I decided to go along to Future Cinema’s immersive experience – Dirty Dancing. I was very intrigued by their marketing technique, as a designer it is my job to sell things on their appearance and sculpt information to spark interest in the viewer. Their technique was that of a wonderful mystery, all I really had to go on before parting with my £40 was a single e-poster. What had me so interested was the film its self, not necessarily by the way it was presented, like most things. I already had a relationship with this film and a love for it, I was already expecting to have a great time before I knew anything about it! That being said, the poster did help, omitting a vintage style true to the film, with a current edge. The Future Cinema logo itself sparks electricity and excitement with its hipster use of lightening bolts.

As Future Cinema keep their event intentions fairly mysterious I talked to a few people about their attendance at previous functions and looked for reviews online. No-body had a bad word to say about them, and re-called their experiences with lots of enthusiasm, my excitement began to mount. I was really interested in how they would immerse us into the movie, I love films but have never felt much of a connection to theatre, so was intrigued to see how the two would be blended and how I would feel part of it. I didn’t have to wait long. We received an email in the style of a vintage airmail letter.

Which included links to various pages, such as the Kellerman’s Brochure, which was in the style of an American holiday camp pin board, providing lots of information about the summer vacation ahead, featuring american retro images.

After days of Facebook links, dance video’s and online holiday postcards the day of the event finally arrived. We where plummeted into the world of Baby and Johnny at the Kellerman’s resort, cheesy American slogans came over the tannoy’s, over enthusiastic camp reps escorted us through to a range of activities and the smell of hot dogs and candy floss was ripe in the air. We took part in dance lessons, book making, fencing and we found our way to the off limits staff quarters for a wild party. There where look-a-like actors roaming the grounds, watermelons in abundance and over excited participants in 60’s outfits everywhere! The film itself was accompanied by live re-enactments by the actors and hundreds of people quoting the famous lines. To finish it all off the whole crowd joined in for the final dance with beach balls flying everywhere. It was a truly excellent experience from booking the tickets through to leaving the venue and beyond.

I took so much inspiration away from this event, the Future Cinema guys really know what they are doing. We where thoroughly entertained and spectacularly immersed into the Dirty Dancing swing of things. Every detail was considered from the off, the catalyst to their success was in picking an iconic film to drawer in an audience, but they followed it through and delivered an epic adventure by embracing the mood of the movie and drawing on engaging elements. The fun really did start when we started receiving the wonderfully considered visual teasers that will forever inspire my future promotional material. I recommend the Future Cinema experience to all film lovers, fun lovers and aspiring event curators.

The whole event experience was a wealth of a inspiration, he future cinema email presentation really effected how I wanted our own event email correspondence to look which you can see feature in this blog. Their excellent choice of movie also had an influence on me when making the decision for our immersive experience, capturing the audience imagination before they know too much is a great way to increase anticipation and secure an audience. I also saw the benefit of the online interaction leading up to the event, so I tried to engage with our Gothic audience in a similar way, posting photo’s and quotes to keep the publics attention on each screening.