I talk with Excurio co-founder and CEO Fabien Barati & Jules Rimbaud, business development manager for the US territory, about expanding Excurio to 22 locations worldwide, and now with a focus of expanding into North America. See more context in the rough transcript below.
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.458] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR podcast. Hello, my name is Gun Pai, and welcome to the Voices of VR podcast. It's a podcast that looks at the structures and forms of immersive storytelling and the future of spatial computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. So one of the things that I had a chance to do while I was in New York City is to drop by Eclipso, which is kind of a local distributor for Excurio projects. So this is kind of like the large-scale location-based entertainment where they can have like up to like 120 different people per hour go through some of these different experiences. And so these LBE experiences that you take these kind of walking tours. I had a chance previously to do the Eternal Notre Dame. I'd seen the Impressionists at Venice last year, but I wanted to try to actually walk through it to see the difference. And then also had a chance to do the Horizon of Kofu, which is probably one of the most popular experiences they've done so far. You're kind of taking a Guided tour into the pyramids, but also through the pyramids and then into like these magical historical boats that are flying through the air. And so you're changing scale. And it's just a really powerful use of immersive technology to take this guided tour of a place like the Great Pyramids in Egypt. So I had a chance to catch up with the CEO and co-founder of Xcurio, Fabian Barati, at the Augmented World Expo. I'd previously talked to him back at Laval Virtual in 2023, and also their business development manager for the U.S. territory, Jules Rimbaud. And so we had a chance to talk around some of my experiences from going through the latest immersive expeditions that were there in New York City. They're opening up to new ones, and they're also going to be opening up to other independent producers. And so if you have some ideas for these immersive expeditions that you think might make a good translation into this location-based entertainment format where you're taking a guided tour through these different places, then... Definitely reach out to Jewel Rambo and, yeah, just get a little bit more information because I really think that what Excuria is doing is maybe the first inklings of what we're going to see in terms of this location-based type of entertainment at this large scale. It's kind of like the movie theater of embodied and interactive XR. So we're covering all that and more on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Fabian and Jewel happened on Tuesday, June 10th, 2025 at the Augmented World Expo in Long Beach, California. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:02:30.905] Fabien Barati: I'm Fabian Baratti. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Xcurio. At Xcurio, we do what we call the immersive expeditions, which is LBVR adventures, big ambition, huge experiences, and they are distributed all over the world in 23 venues currently.
[00:02:48.485] Jules Rimbaud: And I'm Jules Rimbaud. I'm the business development manager for the U.S. territory. So I'm mostly in charge of expanding the network of venues we have. So for now, we have one venue in New York, soon to be in Chicago, and we will be opening other venues all across the states. Stay tuned.
[00:03:05.080] Kent Bye: Maybe each give a bit more context as to your background and your journey into the space.
[00:03:09.562] Fabien Barati: So I co-founded the company 20 years ago. And before focusing on the immersive expeditions, we were more of an agency creating content and tools with VR, with AR for clients. So for different use cases, like cultural mediation or brand experiences, mostly for luxury brands. And following all those references with our skills, we decided to focus on the immersive expeditions.
[00:03:39.173] Jules Rimbaud: And as for my background, I've always tried to bridge the gap between culture and new technologies, I would say. So I met Fabien five years ago when Fabien and Excurio was launching the format of immersive expeditions. And I also worked in other projects such as the Friol, which is a project with AI. It's a project with artists and the Guggenheim in New York. So yeah, it was pretty natural for me to work for Excurio because it's like very outstanding technology with very accurate cultural content.
[00:04:08.683] Kent Bye: And so it seems like that over these different immersive expeditions that you have had a number of different interesting collaborations with art museums and other like Notre Dame. And so maybe you could talk a bit about this pivot from working for 20 years in the space, starting to have some special assets, but then to have what is essentially what I think of is like the movie theater for XR, which is like you have lots of people going through these spaces, anywhere from 90 to 100 plus people per hour that are seeing this content. And so you're able to get this walk through a space and navigate and negotiate people not running into each other, or at least, you know, trying to do wayfinding that has them take these different paths and So, yeah, it's a really innovative distribution of like, what is the exhibition of this work look like? And I think this is a really good, profitable example of that. But yeah, just curious to hear a little bit more around the development, evolution and starting to work with these cultural institutions and started to develop these walking tour slash immersive story type of experiences.
