Immersed in the crowd downtown Credit: Seth Kubersky

In recent years, “immersive” has become the most overworked buzzword in the entertainment business, with producers aggressively integrating interactive multi-sensory elements into previously passive productions in an effort to wrest screen-addled audiences’ atrophied attention spans away from their phones for more than five minutes.

For better or worse, the trend that’s taken over from Hollywood to Vegas to Broadway includes several threads that can be traced directly back to Central Florida’s themed attractions, making Orlando the ideal city to serve as the emerging immersion industry’s worldwide headquarters. Last weekend’s events sealed that status, as Creative City Project’s Immerse 2026 and the Association of Interactive Performance Professionals Summit simultaneously attracted artists and academics from across the country — along with enormous crowds — to our downtown for a celebration and examination of what being “immersed” truly means.

Last year, Immerse returned to downtown Orlando following a three-year absence with Broadway star Michael James Scott, Cirque du Soleil and Blue Man Group headlining the Seneff Arts Plaza mainstage. This year, those latter two anchors returned to present sizable slices of their stage shows, as founder Cole NeSmith told me neither company wanted to take a year off; Drawn to Life’s Chloe Diane Polson (interviewed in Live Active Cultures Oct. 29, 2025) danced beneath Saulo Sarmiento as he spun precariously from a crane-lofted pencil, and BMG previewed updated variations on their iconic tube-drumming and paint-splattering paint ahead of their May opening at Icon Park. They were joined by South Florida’s Mesh: The Signal, a high-octane fusion of dance, BMX trick riding and flame effects that climaxed with a half-dozen people doing flips above the crowd as fireworks rained down; think theme park show meets EDC.

Even more gratifying than the marquee names for me were the wealth of homegrown offerings that lined Orange Avenue and Church Street, where I sampled experiences from some of my favorite local companies like Quantum Leap Productions, Fahrenheit Foxes and Central Florida Vocal Arts (whose “Classical Crashout” looked hilariously cathartic). I was especially intrigued with Hawkmoon’s Laudanum and Ink, a Frankenstein-inspired takeover of an abandoned bar with Gothic poetry and choreographed dancing that deserves further development. And CityArts kept the party rolling past closing time with Assemblage House, an authentic old-school house party re-created outdoors in the Ford Kiene alleyway.

The overwhelming nature of Immerse and our community’s embrace of it — as evidenced by the near-impossibility of finding parking anywhere downtown during the event — inspires mixed emotions in me. On the one hand, the sheer number of people wanting to participate in an arts event was wonderful to see; on the other, the multitude of competing venues and chaotic crowd flow through congested streets triggered both FOMO and enochlophobia. Neither emotion is especially conducive to experiencing the relaxation required for true immersion; instead of being aesthetically satiated, patrons could depart feeling like they’d been trying to drink water from a firehose.

At the same time on Sunday that Immerse’s farewell daytime firework show was filling the gray skies above Lake Eola with puffs of colorful smoke, participants of the first-ever Interactive Performance Summit were a mile away on the opposite side of I-4 at UCF’s Dr. Phillips Academic Commons, exploring immersive experiences of a different kind. Organized by AIPP president Ken Ingraham, the two-day event attracted local creatives including Phoenix Tears’ Megan Markham, Eii’s Janine Klein, Indigo Chameleon’s William McCoy and Phantasmagoria’s Dana Mott along with interactors from as far away as California. Presentations covered serious topics like standardized patients for medical training and TeachLive virtual education, as well as a pilot for Cloak of Fiction’s InCharacter reality TV show. 

The ultimate objective of immersive interactions should be more than mere entertainment, according to UCF PlayLab director Jeff Wirth. It should enable participants to “walk in other people’s shoes without any kind of issue, so that they can have an empathetic relationship with another human being because they’re embodying that human being without being judged for doing so.” By giving ourselves permission to “play ferociously and fearlessly while still being safe” in a structured environment (such as Wirth’s holodeck-esque StoryBox), immersive interactions can help us explore scenarios that evoke emotional reactions on a deeper level than any proscenium-bound play.

I hope that both Immerse and AIPP’s Summit return and continue to expand exposure for Orlando’s immersive entertainment scene for year’s to come. At the same time, I’d love to see Immerse decrease its density by expanding in time and duration, though I doubt City Hall would allow the event to disrupt downtown traffic any more than it already does. If Immerse can’t monopolize the main drag, maybe there are vacant properties — I’m looking at you, Plaza Cinema — that could be claimed via eminent domain and turned over to cultural groups for the benefit of the community. Because with all the talent that Orlando can produce, we need way more than a weekend to soak it all in.

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This article appears in Feb. 25-March 3, 2026.