Austrian entrepreneur Markus Beyr has made himself the global number one address for immersive special venue theater attractions in Asia and Europe. He’s helped develop hundreds of attractions, steadily building a business in 3D/4D (and now 5D) guest experiences over the past 17 years. Recent projects with high international profiles include Marvel Superheroes 4D for Madame Tussauds London, Arthur at Futuroscope in France, Dragons Treasure at City of Dreams Macau (honored with a Thea Award for Outstanding Achievement) and a dozen others in 2010 alone.
A 4D experience presents a vision of the world in a highly themed, immersive environment blending theater, cinema and theme park magic. 4D theater development melds a multitude of creative, technical and construction fields and disciplines, from architecture to theater design, from special effects to show control, from storytelling to media production. A signature element is the special seats (stationary or moving) fitted with such elements as ticklers, pokers, water spray and transducers. Beyr’s accomplishments and his rise to 4D market leader stem from his background in lighting design, show control and museum exhibition design, coupled with a gift for understanding and applying technology.
Beyr’s skillset and aptitude not only inform his projects, they are likewise reflected in the business ventures he is involved in: a circle of companies that enable him to take the role of vendor as well as producer, integrator and consultant. He is managing director of Kraftwerk Living Technologies GmbH, a technical integration company (70 employees) where he partners with Manfred Meier, Christian Hofer, Christian Langhammer and Christoph Papousek, who are also co-owners of FTT Digital Cinema GmbH, a system provider for digitizing multiplex theatres. Another Beyr company is C 2 Turn Key Solutions GmbH, which manages the complex interface between clients and vendors to deliver turnkey, high-tech entertainment attractions and some other ventures.
Domes for immersive entertainment
Thus equipped with both vision and resources, Beyr has pushed the medium of 4D immersive theater in some fascinating creative directions. Digital dome (“fulldome”) video technology was introduced in the late 1990s and its use is widespread in the planetarium market, but Beyr and his colleagues have pioneered its application for immersive entertainment. In such projects as Marvel Superheroes 4D at Madame Tussauds (London), the award winning Dragons Treasure at City of Dreams (Macau) and the 2011 upcoming Rainbow Land Park in Rome, the dome theater experience is taken into the realm of blockbuster fantasy spectacle.
Marvel Superheroes 4D, which opened at Madame Tussauds London in May 2010, was a retrofit of an existing, disused planetarium dome. Beyr and Kraftwerk worked closely with Tussauds’ creative director Paul Williams, marketing specialist Richard Orr and project managers Sundeep Jouhal & James McLaughlin, as well as Meyer Sound for immersive sound design. Two forms of projection were incorporated: 2D fulldome video to surround the audience with an atmospheric envelope, and 3D projection on a large inset flat screen. Beyr reconfigured the theatre and seating for better sightlines, traffic flow and to bring the seat count up to 278. Tussauds Project Manager Sundeep Jouhal commented, “By flipping the seats’ direction and designing a new viewing angle for the audience, the existing dome environment became totally immersive – ingenious!”
Dragons Treasure opened in June 2010 at the City of Dreams entertainment resort in Macau. In this newly built, standup dome theater (capacity: 500) a mythological adventure of about dragons, royalty and spirituality unfolds. Audiences are captivated by elaborate imagery (fulldome projection), theatrical lighting and a host of in-theater effects. It was produced by Melco Crown Entertainment and executive produced by Falcon’s Treehouse LLC. The dome structure design, AV design, projection design and technical integration were provided by Kraftwerk and engineered by its technical wizards Christian Hofer and Thomas Gellermann.
The motion base is back!
Enter the fifth dimension of immersive theater: motion. 4D theaters evolved from motion theaters. Prevalent in the 1980s and found mostly in theme parks, motion theaters provide an intense simulated adventure by combining a short movie (usually about 4 minutes) with programmable moving seats. 4D theaters offer a slower, gentler mode of immersive entertainment, making it possible to create more of a storytelling space (average film length, 8-12 minutes) and thereby attract a wider audience demographic. 4D theaters can also accommodate larger numbers of people by omitting the bulky motion base seats (they were adapted from military simulation, often hydraulically powered and had a big footprint).
There have been many motion simulation attractions installed around the world. Motion simulation remains popular with some audiences, and a 4D attraction doesn’t have to completely eschew the motion platform, especially with today’s streamlined technologies. An existing motion platform was integrated with new seats, new media and other components to create the new Arthur 4D/5D attraction at Futuroscope park in Poitiers, France. This retrofit project, an immersive adventure that simulates riding on the back of a ladybug, has brought new life to an existing 70mm dome and 4 existing motion platforms that were programmed together with custom designed, lightweight seats. A special, unexpected thrill and audience pleaser is the custom-rigged spiderweb effect, just scary enough. The new attraction is said to be a major factor in Futuroscope’s attendance increases this year.
Beyr reintroduced motion to the mix, with the introduction of the so-called “5D seat,” that in addition to the ticklers, pokers, sprayers, transducers etc. also provides up to three axes of motion. Beyr declares that the pneumatically powered, streamlined, new generation of motion seat delivers motion quality superior to that of his competitors, and reports that it has been adopted widely among his clients over the past few months, giving rise to a new generation of 5D theaters.
Media-based attractions and the future
The power of immersive theater is not the technology per se, but the way in which the technology presents the content and tells the story - which is why Beyr categorizes his work as “media based attractions” that can be designed to present a film in whatever format suits the presentation, whether flat screen, dome, 360 degrees, 3D or something else. As not every project is a one-off in need of custom content, Beyr established a preferred film partner alliance with nWave Pictures enabling him to offer a specialized library of license-able films to his clients. This year as in previous years, nWave will use Kraftwerk cinema systems to present its movies at IAAPA Attractions Expo (Orlando, Nov 15-19).
In the near future, watch for several high-profile Markus Beyr projects around the globe. Audiences will soon experience his new, waterproof 4D/5D theatre system, designed for waterpark visitors to enjoy in their swimsuits, featuring new, water-based effects. The first of these is set to open next spring in Austria’s leading waterpark, Aquapulco, near Beyr’s hometown in Austria. Beyr also hints at numerous other new developments that promise to further redefine the 4D experience. We stay tuned.
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