In Las Vegas, immersive high-tech experiences ironically provide an opportunity to appreciate the natural world.
In Las Vegas, the immersive tech entertainment scene doesn’t exactly scream “serenity.” These new forms of entertainment offer “users” participation in interactive, lifelike “realities” and utilize cutting-edge technology to transport us to places that might otherwise be inaccessible.
Immersed in this “techno-tainment,” we as users are equipped with capabilities beyond our nature and heightened our perception of the world around us–not to mention transported to the most aspirational and artificial of destinations. While AI can seem frighteningly futuristic, the newest techno-tainment venues of Las Vegas offer experiences that are hospitable at the very least and downright rejuvenating at best.
Five particularly immersive high-tech hardware experiences in Las Vegas provide an opportunity to—ironically–appreciate the natural world we live in and rejoice in its splendor.
Dive Into the Wild With Flyover
The Flyover experience is a peek into what may be possible for virtual tourism, providing a full sensory immersion in a place without physical travel. The attraction uses drone footage and an immersive seat experience to drop viewers into pristine natural environments from impossible perspectives, such as flying at top speed through a glacier-carved basalt canyon in the wilds of Iceland or looking down onto the Grand Prismatic hot spring in Yellowstone.
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The show goes above and beyond a flat-screen experience. After strapping in, the entire row of seats slides outward, positioning the viewer above the 52.5-foot-wide spherical screen, legs dangling directly over rushing rivers or steaming volcanoes. The inability to see screen borders enhances the feeling of flying, and the show floats, zooms, dives, and soars over majestic natural wonders. The seats tilt and tip, a mist sprays when soaring through a cloud or above water, and the wind blows when swooping through canyons and over mountain peaks, adding another physical dimension to the experience.
The show lasts for 15 minutes, a near-perfect amount of time considering that around the 14-minute mark, the nausea creeps in. The experience is pricy at $39, but there is a discount for purchasing admission to two shows (assuming you have the stomach for it).
For those who have visited Iceland in real life, the Flyover’s top-down, wide-ranging views showcase the country’s natural wonders in a way that truly cannot be experienced in person on the ground level, so in that way, “travel” is novel and exciting. For everyone else, it could serve as inspiration for the next sought-after destination. At its most basic level, it’s a gorgeous representation of how much beauty there is in this world–an often-overlooked sentiment that just might make it worth the money.
Go Out of This World at the Illuminarium
The Illuminarium’s Space experience immerses visitors into the cosmos, where colorful, detailed images collected from the James Webb Space Telescope are laser-projected in 4K onto 360 degrees of cinematic immersive screens. This 60-minute virtual voyage begins with the story of NASA’s Apollo mission to the moon before traveling to the farther reaches of the universe. It’s a pleasurable feeling to stand in the midst of large-form galactic images as they pass along walls and over the floor, with views of Saturn’s rings and the gaseous clouds of a nebula becoming even more vivid when their glow envelops you in a wondrous cosmic world.
INSIDER TIPIn what is perhaps an inadvertent attempt to impart the feeling of traveling through space, the temperature of the room is absurdly cold, so be sure bring that jacket you did not think to pack.
The serene journey through space is, at times, educational, thanks to the informative text accompanying the images. Viewers are free to wander the room and observe the show from different perspectives, and while there is no assigned seating, there are numerous couches on which to sit back and relax.
The soundtrack features a few recognizable tracks from well-known space cadets like David Bowie and Radiohead and harkens back to Pink Floyd planetarium laser shows. The Illuminarium is a family-friendly venue, but the child-free experience, Illuminarium After Dark (Sunday through Thursday evenings starting at 8 p.m.) offers viewers a more relaxing and existential experience.
Make Dreams a Reality in Area 15
A combination of arcade and mall, Area 15 aims to capture and retain the attention of people who are overstimulated at baseline attention span. The storefronts are populated by bars, restaurants, and a high-energy menu of immersive experiences, such as navigating a maze of lasers, squaring up against your friends for a game of virtual dodgeball, embarking on quests to solve mysteries, or battling an army of zombies. One of Area 15’s crowd favorites is Meow Wolf’s Omega Mart, an immersive, trans-dimensional surrealist art museum that serves as the backdrop for an interactive mystery quest. In the carnival-style funhouse, “Wink World,” day-glo psychedelia meets ‘90s nostalgia. In its infinity rooms, light, sound, color, and motion are deployed to create sensory overload-inducing visuals, while mirror-clad surfaces expand and multiply the entire spectacle.
