Review: VIKINGS: THE IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE, Dock X
Explore history like never before at Vikings: The Immersive Experience brought to you by Alegria Exhibition and FKP Scorpio Entertainment, as well as countless collaborations between creatives and researchers. This exhibition is a fresh take on a museum environment that fuses different modern technologies to unlock new learning experiences. Once you enter Dock X, the Viking journey begins, following the story of Kraka through VR headsets, interactive projection displays, photo opportunities with Vikings, audio guide headset content, and an immersive show.
Upon entering through the threshold chamber, visitors soon arrive at their first stop Yggdrasil, the World Tree. This location is both visually stunning and incredibly immersive; situated around Yggdrasil are lots of mini stools with a VR headset placed on top, allowing visitors to step back in time through 3D world building, packed with sensory sensations and attention to detail aplenty. The virtual reality content feels impressive and immersive, and is a true highlight within Vikings: The Immersive Experience, thanks to VR art direction from Jörg Kahlhöfer. The majority of time, visitors will spend exploring the Forest of Time which contains plenty of fun opportunities to test your strength and skill, such as through the sword GRAM and Viking knot station. The main focus in this area is the audio headset content. This section does feel almost like technology overload, which veers on being a little overstimulating, but it is nice that there is so much to choose from and that everyone has an individual headset assigned to them so there are never long queues inside.
In the Forest of Time, you will encounter several Talking Kraka stations, providing visitors with the opportunity to, in theory, ask any question in the hope to get an instant historical answer. Although this immediately sounds like a clever concept, it isn’t successfully executed, resulting in questionable and faltering technology. As it is clearly labelled as generative AI, it comes with the disclaimer that not all answers are guaranteed to be historically accurate and as expected, this AI model regularly hallucinates information so it feels like an unnecessary addition to the exhibition hall, especially if you are visiting with the aim of gaining new historical knowledge. Talking Kraka really undermines the educational potential of the place, it was listed as a highlight in the programme yet there was only one station working somewhat successfully whilst the rest faced technological issues, leaving many visitors confused.
Whilst there was a useful sitemap inside the souvenir programme, the venue itself lacked clear signage, making the experience difficult to navigate. As it is not guaranteed that all visitors will have a programme, it would be helpful for this information to be presented elsewhere, potentially having print out maps available or making more use of the screens linked to the audio headset given out to each person by having a mini map linked to each device. It seemed like there was a designed one-way system that wasn’t strictly in place, so if a visitor wished to return to the Forest of Time after the immersive show time slot, their headset would reset and prevent them enjoying the rest of the content unless they got it manually restarted by staff. Despite this, front of house staff were friendly and approachable and clearly helped visitors navigate both the venue and the technology.
Between the main experience hall and the venue exit, a themed bar is situated. It feels really playful in interior design and atmosphere, creating a cosy hangout spot to unwind, featuring a Viking throne and a dress-up area. Overall, Vikings: The Immersive Experience is an interesting take on fusing technology with historical learning and immersion with plenty of potential, yet it is important the magic isn’t lost through technological errors, historical inaccuracies and poor signage to ensure visitors get their full value for money.
*** Three stars
Reviewed by: Heidi Downing
