Andrew McGuinness: Greater Humanity with Layered Reality

Charlie Melcher:

Hi, I’m Charlie Melcher, founder of the Future of Storytelling. Welcome to the FOST Podcast. My guest today is Andrew McGuinness, CEO of London-based immersive entertainment company, Layered Reality. He and his team are the masterminds behind the city’s longest running immersive show, Jeff Wayne’s War of the World’s Experience, as well as the highly popular Gunpowder Plot experience. Their unique approach is, as the name suggests, layered: they combine components of immersive theater such as live actors, lavish sets, and plenty of multisensory elements, with new technologies like VR projection mapping and volumetric holograms. The results are productions that feel participatory, immersive, and alive. Layered Reality’s longevity and success is due in no small part to Andrew’s own multifaceted strategy for creating immersive entertainment. One that brings together creativity, entrepreneurship, and a deep understanding of how audiences make lasting memories. With Layered Reality’s third and most ambitious production yet, Elvis Evolution, coming in 2025, I’m excited to talk with him about how he’s built such a successful immersive entertainment company and where he plans to take it. Next, please join me in welcoming Andrew McGuinness. Andrew, welcome to the Future of Storytelling podcast. It’s a delight to have you here.

Andrew McGuinness:

It’s a pleasure to be here.

Charlie Melcher:

So tell me about your decision to get into immersive entertainment. You had a normal life before that.

Andrew McGuinness:

I did a somewhat normal life. Yeah. I spent most of my career in marketing communications one way or another. So largely in advertising. Actually. I was fortunate enough to have sold a business and went to do some study I thought having spent for many years in business, it was about time I did some formal study in business. So I went and studied at Harvard for a few months and just started looking at the experience economy and this massive transformation. And it seemed to me that there was a tremendous opportunity to bring some of the emerging digital tools to help tell stories in a different way. So home entertainment seemed to me, had been transformed by the digital revolution. The way that we consume all media at home is utterly different than it was, but most out of home storytelling and most out of home experiences still today actually are pretty analog. This is fantastic storytelling tools. It seemed to me that if we could combine the tools of the past, so theater, storytelling and all that comes with that with some of the tools of the future and tools of the present, that could be a really interesting and unique combination.

Charlie Melcher:

And that led you to ultimately open the War of the Worlds experience. Is that correct? That was your first immersive project.

Andrew McGuinness:

We did a investor project, then we did a proof of concept, a piece of owner, our own IP called Somnai.

Charlie Melcher:

Oh, right. I was one of the people who saw that when it first came out. Okay, and that makes total sense. There is a lot of similarity in terms of the technologies used and the sort of promenade component moving from room to room. That is true to I think all of your projects.

Andrew McGuinness:

Yeah, no, absolutely. We got a lot right and an awful lot wrong with Somnai inevitably, but we learned an enormous amount from it. And I suppose for me just reaffirmed the scale of the opportunity really had done very well and it had 17,000 people came to it, and amongst the people who came to it were Jeff Wayne and his team who are the people behind the war of the worlds. And then we started talking about that being a potential project to work on next. And it’s a great piece of enduring ip, obviously the HD Worlds book, but it’s a kind of a classic rock album that there’s an enormous amount of affection for. So it seemed an interesting opportunity to tell that story.

Charlie Melcher:

And that’s been open how long now?

Andrew McGuinness:

It’s been open five years. We opened not long before the Covid period, so we opened in June, 2019. So when we were struck with having to shut in March, 2020, that was a pretty tough time, but it came back from the Covid period and we made some changes during that time, some improvements to the experience and now it’s been running for five years, so it’s the longest running immersive show in London. Just still an enormous amount of affection for it. And it seems to be bringing in a different kind of audience now, people who are less IP centric, who may have heard of the war the worlds or may have heard of the album but may not have done now it’s people who have heard that it’s a great night out.

Charlie Melcher:

And then you opened your second one, the Gunpowder Plot, and how long has that been running?

