New research from Lyric Theatre Belfast is examining the potential of VR to transform the theatre experience as it estimates only 10-20% audience capacity would be possible with social distancing measures.
Businesses across Northern Ireland have been keen to get back to normal, with many offices being re-opened with partial capacity and new safety measures. While offices can be rearranged and redesigned to suit social distancing measures, little was known about how Theatres and entertainment venues could adapt if they planned to re-open.
Northern Ireland Screen and Future Screens NI (the R&D fund for the screen and creative industries) funded a series of projects under its "Rewriting the Narrative" call back in April to explore how covid-19 has impacted the creative industries and how the creative industries can adapt. These included a variety of tech-based innovations using VR and virtual events.
The theatre estimates that it could achieve around 10-20% audience capacity if it re-opened while maintaining social distancing measures, far below the capacity that office spaces have predicted. This could potentially make it infeasible to fully re-open until the threat of the pandemic is severely reduced.
In partnership with immersive tech specialists Sentireal and Professor Pedro Rebelo from the Sonic Arts Research Centre at Queen’s University Belfast, explore the use of Virtual Reality (VR) to enhance the audience experiences in response to Covid-19 distancing restrictions.
Claire Murray, Head of Development and Marketing at the Lyric Theatre, said: "’Rewriting the Narrative’ will enable the team at the Lyric to enhance, reshape and adapt our original plan to focus on testing if and how digital can complement the ‘reduced’ and limited live experience of theatre. This research is now a much more urgent consideration for all arts organisations and venues, and we hope that the results can provide insight and recommendations for the whole industry."
Future Screens NI's Professor Paul Moore also commented on the project: "Extending the audience and experience of theatre beyond the physical has the potential to place the audience at the heart of the performance, and Future Screens NI is privileged to work with such recognised partners to con-sider ways in which this can be achieved. It is our hope that this project will play a considerable part in the crafting of new forms of creative and theatrical experiences."
Source: Written based on press release
