Real World Experiences: Vallea Lumina

As a part of my nomadic journey across the world… I was recently in Whistler, Canada. While its usually known for its world-class slopes and pristine nature, one of the highlights was an immersive experience called Vallea Lumina. Initially, I wasn’t sure what it was or what to expect as it was marketed as a multimedia night walk but signed up anyway. It helped that there were little postcards about it all over the city. I didn’t expect much but who wouldn’t get excited by the word multimedia.

Selecting the last show of the night (9:40 PM, I think), I boarded a bus to get to what looked like a trailhead. At the entrance, you’ve got a solid camp vibe with s’mores and hot chocolates for before you get started (or at the end). It took about 45 minutes to walk through something of a cross between the museum of ice cream, a hike, an EDM party with the themes of camping (lights and music), and mystery. There was a projected skit, a preserved tent with artefacts, a morse code challenge, campfire music, talking trees, and immersive lighting. It turned out to be a unique and pleasurable experience unlike any I’ve experienced before and it was worth every $$.

I think we’ll see many more experiences like this that are very interactive and novel. While people might scoff at the idea of the company that did the museum of ice cream raising $40mm, I’m quite bullish about experiences like that, Vallea Lumina, Dismaland (yes, I get it), and more. There will no doubt be so many new experiences that people of all ages do in groups together and I’m excited for all of it — whether out and about in the world or further into your computing devices(eg. Sandbox VR*).

Whether these are to be one-off co’s that are similar to art installations or true venture-funded companies is TBD but this location Vallea Lumina also appears to be a good business. $40 pp and 600-800 people per night on average is what I heard from one of the people manning the shuttle buses and it increases as the sunsets become earlier. This though does get me thinking what’s Disneyland 2.0?