Brought to the people of Cardiff by David Massey and his team, there are two immersive experiences at Wales Millennium Centre as part of the Llais Festival: In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats and FLIGHT that you can now book.
We had the pleasure of experiencing FLIGHT this week. It’s truly an exhilarating, immersive, 360-degree sound experience created in conjunction with experts in tech, DARKFIELD. This takes place in absolute darkness, inside a 40ft shipping container just outside the WMC. So if you are wondering what an earth is going on outside the centre right now then this is what it’s all about.
The sight deprivation really heights your other senses and enriches the dual universe experience and is nothing like you will have tried before.
Its interior exactly resembles an Airbus 320 economy cabin and during the 30 minutes explores the Many-Worlds. Interpretation of quantum mechanics, taking audience members through two worlds, two realities and two possible outcomes to their journey simultaneously. When the journey does complete, it’s interesting to hear from others their interpretation of what went on, as each individual comes up with something different based on their view point. Very interesting!
To add to the experience, you’re even given a ticket with your seat number. You can choose to sit alone or with your friends and family. Before the experience begin everyone is asked to switch off or put their phones on Airplane mode, and also switch off any smart watches to ensure they don’t light up and break the atmosphere.
The experience starts as any regular flight would, being directed to your seat with overhead storage open for your personal belongings to be stowed.
Once seated, you’ll be directed to put on the headphones, fasten your seatbelt and read the leaflet from the back of the seat in front of you. There is a standard safety demonstration and announcement from the captain, in darkness.
After one minute of darkness you are given the option to disembark if you do not wish to continue with the experience. If you do start to feel uneasy after this point, they advise removing your headphones, but you will need to sit there in the dark until it comes to an end. I can’t stress this enough, but it’s darkness that I’ve never experienced before. In some ways the darkness makes you a little apprehensive (like any new experience), but there is something very fascinating about the world we live in and the amount of light pollution that we are exposed to. Maybe I’ll have to invest in some blackout curtains.
After that, the experience really takes off as you’re on a journey through two worlds and two alternate realities. With sounds coming from all angles, the darkness so enveloping you start to question if what you’re hearing and feeling are part of the experience, or happening around you separately. Luckily, the one spoiler that we will give you is that nothing jumps out at you or touches you, so you can at least put that fear to one side and enjoy the experience.
There are many worlds in which this plane lands safely… which will you experience?
Flight is run once every hour between 12pm – 9pm daily, late comers will not be permitted so make sure to arrive with plenty of time.
This experience is not recommend to anyone that is afraid of the dark or has claustrophobia, it is also not recommended for children under 14 (under 16s to be accompanied by an adult).
You can embark on this Fight until 6th November, tickets start from £8.50 and can be ordered here.
