese culture, satisfying the world's imagination of Oriental cultural arts. Therefore, in the first month of the "A Dream of Huaxu—A Shadow Play and Light and Shadow Art Exhibition" tour in Montreal, Canada last year, it broke the local light and shadow art space's monthly visitor record." said Xu Cheng.

This is just one of the successful cases of immersive art exhibitions. In the "magic circle" of the immersive industry, there are 16 sub-markets, including immersive cultural tourism, theme entertainment, immersive performing arts, extended reality, and commercial spaces.

"The magic of immersive art lies in creating a 'magic circle' that shields the real world through cultural themes, spatial creation, sensory art, and technological interaction. All the elements, rules, and concepts within this circle, including people, things, and objects, are called the 'immersive world.'" Jiang Jie, deputy director of the Immersive Entertainment Professional Committee of the China Amusement Machine and Amusement Park Association and producer of the "2024 China Immersive Industry Development White Paper," said that participants gain a sense of control, security, and exploration through interactive narratives in this world, and the resulting self-reconstruction effect will also spill over into the real world, becoming a driving force for changing lives, inspiring imagination, and creating change.

"In the field where art and science intersect, the rapid rise of immersive technology coincides with the development needs of new productive forces, highlighting the important position of immersive experience as a new generation of cultural productive forces and making contributions to the application and development of China's cultural and tourism industry." said Zhang Xiaohua, director of the Scientific Research Planning Office of the China Institute of Art and Technology.

Exploring to become "wealth creators," "happiness makers," and "consumption stimulators," China's immersive industry is running on the road.

On July 6, tourists played in the Harbin Ice and Snow World indoor ice and snow hall (immersive ice and snow light and shadow interactive experience hall). The hall includes multiple important elements such as ice and snow, light and shadow, entertainment, and interaction, using sound, light, and electricity effects to allow tourists to embark on a wonderful journey of "instantaneous travel between winter and summer" in the sweltering heat. Photo by Zhang Tao, Xinhua News Agency

Healing Power

At the Suzhou Culture and Art Center Suyi Performing Arts Culture Gathering Area, the immersive magic drama "A Moment Frozen in Time" is being performed. On the scene, a girl stood up and said she wanted to talk to her deceased grandmother: "If you get sick, you must go to the hospital immediately, so we can still spend the last Spring Festival together."

Magically, when the magician took out the letter from the box on the scene, it was actually written by the grandmother to the girl, which read: "Baby, I know, if I get sick, I will go to the hospital immediately. Every Spring Festival spent with you in the past was the happiest Spring Festival." The girl burst into tears.

Including this scene, many healing stories are the reason why Liang Ming, founder of Beijing Fantasy Forest Magic Culture Industry Group Co., Ltd., firmly continues to operate the immersive magic bar.

"Extending the stage to the audience's side, interacting on the spot, co-creating the ending of the story, and feeling the comfort of the soul in the immersive experience, I think this is the most meaningful part of our magic drama." Liang Ming has many insights. This "post-85s" generation, who started a business in the dormitory during his junior year, developed his magic career after accumulating some experience in Beijing and then went south to develop his magic career, jointly creating an immersive magic bar with Suwen Investment Group: a 450-square-meter theater accommodating 120 people, with the team creating 6 plays performed 450 times a year, recouping its investment in just 8 months after opening.

Later, Liang Ming launched an upgraded version of the immersive magic bar in Nanjing—the Fantasy Rooftop Broadway.

"After watching the show in Suzhou, the theater became quiet, but the Nanjing project was upgraded, achieving deep integration with consumption, creating a third space for leisure, and ensuring that the audience doesn't leave after the show ends." Liang Ming said that the theater seamlessly integrated into the local night economy in Nanjing's Xin Jie Kou bustling area, and even the coffee it produces and sells has become a popular drink. "People in the city who live a two-point-line life have a third space to relax and unwind. The emotional value, self-discovery, and other functions it provides are the reasons why many immersive formats are popular."

In his book "The Experience Economy," Joseph Pine argues that human economic activity will gradually evolve from a commodity economy, a product economy, and a service economy to an experience economy and a self-discovery economy, with each evolution bringing about the birth of new consumer demands.

