How Does Production Make an Immersive Experience Believable?
We interviewed David Quigley, one of our Senior Production Managers, about what it takes to make an immersive experience feel genuinely believable. David brings more than a decade of experience across the experiential industry and, since joining Seen Presents, has worked on projects for clients including Pinterest and Red Bull.
What makes an immersive experience believable?
With new technology and experiences launching every week, the industry is talking a lot about immersion. But what makes an immersive experience feel genuinely believable? It's when the audience truly accepts the world you have created and feels part of it, rather than observing it.
In experiential production, I think we look closely at what an audience will see, hear, and interact with. To feel believable, all of those elements need to tie into each other seamlessly. It isn’t about using one fancy piece of tech to excite an audience. It comes from design, visual content, audio, build, fabrication, as well as interactive technology all feeling as though they belong to the same world. Without that cohesion, even the most impressive elements can feel like a collection of separate features.
Success and failure often hinge on the smallest details. Visible mechanics, a material that feels out of place, or interactions that are confusing or unintuitive can quickly shatter the illusion and pull people out of the world you’ve built.
When should production be brought into the fold?
Including production early in the brief stage means we can partner with creative and project teams as they scope out the experience. While the production department may seem more logistical in nature, it’s deeply intertwined with the creative side and helps translate ideas into tangible reality.
We have access to specialist suppliers, materials, fabrication techniques and new technologies, which can help guide what the experience could become. Instead of production deciding whether a finished concept is achievable, we can help guide and evolve it. It also gives us the opportunity to suggest ideas that may not otherwise have been thought of.
What’s the key to making sure environment, content, and technology all work together to truly immerse guests?
It all starts with experimentation. Ambitious concepts rarely fit perfectly from the outset, and that’s entirely natural. I think it’s important to explore and learn, not just for creative alignment, but also for maintaining safety throughout the process. Testing might reveal that a material behaves differently under the venue’s lighting or on camera, disrupting the consistency of the world you’re trying to create. It can also flag a safety hazard before it has the chance to shut down the experience on site.
The technology used should feel engaging, interactive and truly at home in the world you’re creating. Content should invite people in and support that sense of immersion, rather than unintentionally pushing them out. Guests may miss the best part of the technology you’ve fought to keep throughout the process if the activation doesn’t make the interaction intuitive.
For production, it’s about finding the right balance between the environment, the content and the technology. That requires ongoing discussion and collaboration between everyone involved.
When plans change, how do you stay true to your original creative vision?
Protecting the idea requires both careful planning and flexibility. As a production team, it’s always key to nail down as much information as possible early on to avoid any significant changes, but that isn’t always the reality. We often have to work against a moving target. Budgets change, schedules tighten, and venues bring constraints or technical restrictions that can mean amending the original approach.
When that happens, it’s important to focus on the purpose behind the original concept and the experience you want to create for the audience. If you keep this central vision in mind: the message, the desired understanding, and the intended interaction, you can adapt to venue or budget constraints while still finding solutions that deliver on your goals.
What does success look like to you when creating an immersive brand experience?
If we’ve all done our job, success isn't measured by how complicated the build was or how much technology was used. It's about whether the audience interacts as intended.
The best production work happens behind the scenes. When it’s done properly, people don’t think about the build process, the testing phases or the logistical challenges. They’re completely engaged. That’s the true hallmark of a successful immersive experience: crafting a brand experience so cohesive that audiences feel genuinely part of it.