Andrew McGuinness:

So that’s now been running several years and that’s set at the Tower of London. So it’s actually, the great thing about that is it’s telling the story of the revolt, a great kind of British revolt in 1605 where they tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament and it tells the story at a place where that story in reality began and ended at the Tower of London, the kind of histories in the walls there a little bit. And so you get a real sense of place, which really adds to the experience. You become a spy and they have to infiltrate the plotters and ultimately decide whether you’re going to join the plotters or whether you’re going to condemn them to their death by giving them up. But it kind of explores when’s a freedom fighter, a freedom fighter, and when’s a rebellion? A rebellion and looks at some of those issues surrounding the history.

Charlie Melcher:

And both of these are incredibly multisensorial, story-rich, and a mix of older techniques like theater and live actors and dramatic music and sound and lights coupled with more cutting edge technologies like virtual reality. And I guess I would ask you, how does that mix work and how do you feel about incorporating something as complicated as putting on a VR headset in the middle of a immersive theater experience?

Andrew McGuinness:

The main thing is that we always remind ourselves the whole time that the technology is there just as a tool. It’s a fantastic tool for storytelling. It’s a means not an end. The end remains the same ends as it always has been, which is great storytelling. What the technology allows us to do is there is no other way you could come face-to-face with a 200 foot Martian fighting machine. There’s no other way that you could see what London actually looked like in 1605 to see London Bridge as it was almost like a village. It had shops on it and people lived on it and everything else segmenting to putting on a headset. We make as seamless as we possibly can and integrate within the storytelling and actually, whether it’s people suspending their disbelief as part of the kind of journey they’re on, people don’t find it anywhere near as kind of invasive as one might think they would. It actually becomes a kind of relatively seamless and accepted part of the journey once we’ve got them in that space. We’re very meticulous about making sure that the space that you see in the virtual world is identical to the physical space that you’ve left in the real world. So we’re joining the dots and helping people connect the two worlds, but it does mean then that we can take them to different places, introduce different ideas and concepts and bring to life different effects that we would be able to if we didn’t use that technology.

Charlie Melcher:

I think it’s well said. I mean you’re using the different tools to do what they can do best and to motivate or move forward the narrative in the story as opposed to feeling like a gimmick or an add-on that’s not really relevant to the experience. And I think the fact that you’ve been able to weave it into this story helps to suspend disbelief or blur a little bit the line between the analog and the digital. And I think that’s a huge lesson, if you will. That’s what makes it work here. Well, and I think this is where things are headed, in my humble opinion that to incorporate these tools, well you really do have to get people blurring the lines and not focusing on, oh wait a minute, I’m leaving this thing to go do that thing. No, it’s all part of a journey that you’re on and it flows.

Andrew McGuinness:

Yeah, and I think the physical environment is very important to that. So for example, within the Gunpowder Plot, you escape the tower by effectively abseiling from the tower. You are in a physical piece of structure where you then put on your virtual reality headset, the structure, the physicality of that is quite distracting if you like, and makes it more seamless that you’re then putting on a headset. Similarly in the war of the world as you get into a boat. So you’re in a physical large scale wooden boat, like a proper boat, again, there’s so much going on that you aren’t really putting on. The headset just becomes part of that journey. We work very hard to make sure that, I suppose in film terms, they kind of fades, not cuts that you are fading between these scenes and these technologies and these different approaches and in that way people will go with you and it doesn’t interrupt the storytelling.

Charlie Melcher:

So you now are running two long-term, successful immersive experiences in London and by my account, this makes you one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the space in the world. So I think there’s a tremendous amount we have to learn from you about how one builds this into a functioning business. And I say that because for so many years at the future of storytelling, we’ve been championing and showing off the kinds of work that is coming out of people’s labs or offices, but it’s more experimental and there haven’t really been economic models or that many of them that have supported it. Can you talk to us about how you’ve made this actually work as a business?

