Buenos Aires embraces immersive exhibitions and virtual reality expos

In recent years, even before the Covid lockdown, the traditional La Rural exhibition center unexpectedly became a hub for innovative high-tech immersive shows blending digital exhibits, interactive experiences and virtual reality. Nowadays, the venue not only presents the annual Book Fair or the livestock showcase, but also entertainment expositions about art masters, rock bands, ancient Egypt, medieval vikings and even the evolution of the species. It all began as a small niche, but box-office results include peaks of 380,000 visitors for Imagine Van Gogh, a dazzling large-scale visual immersion into the artist’s work, with massive, moving projections. Behind all of these shows is promoter Daniel Grinbank, famed for bringing the first international rock acts to football stadiums in Argentina during the Nineties, from The Rolling Stones to David Bowie, The Ramones and Sting. His self-named company DG Experience continues to organize rock concerts and theater plays, but the immersive and VR expos have become a major asset. “I never imagined this would become such a huge market,” he admits. “But the same happens in almost every area of entertainment: first comes the beginnings and then the evolution of the content. The same happened with the technological advances in live concerts and how festivals became experiences that go beyond music. Honestly, I never would have imagined an exhibition attracting more than 300,000 people, and today I can’t even imagine how far this will go.” Grinbank mentions that he began exploring this trend when exhibitions were growing worldwide, a decade ago. He points out that they were also the last shows to close during the pandemic and the first to reopen, because they were easy to adapt to social distancing protocols. He also had just created a new digital marketing division called 2030, to explore “what was coming next” in the entertainment business. “We were the first, but now many companies have emerged. That’s why we secured very strong catalogs that will last us for the next couple of years, beyond whatever we begin producing ourselves. I want to create a show about the colonization of the Americas, but told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples. Or present what temples like Machu Picchu and the Mayan ruins originally looked like. Or even showcase the underwater world of Argentina’s coastline, like CONICET did with a celebrated YouTube transmission,” he said. He also stresses that a special asset of these shows is that the same headset can be used for multiple types of content at the same venue: “It’s a major breakthrough, because people are able to choose experiences the way they choose movies at a cinema.” Some of Grinbank’s first shows were staged in Spain, like David Bowie Is and The Pink Floyd Exhibition, even a show about Björk at Sonar Festival. He partnered with Encore, which was already involved in exhibitions. In Argentina, after Van Gogh at La Rural came Banksy Exhibition, Pink Floyd, Blow Up Experience, Imagine Picasso, Bubble Jump, and more. Nowadays, he uses two pavilions at La Rural to stage new show Life Chronicles, developed in collaboration with the French Natural History Museum, and continues with Keop’s Horizons and The Last Fortress. “This current success exceeded our expectations, so we’re postponing other exhibitions we already purchased,” he said.“We are also getting visits from a lot of private schools, although it saddens me that the city government doesn’t invest in bringing kids from public schools. This is a much more didactic way of approaching information and culture, whether it’s about evolution or ancient Egypt. It broadens knowledge in a more accessible and engaging way, using the language codes of younger generations”, he concluded.  Credit cover photo: Debby Díaz