Many of the immersive experiences in Area 15 are transportive and interactive. Participants acquire superhuman abilities, and the technology responds to visual cues and physical movements with realistic precision. In the “Birdly” flight simulator, I was able to simulate flying by flapping my arms like wings–an experience I have dreamt of my entire life. Positioned face-down on a padded chair, I donned a headset and fit my arms into maneuverable paddles. On the Jurassic flight, I soared over waterfalls and dove through herds of dinosaurs as they roamed across a tropical pastel landscape.
The setup and control required some getting used to, and I spent most of my first 10-minute session slamming into the sides of cliffs. By the time it was over, I hadn’t gotten anywhere near the dinosaurs, which was disappointing to me, an adult woman strapped into headgear and flying around in a virtual dinosaur world at 2 PM on a Tuesday afternoon. We don’t get many do-overs in real life, especially when traveling, and since our time is limited and moments are fleeting, opportunities must be seized before the plane returns us home. But technology is not bound to the same confines of time, space, and circumstance as real-life travel, and it allows for second chances. On my second flight attempt, my skills improved considerably, and I was able to move my arms to go faster, rotate my wrists to orient my trajectory and lean my body toward the direction I wanted to turn. My fairy-tale dream had come true: I could fly. It was marvelously gratifying.
Afterward, I wandered into the old-school video game arcade, where I played a game of skeeball–the familiar analog thrill of hurling balls into cups was just what I needed to reorient myself to the physical world.
Find Some Zen at the Arte Museum
Technology can serve as a limitless medium for creativity and artistic expression. In the Arte Museum Las Vegas, I wandered through rooms of all-encompassing, eye-popping natural scenes—abundant flower blooms showering the walls and floors with delicate petals, mirrors reflecting an endless plunge of gently falling water, a sublime beachscape where waves crashed at my feet and an ethereal rainbow aurora lit up the sky. The theme of the museum is eternal nature, and the exhibits evoke calming rhythms, relaxing sounds, and pleasing visuals that reflect the natural world. Exhibits also include projections of classic works from world-renowned fine artists in floor-to-ceiling scale and an interactive display where visitors contribute to the museum by incorporating their drawings into a collective animated scene.
Included in the ticket price is a post-museum beverage in the Arte Cafe, a dimly-lit tea room with its own fanciful experience. A teacup is placed onto the table and a “moonbeam” shines directly into the mug, reflecting a yellow crescent on the surface of the drink and surrounding the cup with a ring of flowers. When the mug is moved around the table, the moonbeam follows it, adding a playful dimension to a simple cup of tea.
Escape in Fantasy (and Face Reality) in The Sphere
In a city where the skyline is comprised of an Egyptian pyramid, King Arthur’s castle, and the Eiffel Tower, the idea that an object could look out of place is absurd, and yet, somehow The Sphere does just that.
Within its domed screen exterior, The Sphere hosts a variety of events, from mind-blowing rock concerts to skull-shattering UFC brawls. The most frequent of these showings is the nature film Postcards From Earth. For 50 minutes, you can behold earthly wonders in 18K resolution on a massive 270-degree curved screen. I spent much of the show laughing aloud, delighted by the size and intensity of the images: I was caught in the chaotic center of a galloping herd of horses; I was swimming inside of a shimmering school of fish. I felt the warm wind blowing on my face as I sat exposed to an alley full of tornadoes, watched as lightning bolts scorched the prairie, and thunderclaps rumbled my seat. Microscopic creatures were magnified many times over—an insect stood in front of me as tall as a building, the tiny hairs on its exoskeleton as big as timbers. The visuals were extraordinary.
But as the film continued, the imagery developed a darker undertone, one that illustrated the stark, less appealing reality of our planet: pollution, overpopulation, destruction, sprawl, pillage, trash piling up to mountainous effect. While I can appreciate this acknowledgment of reality, I had come to The Sphere longing for escape to beautiful things. After all, the detriments of our existence would be waiting for me outside when the show was over. The storyline of Postcards From Earth is, to put it lightly, a huge bummer. Everyone was so quiet filing out of the show that I wondered if they were feeling how I was: a paradox of elation and gratitude for the intensity and the beauty of the planet and the seeming hopelessness of humanity’s future on earth.
Once I was back out on the street, entrenched in the electrified excess of The Strip, I was quickly reminded that Las Vegas is not the place to contemplate the fate of humanity or the demise of the planet. Instead, it is where people can go to escape. A true travel getaway from dreary reality, with opportunities to marvel at the most advanced technology as a vehicle for creativity and access world wonders from incredible perspectives–plus, transcend the limits of the human body in the balmy refuge of a dinosaur dream world.