Andrew McGuinness:

I think the most important parts of it is that we think of it as the whole night out or the whole afternoon out. So if you think of it in Broadway or West End theater terms, we offer people the cocktail before they go to the show. We offer them the show, we offer them the dinner after the show and the drinks they might have. We try and keep our business simple and say we’re in the business of memory making. If we can help people make memories by having a particularly notable cocktail, some kind of theater attached to the way that they dine, that’s going to add to their overall memories of that evening. So all of those elements from a customer point of view makes sense, but from a business point of view are quite transformational actually because we basically get 50% more spend in addition to the ticket price.

That makes a real difference to the economics of it. The other thing that we’ve very consciously done is make this something that we want to appeal to a mass audience. We actually think that this form of storytelling can be much, much more pervasive and that actually most people want this kind of new and different experience. They just don’t know it yet. They just haven’t discovered it. And if we can produce the barriers to people discovering this sort of storytelling, it’ll actually do well for everybody who’s trying to do things in this sector. So it is almost consciously not playing to the usual audience to a certain extent and trying to make sure that we have a broader appeal.

Charlie Melcher:

So many things there resonate so strongly for me. As you and I have had some conversations, I completely agree with you that this is a kind of storytelling that we hunger for even if we haven’t done it before, because it is so naturally human right? It is engaging all our senses, it’s having us be fully embodied. It’s giving us some agency and some ability to be social and all sorts of things that traditional linear fixed media don’t provide us with sitting, watching the television or listening to music, but who’s coming to see your shows?

Andrew McGuinness:

So typically the ticket purchaser is between 40 and 55, maybe 60. That’s the kind of epicenter ticket purchaser. However, they are then very, very frequently bringing at least one other, so quite frequently two other generations with them. So we end up with these very eclectic, multi-generational groups. Again, I think it’s a symbol of the fact that people are looking for shared experiences they can do together and how do you bring together an 18-year-old and an 80-year-old? It’s not easy. There aren’t many things that will do that and that’s why we have these kind of layers of the theater, the technology and the physical effects is to try and tap into memory making and to try and make sure that what we’re doing is going to stick with people because if it sticks with people, it represents really good value.

Charlie Melcher:

Again, I’m a big fan of that concept of memory making. It’s one thing that I live my own life by and believe very much is a secret power of good immersive storytelling. How much of that has to do with the fact that you design your experiences and stories to be multisensory, to appeal to the full body, and not just multisensory, but also giving people some agency? Is that an important part of making it memorable?

Andrew McGuinness:

It definitely is. I mean, the multisensory nature definitely adds to the memory making. I mean there was a lot of research about the power of aroma particularly. So again, sometimes within our experiences people, they won’t be consciously aware of something that is placing them, making them feel like they’re actually a participant and gone to a different place, but that will be temperature or that might be aroma. So those sorts of elements are really important. I think also the density of the experience that we deliver, there’s a lot happens in a short period of time, and again, the science of memory making says that the density you have, the more experiences you have in a condensed period of time, the more likely it’s to pour my memory. And the analogy I always use to try and explain that to people is when you go on a training course or you go and meet people and it’s like you’ve known them for years when you’ve only known them for two days, that’s that feeling. It’s a density that you’ve crammed a lot in and we cram a lot into the experience and again, that helps memory making, but definitely the different layers I think really, really do add to it.

Charlie Melcher:

One of the other things that works so well is that you have actors who are quite good and they’re playing roles. They come in and out of the show in different places. I also know that that’s part of what makes it feel more alive, more real, more intimate, but I’m sure it also adds a lot of expense and complexity. How important are the live actors to the experience?

