Harry Potter, Friends or Tim Burton: many phenomena of pop culture, revisited through immersive exhibitions, tour the world to meet an increasingly numerous and demanding public. Since the Titanic exhibition 20 years ago, events combining the world of popular fiction and immersive experiences (a form of exhibition that brings together different technical tools of narration, visual, sound and sometimes olfactory) have been deployed and beat attendance records. .
Hide in the cupboard under the stairs of the first, sit on the sofa in Central Perk, like the latter, or survey the universe of Edward Scissorhands… These immersion experiences “work particularly well” , notes Julie Escurignan, teacher-researcher specializing in the study of fans and the cultural industry. The evolution of technologies “allows to do better things at reasonable prices”, and therefore to produce more events of the genre, also notes Tom Zaller, CEO of Imagine Exhibitions, at the origin of Harry Potter, the exhibition, which arrived in Paris at the end of April.
From the United States to Europe, the latter is the quintessence, with more than 150,000 tickets sold before its opening in Vienna, Austria, and “more than 175,000” the day before its arrival in Paris. The same goes for Tim Burton’s Labyrinth, whose Madrid stage welcomed “nearly half a million visitors”. A month before its opening in Paris, on May 19, “nearly 50,000 tickets and all premium tickets” had sold out, according to Inaki Fernandez, CEO of Let’s go, producer of the event.
This success is due, for Julie Escurignan, to the increasingly marked appetite of fans for innovative experiences: “they are not consumers like the others. They don’t just watch a series or a movie. They like to go beyond, to live experiences related to this universe”. The producers assume to appropriate existing phenomena because “the connections are already made” with the public.
“We wouldn’t have sold so many tickets if we had done an exhibition about wizards in general. People have a real connection with Harry Potter,” adds Tom Zaller. Another reason for this success: the scarcity of places specifically dedicated to these universes and their fans. “An exhibition in Paris allows a Frenchman who cannot afford to go to London or Orlando (in theme parks or film studios, editor’s note) to have access to this universe”, supports Julie Escurignan.
Invited to collaborate on an exhibition on his art, Tim Burton “immediately opened his personal collections” and entrusted “more than 180 original works with characters that do not even exist yet”, assures Sandrine Marrel, director of development at Caramba Culture Live, executive producer of Tim Burton’s Labyrinth in France. For her, the “intergenerational” aspect is also central. The youngest are “immersed in the reference universe, film by film”, thanks to numerous sets and sound and visual effects. Adults find on the walls “a more classic universe with original drawings, notebooks by Tim Burton”.
But with an entry generally between 20 and 25 euros, more expensive than traditional museums, “we are expected at the turn because the universes are known, recognized and adored”, agrees Sandrine Marrel. Hence the importance of “putting in place a framework that brings the object to life, and not exhibiting it as a simple museum piece”, completes Tom Zaller, referring to the costume of Lord Voldemort (the dark magician from the Harry Potter saga) shown in a dark room, surrounded by other objects and sound animations.
What attract visitors but not empty the traditional galleries. For Inaki Fernandez, “the debate between high and low culture is outdated and could be transposed to musicals and theater: one genre does not exclude the other. They can be complementary.
