As the tech billionaires race to get to Mars, audiences in Wellington can experience the red planet for themselves.
A ground-breaking theatre show using video gaming technology to immerse audience members, opens at Wellington museum Te Papa on Saturday.
Destination Mars is the headline act of next year’s New Zealand Festival of Arts but is opening early to capitalise on the summer crowds.
Seated in mission control on Mars, the audience uses working computer consoles to navigate potential disasters.
It’s the brainchild of Kip Chapman and Brad Knewstubb, who also created a similar successful interactive show, Apollo 13.
Chapman described it as an “evolution” of that work with a heightened level of interaction.
And the technology is not just for show - it actually works.
Designing the software was the biggest challenge and it’s clear there’s been serious financial investment in the show.
“It's definitely cost more than a million dollars,” said Knewstubb. But “less than actually going to Mars”, joked Chapman.
The part-video game, part-theatre mash up received funding from Epic, the makers of the online game Fortnite.
“They saw this as a really interesting way to use their technology that's used in film and TV and game creation. So they were like ‘no one else in the world is doing this’ so they gave us a bunch of money as well,” said Knewstubb.
Engineers and researchers were consulted to make the show as accurate as possible.
“It’s not sci-fi, it’s just looking at what Mars might look like in a few years,” said Knewstubb.
Destination Mars runs for four months at Te Papa.
The creators plan to take it global and, maybe one day, even to Mars.
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