Andrew McGuinness:

Yeah, really important. Someone’s performing in front of you within a small group. That’s still an incredibly powerful thing to see someone reeling in pain or who’s corralling you to cross over a bridge or whatever it is, that kind of human interaction, that interplay that seeing the light behind someone’s eyes, and I think that’s really, really important. And it also means that the performances can be molded, which I think is one of the great attributes of this form of storytelling that you can bring some people forward and make them more part of the story. There’s a great artistry to those actors both as actors, they are great performers and we are very fastidious about the recruitment of them, but also there’s a kind of, I used to in my old life do quite a lot of research groups and they’re kind of almost like research group gurus who are kind of seeing the person in the group who wants to be the show person and the person who wants to sit back and is really enjoying it, but they’re enjoying it in their own way over there. That ability to mold the performance to the people who are in front of you. I think it’s really exciting and creates a kind of dyn as well to the performance

Charlie Melcher:

In immersive theater. There’s nothing better than that one-on-one experience that happens when you get pulled aside. I remember having one in a punch drunk show that I will never forget, but you can’t have a one-on-one for every guest. I mean the economics don’t work to have an actor for every person. How do you manage the economic component of live actors and that ratio with paying guests?

Andrew McGuinness:

Yeah, and this is again is one of the areas where the combination of live actors and if you like, we have a digital cast, we have a real life cast and we have a digital cast. So being able to augment and for you to meet many more people and first to have many more characters performing in the telling of the story, some of whom are real and some of whom are digital, makes that much more achievable. Part of the creative development process is to work out ways where you can deliver an intensity of performance and deliver an intensity of experience, intensity of memory for the audience in a way that frankly is economic. If you could have that one-on-one, then that would be have greater impact, but you just can’t, and therefore how can we make sure we maximize impact in a way that does work within the framework of what needs to work to make it sustainable.

Charlie Melcher:

Can you talk a little bit about the process of keeping the trains on the tracks and being able to execute a business and the back office side of the business?

Andrew McGuinness:

Well, there are a lot of moving parts. This kind of business operates very similarly to other businesses that I’ve run in that it comes down people, it sounds kind of slightly cliched, but it comes down to really hiring really great people who then hire really great people who then deliver things. We monitor it very fastidiously. I read every single TripAdvisor review that we get as a business and we consider the hospitality of what we do as important as the performance. The two phrases that I use most in reviews are I wasn’t sure what to expect but, and the other one was from the moment I walked through the door and that from the moment I walked through the door is partly about the impact of the venues and the theatrical sets, but it’s also about hospitality. It’s the person on the door to greet you and thank you for shopping with you and it’s those basic elements of hospitality.

Charlie Melcher:

How many people come through a show every day or every week?

Andrew McGuinness:

It varies by day, but on average both of our shows will have around about two and a half to 3000 people a week. Those kind of numbers obviously that varies somewhat with, there’s a seasonality to it. The groups are small, but by having a relatively high frequency, because we can again flex our hours carefully to make sure that we’re performing when people want to see the performance, not when it suits us over the course of which we’ve been opened. There’ll be several hundred thousand people who have been to these shows. And again, that’s that mass market thing. I think you need to have that broad appeal in order to sustain these kind of shows to make them have longevity

Charlie Melcher:

And you’re pulsing people in groups of 8, 10? I can’t remember., what is the size?

Andrew McGuinness:

In the War of the Worlds, the pulse is groups of 12 and in the Gunpowder Plot it’s groups of 16.

Charlie Melcher:

And it’s every 15 minutes or every 20 minutes or…?

Andrew McGuinness:

Every 10 minutes.

Charlie Melcher:

It’s impressive that you can get that volume through and still have everyone feel like they’re having that intimate experience. So the IP that you’ve been working with is pretty much public domain type of stuff. It’s out there. Was it intentional that you didn’t start by going and licensing some successful movie or comic book or something?

Andrew McGuinness:

Jeff Wayne’s War of the World is a licensed IP.

Charlie Melcher:

It is? Okay.

Andrew McGuinness:

I think going forward the IPs that we are working with will be kind of evergreen global IPs. We needed to demonstrate our ability to be able to deliver and to deliver very high quality before talking to some of those big global ips. Obviously there were two things that matter most to a rights holder. One is, are they going to make some good money from this? The second and probably more important question is, are you going to do something that builds the quality and the reputation of our IP? The two experiences we’ve created that gave that kind of reassurance, if you like, authentic Brands group to allow us to take on the rights globally. And then that’s similarly the multiple conversations that we’re having with studios and other people holders of global rights because we want to bring some of the best known stories in the world. We want to bring, allow people to participate in those stories in a way that they haven’t been able to up until now, and we think that’s really exciting.