Tang Xiaoyun, vice president of the China Tourism Academy, analyzes: "Technology has reshaped the underlying logic of tourism development, and the tourism industry is constantly expanding and extending its industrial chain through integrated innovation, cross-border integration, and content innovation."

Cross-border creation of magic, drama, and new consumption integrated formats, making it a new urban performing arts space where culture and commerce coexist. Liang Ming commented: "The audience is more interested in immersive experiences that return the narrative rights to the participants. As consumers increasingly prefer products and services that resonate with their personal values and lifestyles, the immersive economy is becoming a new engine for consumption growth."

In recent years, Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province, has focused on the night economy consumption formats, striving to create diversified and characteristic night market districts, carefully cultivating immersive consumption integrated characteristic brands, achieving a deep integration of Jiangnan culture and night-time leisure consumption, and injecting new vitality into urban commerce. The picture shows citizens watching an open-air movie in Zhouxinli Street District, Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province. Photo by Xinhua News Agency (Cai Dunhao)

New Magnetic Field

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and France and the China-France Year of Culture and Tourism. Shanghai's Xuhui District welcomed the opening of the world's first "offline real-scene movie" project, "City of Deep Light, City of Bright Light," invested by France's Puy du Fou.

Puy du Fou, with a history of 48 years, is a theme park brand dedicated to restoring large-scale historical and cultural scenes. Joseph Corbo, Puy du Fou's Chief Operating Officer and Executive Producer for Asia, said that the project, which took three years to complete, covers a total construction area of 46,000 square meters and is a carefully constructed immersive cultural and entertainment complex that breaks boundaries, where every visitor is both an audience member and a participant.

Puy du Fou's participation is seen by the industry as a boost to the high-quality development of China's immersive industry. Jiang Jie introduced that among the 26 countries in the world with relatively mature immersive industries, China ranks among the top in the world in terms of the number of projects, the size of the consumer market, the scale of investment, and the total output value. "Discovering the ordinary in ordinary life, people experience those moments of enlightenment in immersion that can change their life perspectives. The immersive economy has become a new magnetic field for generating creativity and attracting capital."

The "2024 China Immersive Industry Development White Paper" shows that investment funds in China's immersive industry were once mainly from individual investment and venture capital. With the introduction of the "14th Five-Year Plan for Cultural and Tourism Development" and the "14th Five-Year Plan for Cultural Industry Development," the immersive industry has received more attention from industry enterprises and government investment platforms in 2023.

While the industry is experiencing rapid development, some industry insiders have warned against the overheating of investment leading to the formation of bubbles. "The total investment in immersive cultural tourism and immersive performing arts accounts for more than 70% of the output value, far exceeding the healthy line of 40% and the overheating warning line of 50%. In the future, these areas may face risks of overcapacity and consumer bubbles. Investors in China's immersive industry need to rationally analyze the sustainable development of the industry, invest in new things and value, and avoid blindly following trends." Jiang Jie said.

In addition, overseas brands investing in China should also be suitable for the market. With the success of a series of internationally renowned immersive experience projects such as "Sleep No More" and "The Disappearance of the Pharaoh" in the Chinese market, more and more international brands and investors have seen the huge potential of China's immersive experience consumer market and are turning their attention to China. China's immersive industry has emerged with comparable high-quality immersive experience content, a stronger preference for national tide consumption, and a business model that is more in line with local consumption logic.

The prerequisite for successful investment in immersive experience projects by international brands is to meet at least the following several quantifiable "investment indicators": accurate market positioning, wonderful creative planning, effective market channel strategies, reasonable cost control, and sustainable content iteration.

The future development path of the immersive industry is a two-way rush between content providers and the market. Scanning the immersive industry, feeling its brilliance bestowed upon the times and the happiness it brings to people, we hope that more enterprises will take innovation as their driving force, repeatedly breaking through and progressing into high-quality cultural and tourism enterprises, and nurturing more new formats and new scenarios in this new magnetic field, telling the story of new-era China in a three-dimensional and colorful way.