AttractionPros
Episode 445: Kevin Williams About the Next Phase of Immersive Technology, Transmedia, and Embracing Your Audience
Why It Matters
As immersive tech becomes more accessible, attractions and hospitality businesses must adapt to meet guest expectations for interactive, socially engaging experiences. Understanding these trends helps operators design experiences that drive repeat visitation and revenue, making the episode essential for anyone shaping the future of entertainment venues.
Key Takeaways
- •Immersive tech origins trace back to Pepper's Ghost, 1800s
- •XR unifies VR, AR, MR for location entertainment
- •Social entertainment demands competitive, agency-driven experiences in hospitality
- •Transmedia failures like Wonderverse highlight need for audience psychology
- •Repeat visitation essential; one‑time attractions insufficient for LBE success
Pulse Analysis
The conversation opens by grounding today’s immersive technology in its historical roots, noting that the illusionary tricks of Pepper's Ghost from the 1800s laid the groundwork for modern virtual, augmented, and mixed reality. Kevin Williams explains that XR—an umbrella term covering VR, AR, and MR—has become the practical engine for location‑based entertainment, allowing parks, arcades, and hospitality venues to deliver seamless, high‑impact experiences without the hype of earlier VR cycles.
From there, the dialogue shifts to transmedia and the pitfalls of ignoring audience psychology. Williams cites Sony’s Wonderverse as a cautionary tale: massive investment, a flashy multi‑platform narrative, and a rapid shutdown illustrate how copying concepts without understanding guest motivations leads to costly failures. He stresses that successful transmedia must give audiences agency, turning passive viewers into active participants. This mindset fuels the rise of "competitive socializing," where games like augmented‑reality darts or collaborative AR racing blend traditional pub culture with gamified interaction, ensuring even novice players feel included and motivated to stay longer.
Finally, the hosts underline a strategic imperative for operators: prioritize repeat visitation over one‑off spectacles. In the location‑based entertainment market, loyalty loops, social sharing, and ongoing content updates are essential for sustainable revenue. Embracing audience data, designing experiences that encourage group cohesion, and leveraging XR’s flexibility can transform a simple attraction into a recurring destination. By aligning technology choices with clear psychological insights and a transmedia narrative that respects guest agency, businesses can avoid the "spaghetti" trap of mismatched tech and instead build resilient, immersive ecosystems that keep guests returning.
Episode Description
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What’s your guest experience strategy? You probably have a marketing strategy, recruitment strategy, and sales strategy, but what about intentionally turning first-time visitors into loyal advocates? Liebman Leisure Group helps attractions do exactly that. From creating a culture of “wow” moments to empowering staff to recover from service failures, great experiences don’t happen by chance.
To schedule a consultation call, visit www.liebmanleisure.com/attractionpros. Don’t leave your guest experience to chance. You should be known for creating memorable experiences… on purpose.
Kevin Williams is the Founder of KWP Limited and Publisher of The Stinger Report. A former Disney Imagineer and longtime voice in the immersive entertainment sector, he advises operators, developers, and brands across theme parks, location-based entertainment, and the rapidly growing world of social entertainment. Through his writing and analysis, he’s known for digging into what works, what fails, and why, then translating those lessons into practical guidance for leaders trying to keep pace with changing guest expectations. In this interview, Kevin talks about the next phase of immersive technology, transmedia, and embracing your audience.
“What I was talking about seven years ago about the emergence of VR has been superseded by the adoption of XR.”
Kevin frames “immersive” as an elastic term that stretches from Pepper’s Ghost to projection systems to today’s immersive display tech. What’s different now isn’t that immersion suddenly exists, but that audiences expect more agency inside experiences. He points to the rise of social entertainment and competitive socializing, where gamification is being applied to restaurants, bars, and hospitality concepts because people want more than a place to sit. They want something to do together.
He also stresses that the industry is exiting the hype cycle and entering a more disciplined era. The goal is less about chasing shiny tech and more about understanding what works operationally, financially, and emotionally. In his view, the “next phase” is building experiences that hold attention, reduce friction, and create repeat-worthy fun, not just novelty.
“Transmedia means the ability for a brand or a narrative to circumvent multiple delivery platforms.”
Kevin describes transmedia as the movement of a story or brand across formats, from screen to physical place and back again. He points to examples like Netflix House and LEGO Discovery Center as signs that entertainment IP is increasingly becoming something you can step into, not just watch. He also reminds listeners that this isn’t a brand-new strategy, using Walt Disney as an early blueprint for extending storytelling across film, television, and the theme park environment.
At the same time, he cautions against treating IP like a magic upgrade button. A mediocre experience wrapped in a famous brand is still a mediocre experience, and he argues that investors often favor IP because it feels safer, even when the fundamentals aren’t there. The real requirement is a clear guest experience and narrative path people can easily understand and enjoy.
“You don't just chuck it in because everybody's doing it. You're going to have to understand your audience.”
Kevin’s bluntest point is that many projects fail because leaders build for trends instead of building for guests. He describes “spaghetti moments” where operators throw technologies into a concept hoping something sticks, then quietly move on when it doesn’t, without extracting lessons. His post-mortem approach is about finding the real causes, including mismatched business models, poor repeat-visit planning, and ignoring frontline feedback.
He also calls out the habit of using technology to mask unresolved fundamentals. If an attraction choice is driven by copying competitors, or if leadership avoids the hard truths in reviews and exit interviews, the problem isn’t a lack of gadgets; it’s a lack of listening. For Kevin, embracing your audience means designing for who they are, how they behave in groups, and what keeps them coming back, then using data to refine the experience rather than passing judgment.
Kevin can be reached on LinkedIn, as well as by email at kwp@thestingerreport.com. To learn more about his work, including The Stinger Report, visit the LBX Collective and The Stinger Report online.
Additional resources:
Entertainment Social Arena
Wonderverse Closure
LBE Zone
Social Entertainment: Amusements Competitive Edge (Amusement Expo International 2026)
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Scheduling and correspondence by Kristen Karaliunas
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