Charlie Melcher:

So you are moving to bigger IPs and as evident the one you’ve announced, which is Elvis. So tell us about what you have coming with Elvis.

Andrew McGuinness:

So Elvis is going to be an immersive adventure where you will walk in the footsteps of Elvis, this guy growing up in rural Mississippi who then goes on to be the most famous man in the world. I mean, it’s kind of extraordinary. His father was put into jail. He lived in pretty extreme poverty. He lived in a pretty isolated rural community, and somehow this young lad who grew up in Tupelo went on to be the world’s greatest star and probably the world’s most enduring star, arguably ever. So we’re going to help people understand and experience that journey that Elvis went on to walk in his shoes, if you like, to understand the musical influences that shaped him to understand the cultural influences that shaped him, the fashion influences in a kind of an immersive journey, take you on a journey from Mississippi through to Memphis, through to Los Angeles and beyond.

The crescendo of the experience is that you will see Elvis perform in front of you. So you having got this experience of who the man was and what shaped his music, you will lose yourself within this seeing this live performance from Elvis, but hopefully hear and see him in a different light because you understand more about who he is and what shaped him. And then there’s a kind of celebration of Elvis and his musical legacy in a themed live music bar. So we kind of carry on if you like that influence that he’s had on everyone from the Rolling Stones to Miley Cyrus, to Harry Styles to the Beatles, the people who cites Elvis as being kind of a key musical influencer is extraordinary. So we’ll be showcasing some really innovative technology in order to bring Elvis back to life. So utilizing AI technology, for example, and multiple techniques to bring him back to life.

Charlie Melcher:

Andrew, talk about artificial intelligence and the tools that are transforming the world of immersive experience.

Andrew McGuinness:

We are definitely in the foothills of what the possibilities of artificial intelligence givers. For Elvis specifically, what it’s allowing us to do is to create an authentic creation of Elvis performing so that every facial movement, every body movement, everything that he did that is authentic of Elvis, it’s not a digital recreation, it’s something that is a reflection of the authentic performances that he created and that just simply wouldn’t have been possible even 12, 18 months ago where it’ll take us in the future, I don’t know is the honest answer, but I think the critical bit is that it becomes a tool for storytelling. It’ll broaden our palette.

Charlie Melcher:

What did you think of ABBA Voyage?

Andrew McGuinness:

I thought it’s stunning. You’re not troubled by the technology. You stop being worried by it. It’s not about the technology, it’s about a joyous night out. And I think that’s quite instructional actually. The technology has to be brilliant because if it was rubbish, then you’d be all the time troubled by that and it would get in the way cognitively. You’d never be able to let go emotionally because you’d be cognitively troubled by the fact that that doesn’t look right. So it’s almost like it’s necessary but not sufficient. It’s not the end. It is going to be good enough that you’re not troubled by it and then you can move on and let yourself go. What did you think?

Charlie Melcher:

I also thought it was beautifully done. I think that they were able to merge the analog in digital in such a way that it made it easy for you to suspend disbelief. My response was, this is real because the audience is co-creating it because everybody around me is singing and dancing, then I’m singing and dancing. We together have created a moment of communal esce where we are in it and enjoying it as much as if they were there live. And I think we’re hungry for that.

Andrew McGuinness:

The irony is that technology’s being used to deliver a greater humanity. It’s actually about the human beings. And I think that’s something that we really strive for with in our experiences and that humanity doesn’t just need to be the performance. It’s the humanity of your peers and the people around you, the mood you create and ultimately how you feel when you’re there.

Charlie Melcher:

Any thoughts about where this is all headed now? AI aside, Elvis aside, jump me forward five to 10 years. How do you see the landscape of immersive entertainment immersive experience having evolved?

