Laine Pub Company has partnered with immersive experience studio Pixel Artworks to bring an augmented reality (AR) experience to Brighton’s Spiegeltent festival.
The pop-up festival, which takes place throughout May at the Old Steine Gardens, is hosted by the Brighton-based pub company and partners.
It will showcase the Butterfly Trail, adding “a touch of wonder, magic, and immersion” to the line-up.
Set within an eight-meter, 360° sphere, visitors will be transported to a glasshouse and guided through a botanical haven to interact and explore digital butterflies.
The experience will be enabled by a smartphone and is brought to life with visual rendering and the use of the Unreal Engine to create the content on a dome canvas.
Speaking about this year’s Spiegeltent, Laine’s co-founder and CEO Gavin George said: “It’s been an honour for Laine to bring the Spiegeltent festival to Brighton every May for the last 11 years. It’s hosted some brilliantly entertaining shows in its venues - from grassroots artists to internationally acclaimed acts - and it’s delivered some excellent food, drink, and festival fun for everyone visiting the city for England’s foremost arts, fringe, and music festivals. This year’s Spiegeltent lineup will be as compelling as ever, but it will be taking an unprecedented leap forward with the addition of an AR experience to the programme. Laine is hugely excited to work with Pixel Artworks to bring The Butterfly Trail to Brighton. It’s a first for both of us to deliver this at an outdoor event like the Spiegeltent, but important for us to be showcasing the future possibilities of pub-based entertainment, something Laine has become well known for since it opened its first pub in Brighton in 1997.”
Riaz Farooq, senior creative director for Pixel Artworks, commented: “It’s been amazing working with Laine and being able to bring this magical immersive experience to a new audience of families and festival goers. Creating the content in a 360° format opens a much wider use of The Butterfly Trail experience, and people can feel fully surrounded by the butterflies. It’s exciting to see the first rollout of our licensed art, cultural and purpose-driven experiences, Originals, after the success of The Butterfly Trail and our partnership with The Outernet. I can’t wait to see the response it gets from everyone visiting.”