[00:05:08.260] Fabien Barati: So when we were working with customers, we were already trying to tell stories in a new way, using those new technologies. And we were already in touch with, I would say, the end consumer. So when we work for museums and also when we work for brands, it was always for someone who was not aware of what we were going to say inside the experiences. And so we decided to scale this. We decided to create a format, a standard, to be able to duplicate and to, as you say, try to do something like the movie industry, but for VR. So that's why we decided to create venues. That's also why we decided to create a dedicated software that we use to operate very efficiently the immersive expeditions. And obviously, we also produce the content in-house. So we also have our studio. So we do all of that at once to try to create this virtual circle around this new ecosystem.
[00:06:07.168] Kent Bye: Yeah, maybe you could just give me a sense of the growth that you've seen over the last couple of years. You said, you know, 23 different venues. And like, it seems like from what I've talked to Miriam Ashard from Fi that it's been very successful in terms of getting it out there. So I'm just curious if you can share a little bit about what kind of success you've been seeing so far.
[00:06:23.803] Jules Rimbaud: Well, yeah, actually, I mean, so far, XQ launched the immersive expeditions like three years ago, and we've gathered like three million visitors worldwide. And at the beginning, there were no 23 venues. So it's very new that we are over 20. And as for North America, we have like one venue for now in New York. We will have another one pretty soon in Chicago. We have three other venues in Canada. And we started with Canada because we knew an operator very well over there, StudioFi. And it was very successful. In the first 10 months in Montreal, they gathered 250,000 visitors in 10 months for Horizon of Khufu. So we see a huge potential in the US as well, in Canada for sure. And yeah, there will be a lot of new openings. And since we'll be also opening the platform to other creators, there will be new titles available in our VR venues.
[00:07:13.752] Kent Bye: Yeah, so I've done both the Notre Dame, Horizon of Kofu, which when I was just in New York City, I saw it, and then the Impressionists. And I've done the Impressionists and Notre Dame at Venice, where I was sitting down and watching like a modified version of it. And so it was nice for me to be able to see both the walkthrough versions And also to see what it's like to be with other people in it while I was doing it. But also when I did the Impressionist, I happened to be able to see it without other people. And so just to get a sense of it. So I feel like in some ways it's almost better to not have other people occluding or getting in my way. And so it's nice to not have them occluded. Also noticed that when I would get within... you know five or ten feet of a wall then there'd be like a red chaperone that would come in and start to include the experience and so it's sort of negotiating this interesting balance between needing to get a certain amount of throughput but then with that throughput there's other people that are in the experience that are not always additive because they're maybe getting in my way or you know they're just this kind of ghostly characters with a grid and It's more presence breaking in the sense where I feel less connected to the virtual space when I have those different types of occlusions that come in. And so just curious how you start to negotiate that or navigate that, because there's wayfinding software that you're using, but there's also just the need to get as many people as you are and this may be just a part of the trade off of rather than having like a premier flawless experience without any obstructions with other people that this is the cost of being able to even exist as a business of having lots of people go through it. So just curious how you start to think about that.
[00:08:45.390] Fabien Barati: Yeah, so first you have to imagine that those experiences are supposed usually to be experienced with other people at the same time. I mean, in your own group, so with friends, with family. And so you see those people as avatars with a name on top of it. That means that you are used to see other people as avatars. Nonetheless, I agree that you can also see obviously the other groups around you when you get close to them. And we are working on ways to make that more discreet. Right. So you don't lose this presence feeling. That's obviously very important.
[00:09:18.157] Kent Bye: Yeah. And I found that sometimes the spaces were different. And so like, as I'm getting close to the wall, those are also coming in. And the idea is that if I started to just walk and move very quickly, I would run into it. But I also felt like in some cases it was far enough away that I didn't want it to be coming in. So I just curious how you negotiate what that distance is in terms of when you start to bring in the chaperones for the walls and what you've found in terms of, you know, what is going to make a safe experience.
[00:09:43.484] Fabien Barati: Yeah, so we have a whole system exactly for safety. So depending on your speed and also for people in wheelchair, I mean, for people that are accompanying someone in wheelchair, they will see the walls further away, for example. So we have a whole system made for safety and obviously that's extremely important. We're also trying to find ways to make things more discreet, but it cannot undone the safety behind.
