We recently worked with Sandbag Merchandise company to create an Augmented Reality (AR) experience for the new Arena production of Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of The Worlds.
The tour took place in March and April 2022 with a whole host of familiar faces including Liam Neeson, Blue’s Duncan James & Claire Richards from STEPS.
The brand is accustomed to delivering cutting edge experiences for its fans including most recently The War of The Worlds Immersive Experience which is definitely worth a visit if you are in London (5 stars on Tripadvisor with over 2,000 reviews and top 15 of things to do in London)!
They wanted to create a stand out experience that would delight and excite fans attending the 2022 tour. The brief was to develop an AR experience activated from the tour programme, giving additional value to fans and something they could continue to interact with after the tour itself.
Blend and creator Govak Reality worked with both the production and merchandising teams to develop the AR experience that brought elements of the show to life in the hands of the fans.
On scanning the front cover of the programme, it comes alive with hissing and smoke before flames start to appear and the programme is set on fire! Finally a 3D Martian Fighting Machine moves across the programme firing its own Heat Ray. Combined with awesome sound effects from the show, the experience gives a taste of the live production itself.
The effect was built in instagram meaning fans were easily able to access the experience by scanning a QR code.
The AR effect created is live on instagram on @twotw_official. It was also shared via IG Stories by the stars of the show Clare Richards (161K followers) and Duncan James (390K followers)
The current tour has broken all records in terms of merchandise sales per head and tour programmes sold.
Lindsey Key, Production Coordinator, Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of The Worlds
Jeff Wayne’s The War of The Worlds worked with Blend Media to produce an Augmented Reality experience for the cover of our tour programme. The goal was to create something unique beyond the physical brochure plus encourage fan engagement across social media. Blend Media was a pleasure to work with - the creators and developers who worked on this project understood the brief and the brand of The War of The Worlds immediately, and we are all very pleased with the results, both creatively and as a promotional tool for the tour.
Guilherme Novak, Govak Reality; 'Both Lindsey and Blend Media were crucial in communicating the main vision for the AR effect, and we did our best to match their commitment. We are always looking forward to bringing fresh, creative ideas to life with immersive technologies. How could we say 'no' to virtually setting things on fire?'
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