‘A new kind of entertainment’: Rosemont virtual reality venue opens Friday
Starting Friday, you’ll only have to go as far as Rosemont to be able to travel to ancient Egypt or 3.5 billion years back in time — virtually, of course.
Visitors will don virtual reality glasses as they walk through EXP, the new 26,000-square-foot immersive art venue in The Pearl District south of Balmoral Avenue and west of the Tri-State Tollway.
While black and white markings on the walls inside EXP appear to be abstract art, they’re actually recognizable patterns that correspond with the tracking system inside each visitor’s camera headset.
“For us, it’s a new kind of cinema. A new kind of entertainment,” said Fabien Barati, CEO of Excurio, the Paris-based creator and producer of the two inaugural shows.
The tech company has a distribution and presentation agreement with Montreal-based PHI Studio, which inked a separate deal with the village late last year to operate the venue.
“Horizon of Khufu” and “Life Chronicles” — the free-roaming, 45-minute virtual reality expeditions — will take visitors to the Great Pyramid of Giza and through the story of evolution, respectively.
The first show debuted in 2022 and the latter in 2023 — both in Paris — after intensive research and production periods spanning 18 months. Before computer programmers got in front of their screens to design the shows full of lights, sounds and moving pictures, they first leaned on the expertise of scientists and researchers.
For instance, in “Life Chronicles,” they worked with experts at Paris’ Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle to try to bring to life Earth’s ecosystems, species of plants and animals, and how they might have looked and moved.
“What we are trying to achieve is to create a context to the knowledge we have … see the monuments, objects, pieces of art, scientific concepts in their context to understand them better,” Barati said.
The two presentations have been seen in 25 venues worldwide — from retail spaces in shopping centers to temporary pop-ups in old buildings — but the Rosemont space marks the first purpose-built, from-the-ground-up facility for PHI Studio in two decades, said Eric Albert, the company’s CEO.
Albert connected with Rosemont Mayor Brad Stephens and village real estate broker Marc Offit through the Investissement Québec business group, which has an office in Chicago. PHI wants to open a dozen other locations in North America in the next two to three years, Albert said.
The Rosemont venue will be open from 1 to 7 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Tickets start at $27.
Future shows will take visitors to a medieval castle, outer space and through scenes of impressionist art. A nonvirtual reality experience is also planned inside the building in 2026.
Each show’s run depends on audience feedback, Albert says.
“Think of it as a movie theater. If the movie does really well, it just keeps (getting) extended and you keep presenting it,” Albert said. “And if for whatever reason people don’t like it, you just take it out and replace it with something else.”