[00:10:10.540] Kent Bye: Now, when I went through Eclipso in New York City, they had either Horizon or Kofu or the Impressionists. And so they were saying if you join as a bundle, you would have to do the same experience. And I'm just curious because there was two experiences running at the same time and they may be opening up like a third here soon. In terms of the pathing for how people are walking through it, like how many do you think you could have at the same time? I got the sense that if you're buying a bundle, that you would have to see the same experience. But I was just wondering, if they're buying the ticket at the same time as a bundle, then would it be possible for them to go off and see the other experience? Or just some of the reasoning for clustering people together. And if you imagine a future where you could have a group of 10 people and they could see 10 different types of experiences and go through it all at the same time, if the system you think would be robust enough to start to scale up to a variety of different experiences as you move forward?
[00:11:02.333] Fabien Barati: So technically, it's completely possible to choose your own experience. It's just that you won't be together, of course, because the path in the space will be different. We have also multiple paths per project in order to try to evenly have the visitors inside the space. But in terms of more commercially speaking, when you buy a bundle for a specific project, the money goes to the co-producers of this project. And if you change the experience, you're going to see the money is not supposed to go to the same co-producers. So that's why it has to be also very thorough.
[00:11:39.735] Kent Bye: And I'm curious to hear just in terms of what you've been seeing in terms of the excitement around this or the success from these different locations. And yeah, how has it gone as you start to develop the other locations and what you're seeing on your end?
[00:11:52.247] Jules Rimbaud: Well, actually, as for the U.S., I would say it's really thriving and we've made quite a big nose in the press, in the media outlets. We got ranked, we were very honored to get ranked in the top three of the most innovative XR company by Fast Company this year. We were also amazed and honored to be ranked like the Horizon of Khufu Experience in New York is in the top 10 of the top 10 best thing to do in New York by timeout. All the reviews are amazing. So we feel like there is like this willingness and this hungriness of people to try new experiences that they can do with their friends and their family. And I think this is what we provide. And it's at the crossroads of education. It's educational because you get to visit the pyramids, as an example for Arizona of Khufu. and we always co-produce our content with like experts and renowned institutions and it's also fun so you you will be having entertainment as well so i think we take all the boxes and we are obsessed with the content and we are also obsessed with the user experience and i think we can see now the outcome is is very positive
[00:12:54.787] Kent Bye: Yeah, I'm wondering if you could elaborate a little bit on the process of making Horizon and Kofu because, you know, it has a lot of what you could consider like a more traditional tour that you might get if you were actually in Egypt, but then you start to lean more into like the types of things that you could never really actually do because either you don't have access to some of these places or you wouldn't be able to holographically fly through the pyramids and to see the larger picture or, you know, to go on top of the pyramids and you take us on flying boats. And there's a lot of awe-inspiring things that you just wouldn't be able to do if you were actually going on a tour of the pyramids. And so just curious to hear a little bit about your process of really leaning into the affordances of VR in terms of scale and taking us to places that you wouldn't be able to go before. And yeah, just a little bit more around the process of making Horizon of Kofu.
[00:13:41.860] Fabien Barati: Yeah, so usually we want with the immersive expedition, we want to give access to what's inaccessible. So it's possible to enter the pyramid in real life, but it's not possible to go inside the core of the pyramid, to be on top of the pyramid, to change scale, to go back in time. And we provide that with Khufu and with actually every other immersive expedition. And the process to create one immersive expedition is really first to discuss a lot with experts. So in the case of Horizon of Khufu, it's Peter Armagnuelion who was the chair of Egyptology at Harvard, also in the project Giza Archives, who worked with us very closely to validate all the reconstitutions and also all what is said by the characters because Inside the immersive expeditions, you are guided by characters, guides that you follow during the experience. And they are not only giving you explanations, giving you information, they are also creating a narrative, right? Because Horizon of Khufu is not just a guided tour. It's also a bit more than that. There will be some magical things happening. And the narrative is very important. We work with different authors to be able to entertain and educate the visitors efficiently by staging and also by the script. So it's a very full project.
[00:15:05.622] Kent Bye: And I saw that there's a new one that's either launched in some places or coming soon to Eclipso. So is that your fourth experience? And maybe just talk about your new experience that's coming out.
