12 W E S T W O R D F a l l A r t s G u i d e 2 0 2 4 westword.com Immersed in Art continued from page 10 programming. This year will also be the first time Off-Center tours one of its original productions, Hanzon’s Camp Christmas, to another city after four years in Colorado. “I can’t say where yet, but I can confirm we will be taking that immersive experi- ence to another domestic market,” Hanzon says. “We hope to bring it back to Denver again, but one thing we have discovered is that people do not repeat immersive experiences, so they have a limited shelf life. ... We loved doing Camp Christmas for many years in Denver, but it’s very demanding creatively to keep rebuilding. While we had a small number of loyal fans, most people would only do it once.” This move is part of Off-Center’s new strategy to help jump-start immersive programming in cities where it has not yet taken hold, and to develop a financial model that makes producing original im- mersive works more viable. “These projects are so big, complicated and expensive to make that it’s a shame for them to be one and done in each city,” Miller says. “Denver and most cities across the country don’t have the tourism like New York to be able to sit something down and run it for forever. So we’re experi- menting with a new business model that allows for large-scale work to be created while also being able to pick up and move to other cities, eventually recouping the initial cost of building the thing.” Locally, the biggest challenge for Off-Center — and many smaller immer- sive companies — remains finding space for Denver productions. “It is very difficult and expensive to stand up a new building for one project and then vacate and start over again,” Miller admits. After years at Stanley Marketplace and other temporary venues, Off-Center is moving to 407 South Broadway for two years, starting with Monopoly Lifesized, while continuing to search for a permanent home. “Money and space are the two big things holding back more immersive work in the city, and space is directly connected to money,” Manley says. “I can’t fault Meow Wolf for figuring out a way of creating a financially viable art system. For us at Audacious, it’s a good thing that we’ve always been very portable, because it’s not getting any easier to find a space.” For smaller, independent immersive companies, space constraints and limited budgets mean that many ideas never make it past the concept phase. Berg Wilson of The Catamounts notes that her company overcomes these obstacles by producing shows outdoors in site-specific locations, but admits that this is not an option for all creators. “I think we’re in a very transitional place with immersive,” Thomas says. “There was a ton of excitement, and some of that panned out and some of it washed out. Locally, immersive needs to start to develop ways of recruiting young people to create. We forgot that when we started doing this, we were the young people who knew nothing and were making things up as we went along. Now that there is a little more maturity, we must remember that there are people on the other end and figure out how to bring them in. I’m optimistic, but I think there’s a ton of work to do.” Despite challenges like rising costs and audience education, immersive theater is finding its place in Denver’s broader arts ecosystem. “We’re not going back,” Hanzon says. “Immersive is here to stay, and I want everyone who works in this realm to succeed. Without being pious about it, a lot of the immersive work really does inadvertently teach people how to be better audience mem- bers and better citizens. I haven’t met an immersive creator yet who wasn’t sort of a frustrated community leader. Immer- sive is about going beyond entertainment that placates or arouses audiences; it’s medicine for the soul, and it’s not going anywhere.”