Andrew McGuinness:

I think the first thing is very much my hope and in a way my mission over the next five to 10 years is that these experiences will be much, much more accessible. So it become normalized as a kind of new category of entertainment that people understand and feels less avant-garde, I suppose. So I think that’s the first thing. I think the second thing is that we will see lots of different forms of stories being told in a way that allows people to participate. So obviously ABBA Voyage does that with music. Elvis will do that with music, but also with his life. But I think we will see more major films, books, other forms of storytelling brought to life so that you can participate in them. And I think that will be really exciting for people. If you think of your favorite film, think of that favorite scene and if you could be in that scene or play a part or ride on that hoverboard and back to the future or something. So I think there’s some great fun to be had

Charlie Melcher:

That would be amazing. I often think that there’s this dance that has to happen between the content and the creative side evolving to really take advantage of the medium, the maturing of the economic model, the distribution, the expense side, and then the adoption and comfort of the audience. Those three legs have to kind of evolve together to have a new medium become mainstream or established and financially really successful. And I think we’re in this process of all of this dance between those elements sort of evolving together. And certainly the more people that go to see one of the experiences that you’ve done or some of the others that are wonderful out there, they realize that this is for them. They realize what it means to not be a passive audience, but an active one. My personal belief is it’ll be bigger than Hollywood and gaming because this is ultimately providing everything each of those provides plus. And so we have the potential to have the greatest form of entertainment humanity’s ever known when this fully matures when we get there. And that’s what’s so exciting about this period we’re in, is that we have a whole new palette of tools available to us or of colors to paint stories with that will be emotionally powerful and hopefully so memorable to be transformative for people.

Andrew McGuinness:

The key thing going forward is that I hope more people will do this sort of thing. I think there is a challenge for everybody who’s trying to do this sort of thing. I think the lexicon is very poor. Immersive is not a helpful word particularly, and it’s overused now in some ways. I think the lexicon is behind the evolution of the offering at the moment, trying to articulate more clearly what it is that you’re going to get and why it’s going to be fun in a way that’s intelligible and that kind of somebody who isn’t necessarily an enormous fan of the arts elsewhere or whatever else that can just find accessible. I think that would be really helpful. We’re not quite there yet, but I think that’s a big challenge for all of us in this kind of space.

Charlie Melcher:

Are there any recommendations that you would have for people who are just starting out in the field?

Andrew McGuinness:

Don’t be over intimidated by it. Don’t let old lags like me, make it sound like it’s too hard. Start, learn, adapt only by doing. Do you really learn? Try and keep it simple. We can sometimes lose that sense of simplicity. What is it that back at my advertising days, you’d call it the desired response. What’s the desired response that we’re trying to elicit from this experience? And I think if you can bring it back to a desired response, it can be a simplifier. You can keep it back to the customer and the desired response to that guest, that person paying that 20, 30, 50, a hundred dollars, whatever it is, then you won’t go too far wrong.

Charlie Melcher:

Well, this has been a wonderful conversation, Andrew. It’s so exciting for us to get to know each other. I appreciate your making the time to share. I hadn’t realized that I’ve been going to all of your things over all these years, but I’ve been a fan and just really appreciate the work that you’ve done and the contribution you’ve made to the field in terms of helping it be something that others can look at and say, this can really work and it can really be a financial success as well as a creative success. So Chapo, bravo and thank you and can’t wait to see the next production.

Andrew McGuinness:

Thank you very much. Been a great pleasure to get to speak to you.

Charlie Melcher:

I’m Charlie Melcher and this has been The Future of Storytelling podcast. Thanks for joining me again today. If you’re going to be in London, I highly recommend that you go experience Layered Reality shows with your friends and family. For more info, check out the links in this episode’s description and to learn more about the Future of StoryTelling, including how to sign up for our free monthly newsletter or to apply for our annual membership program, please visit fost.org. The FOST podcast is produced by Melcher Media in collaboration with our talented friends and production partners, Charts & Leisure. I hope to see you again soon for another deep dive into the world of storytelling. Until then, please be safe, stay strong, and story on.