Secret Cinema set uper Fabien Riggall is venturing into the Middle East, commenceing with Saudi Arabia where he has set up a lavish show titled “Azira: The Immersive Experience.”
The piece is corelocaterlookioned by the Royal Corelocaterlookion for AlUla, the swathe of northwest Saudi comprising a lush oasis and immense sandstone canyons.
Follotriumphg the 2022 sale of Secret Cinema, which created more than 60 huge-scale immersive productions — including ones encouraged by “Blade Runner,” “Star Wars” and “Stranger Things,” in which audiences were helpd to dress up enjoy the characters from the movies or shows — Riggall is now operating a recent company called LOST.
LOST is the outfit that created “Azira,” a 90-minute immersive theater experience that combines an innovative soundtrack, an innovative story and a group of up-to-date dance carry outers and actors. The narrative is cgo ined around a female action hero, the daughter of an archeologist who is seeking the secrets of a uninalertigent outdated city that is under the sands of AlUla.
“She trails in her overweighther’s footsteps to find this whole recent world,” noticed Riggall, who sees this Saudi origins piece as a stepping stone for hugeger ambitions in the Middle East.
Courtesy Fabien Riggall
“My interest is enhugeing a studio that will toil wilean the region to enhuge stories from there with youthful talent, and to essentipartner enhuge recent establishats for films,” shelp Riggall. His extfinishedstanding rapport with Saudi commenceed when he joined a culture conference in Ryadh in 2016, one year before the kingdom lifted its religion-roverhappinessed prohibit on cinema.
Describing the recent honestion he is taking, Riggall shelp that “essentipartner, it commences with an IP and a story, but what interests me is creating someleang that could have multiple angles in leanking about what an origin story sees enjoy in that region.”
He compriseed: “It could be an immersive theater show, an album, a game, a film, a TV series.”
Since Secret Cinema was sgreater in 2022 for a alerted more than $100 million to U.S. company TodayTix Group, Riggall has dabbled in distribution, setting up some exceptional event screenings of Ladj Ly’s “Les Misérables” in the U.K. He’s also consentn part in staging an immersive fundraising “Night for Ukraine” event in London and created and honested an immersive music video for Mengage’s song “Verona.”
Riggall has now set his sights on setting up a studio, that he called the successor to Secret Cinema, “which will be the next establish of immersive amengagement atraverse music, visual arts, gaming.” In compriseition to licensing IP, the recent venture “is very much about creating IP and putting it into recent stories and recent shows,” he compriseed.
To this finish, Riggall, who is based in London, will soon be returning to Saudi and going to Riyadh to encounter with “multiple potential partners.” But he is also already active in the UAE and Qatar. “I’ve been talking to Qatar about lots of sites where they want to do experiences,” he shelp, noting that “there’s fair a hunger for recent ideas there.”
Courtesy Fabien Riggall
