We’re delighted to announce the 10 innovative businesses awarded funding through the CreaTech Frontiers Live & Immersive Innovation Fund.
The fund supports ambitious projects exploring new ideas across live performance, immersive experiences and creative technology, helping West Midlands businesses develop, test and bring innovative concepts to life.
Following the funding process, we’re excited to introduce the 10 funded projects and give you a first look at the ideas they’ll be developing.
Birmingham Royal Ballet – Swan Lake Immersive
Swan Lake Immersive is a bold new immersive touring production from Birmingham Royal Ballet, utilising location-based, free-roaming, multi-user virtual reality technologies.
Created in partnership with East City Films, the project will combine internationally acclaimed choreography with immersive sound, visual design and interactive spatial storytelling to create a multi-sensory experience that transforms how audiences can experience ballet.
The project represents a landmark moment for immersive productions in the West Midlands, with Birmingham Royal Ballet becoming the first UK ballet company to develop an experience of this kind.
Find out more: www.brb.org.uk
JODO – Spatial Recce
JODO Spatial Recce is a browser-based 3D pre-production tool designed to help screen, live and immersive teams plan locations, staging, camera movement and storyboards.
Building on JODO’s existing storyboard MVP, the project will explore how teams can block out locations, stages and venues, test camera angles, drone shots, performer movement and audience sightlines, and turn virtual camera views into clearer storyboard frames.
Developed with Birmingham Open Media and tested with industry users, the project aims to improve collaboration and early production decision-making across screen, live and immersive production.
Find out more: usejodo.com
Art Riot Collective – Orbit
Orbit is a pioneering portable and inclusive 4D volumetric capture technology designed with and for disabled and neurodivergent artists.
Led by Art Riot Collective with partners Vibe and Twindl, the project will explore portable and affordable 3D video capture technology, placing comfort, consent and accessibility at its heart.
Orbit aims to widen access to immersive storytelling across the West Midlands while creating opportunities for global audiences, new funding routes and commercial income for disability arts.
Find out more: www.artriotcollective.com
Live to Your Living Room – Remote Production System: Phase 2
The Remote Production System – Phase 2 builds on the organisation’s previous CreaTech project, developing a self-contained, couriered production system that can be set up by a non-specialist and operated remotely by Live to Your Living Room engineers.
The project will use repeated test-and-redesign cycles with technicians, venue staff and artists at live, ticketed events. It will explore Dante digital audio networking, simplify cabling and redesign the system for guided, non-specialist use.
The outcome will be a tested design for two flight-cased units covering audio and vision, alongside a validated route to manufacture. The project aims to make professional-quality hybrid production more accessible to grassroots venues, rural touring schemes and disabled artists.
Find out more: www.livetoyourlivingroom.com
My Jams – Augmented Ensemble
Augmented Ensemble is developing a tool for mixed reality group musical practice, supporting ensemble rehearsal, music education and inclusive participation.
Working with musicians, educators and relevant stakeholders, the project will develop and evaluate a demonstrator exploring usability, accessibility, musical value and practical applications in teaching and rehearsal.
The project aims to address barriers to group rehearsal, including scheduling, distance, limited rehearsal space and unequal access to ensemble opportunities, while supporting meaningful musical collaboration.
Find out more: myjamsltd.netlify.app
Trinket
Trinket is an accessible, immersive 360° experience co-designed with and for SEND and neurodivergent young people aged 8–16.
Inside a 360° projection-mapped space, participants work together to calm an anxious digital puppet called Magpie through interactive tasks. Powered by non-contact tracking and real-time biometrics, the environment can responsively adjust projections, lighting and audio to reduce sensory overload.
Developed alongside West Midlands animation and technology studios, specialist educators and psychiatrists, Trinket brings together clinical research and CreaTech to explore a neuro-inclusive experience that could tour schools, medical centres and festivals.
Find out more: www.clodaghdelahuntyforrest.com
Surfing Light Beams – Kinship Wayfinder
Kinship Wayfinder is a playable, immersive forest experience where teams explore, share and connect with the trees and each other to discover the fate of a group of tree scientists who mysteriously vanished 30 years ago.
Armed with a knapsack containing aromatics, sustenance and a tablet as their wayfinder, players work together to uncover what happened to the scientists who went in search of the fabled Methuselah — the planet’s oldest tree, whose rings hold critical information about the future of the Earth’s climate.
As players venture deeper into the forest, the experience asks them to consider what they can discover about themselves, each other and the forest’s collective intelligence.
Find out more: www.surfinglightbeams.com
Good Afternoon – Electronic Voyages
Electronic Voyages explores a new form of interactive and immersive performance, inviting audiences on guided tours of iconic virtual worlds within an immersive exhibition environment.
Combining inspiration from documentary, performance and LAN parties, the project focuses on the iconic Dust 2 map from the Counter-Strike videogame franchise.
Through the map’s history, audiences will encounter stories spanning its hobbyist origins at the hands of a Suffolk teenager in the 2000s, internet cafes in Beirut during the Invasion of Iraq, and its place as one of the most visited virtual locations in history.
Find out more: goodafternoon.uk
REBUS – The Rebus Engine
The Rebus Engine is a development kit designed to unlock the commercial potential of VR and mixed-reality content by transforming compatible Unity projects into scalable, shared projection experiences.
Rather than reaching one headset user at a time, the technology enables creators to adapt their work for larger audiences, flexible spaces and a wider range of venues.
Building on technology developed through production, REBUS will refine tools for room adaptation, multi-camera output, projection, tracking, calibration and multilingual access. The project aims to create new routes to market for immersive IP, helping producers extend the reach and revenue potential of their work.
Find out more: www.rebuslab.uk
Ludic Rooms – SCALE
SCALE explores the collective experience of being together en masse, connecting a large audience through the smartphones in their hands.
The project creates a shared moment in the darkness for a crowd of strangers, where the piece simply does not exist without the people taking part. Everyone is welcome to play games, discover secret collaborators and make new connections with strangers in the crowd through their devices.
At its heart, SCALE is about finding something bigger than ourselves through collective participation, play and connection.
Find out more: www.ludicrooms.com
What’s Next?
These 10 projects represent just some of the exciting creative technology innovation taking place across the West Midlands.
Through the Live & Immersive Innovation Fund, we’re proud to support businesses exploring new ways to create, perform, experience and connect through technology.
We’ll be following the progress of these projects and sharing more updates as they develop, so keep an eye on the CreaTech Frontiers website and social channels for more from our funded businesses.
Website: www.createchfrontiers.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/createch-frontiers/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/createchfrontiers/
