Brighton-based pub company and craft brewer – Laine – has forged a unique partnership with immersive experience studio Pixel Artworks to bring Pixel’s ground-breaking AR experience – The Butterfly Trail – to Brighton’s Spiegeltent festival, which takes place throughout May.
Brighton’s famous pop-up festival, based in Old Steine Gardens, has been an essential fixture in the city’s calendar since 2013. Laine and its partners host the month-long event throughout May, which provides a unique space for festivalgoers to enjoy great food, drink and entertainment in the May sunshine.
This year, the Spiegeltent programme will feature an augmented reality (AR) experience currently wowing audiences at London’s Outernet on Tottenham Court Road. The Butterfly Trail promises to add a touch of wonder, magic and immersion to the festival’s already exciting entertainment line-up. Set within an eight-meter, 360° sphere, visitors to the Spiegel Gardens will be transported to a magical glasshouse, where they will be guided through a botanical haven to interact and explore the wonder of colourful digital butterflies as they flutter around their heads and land on the palm of their hand, all enabled by a smartphone. This natural wonder is brought to life with visual rendering and the smart use of Unreal Engine to create the content on the complex dome canvas.
Speaking about this year’s Spiegeltent, Laine’s Co-Founder and CEO, Gavin George, said: “It’s been an honour for Laine to bring the Spiegeltent festival to Brighton every May for the last 11 years. It’s hosted some brilliantly entertaining shows in its venues – from grassroots artists to internationally acclaimed acts – and it’s delivered some excellent food, drink, and festival fun for everyone visiting the city for England’s foremost arts, fringe, and music festivals.”
“ This year’s Spiegeltent lineup will be as compelling as ever, but it will be taking an unprecedented leap forward with the addition of an AR experience to the programme. Laine is hugely excited to work with Pixel Artworks to bring The Butterfly Trail to Brighton. It’s a first for both of us to deliver this at an outdoor event like the Spiegeltent, but important for us to be showcasing the future possibilities of pub-based entertainment, something Laine has become well known for since it opened its first pub in Brighton in 1997.”
Riaz Farooq, Senior Creative Director for Pixel Artworks, commented: “It’s been amazing working with Laine and being able to bring this magical immersive experience to a new audience of families and festival goers. Creating the content in a 360° format opens a much wider use of The Butterfly Trail experience, and people can feel fully surrounded by the butterflies. It’s exciting to see the first rollout of our licensed art, cultural and purpose-driven experiences, Originals, after the success of The Butterfly Trail and our partnership with The Outernet. I can’t wait to see the response it gets from everyone visiting.”