[00:15:14.065] Fabien Barati: Yes, so it's actually our fifth immersive expedition. So Life Chronicles is coming to New York this month. Life Chronicles is about the story of life. You go back three billions of years ago to attend the beginning of life on Earth, and then you jump through time and you will discover a lot of different species. And it's incredible. It's like being in a sci-fi movie and you travel through time. But the last immersive expedition that was launched in France and also now in Turkey, is called The Last Stronghold. The Last Stronghold is a medieval experience. It's a bit like Game of Thrones, but in a really historical context. So fortress, knights, inquisition. It's a lot of things, a lot of things. And it's some innovation from the other immersive expeditions, like interactions, more freedom, different paths that you can take in the same environment. A lot more quality put on the characters as well. So you have to check it out.
[00:16:11.220] Kent Bye: So there is the, what was the name of those two?
[00:16:13.981] Fabien Barati: The last stronghold.
[00:16:15.062] Kent Bye: Okay, so the last stronghold, is that the fifth or that's the sixth?
[00:16:17.983] Fabien Barati: Fifth. Okay, okay.
[00:16:19.483] Kent Bye: So, and that hasn't opened yet or is it?
[00:16:21.924] Fabien Barati: It has opened in France and Turkey.
[00:16:24.145] Kent Bye: Okay, okay. So it sounds like you've got a couple of other ones that are starting to get released at other locations. So I've seen three of them that have released so far and two of which I saw at Venice sitting down and three of the other ones that I saw walking through. And so when I saw the Notre Dame one, I saw it first sitting down and then I really appreciated the difference of what it felt like to walk around because I'm like walking around through like the history of the Notre Dame Cathedral and I'm like feeling like I'm taking a guided tour through space and time. But also the heart of that was a piece of architecture that is beautiful to look at and like walk around. And I feel like similarly with the Horizon of Kofu, you've got this spatial context of the pyramid that is also really interesting to walk around. Sometimes you're in these closed rooms or I'm like, well, we're just like in these closed rooms. I could see this anywhere in VR. But I appreciated then how you continue to innovate and take us to other views of the pyramids that we wouldn't be able to get otherwise. But then when I did the Impressionist piece, sitting down and then walking, I felt like that was a piece that had a little bit less of a focus of a story of a place. It's less about Paris and it's more about a time, but also the people of that time, but also the paintings. And so I found myself, as I was walking through the gallery spaces, not having the same difference between seeing it from the sit-down version versus the walking version, which was interesting to see how big of a difference it was between the Notre Dame sit-down versus walking through, but also the Horizon of Khufu. I could also imagine that there is a power of walking through and noticing vast, awe-inspiring architectural contexts. So I'm just curious to hear some of your reflections on what is the real sweet spot of these immersive expeditions and the role of telling the story of a place versus telling a story of a time or people or an art movement?
[00:18:11.380] Fabien Barati: Yeah, the truth is that we are exploring, right? So we are exploring projects around monuments, projects around fine arts, like the Impressionists. Life Chronicles is something else, but more about, I would say, science in a way. So we are exploring all of that, trying to tell stories so people can understand more our world. Obviously, experiences around places are very strong because you see all this architecture around you, you walk around. That's very strong. But I think also for the impressionists, being able to engage more with characters can be strong in another way, right? It's less a feeling of embodiment and walking around. It's more a feeling of being somewhere with someone and really listening to what he's saying. We had already this feeling with an old project called The Enemy, that we are part of the co-production. And we understood the power of VR in a sense of really listening to someone that is virtually in front of you. And so I think this is also what we tried to do with Impressionists.
[00:19:16.815] Kent Bye: And as you expand out, I'm just curious to hear a little bit more around is the plan to like open up more cities is also like on the table to bringing other producers of content since you have these locations and, you know, to also become like a distributor of other independent content that people are producing. And yeah, just curious to hear a little bit more around the plans of where you hope to take the business here in the future.
[00:19:38.530] Jules Rimbaud: Yeah, actually, there are many challenges and opportunities ahead. For sure, we want to expand the network of venues. But as Fabien explained, we also created a kind of unified standard. It's like if we created the camera and also the projector in a movie theater. And as for now, we've been using that just for Xcurio, but we want to share it with other creators since we have an existing network of venues. We want to offer them the possibility to access to our platform, our free access platform, that then they will be able to create their own immersive expeditions or same format as we do at least. And they could also be distributed in our venues because I think the most difficult thing for creators is to get access to this mass entertainment market. And this is really key for the VR industry, LBVR industry, at least in the next few months, in the next few years. Yeah, of course, we want to expand the network, but we also want to create new opportunities, new content, and that's it.
[00:20:38.378] Kent Bye: Love to hear some of your reflections on the current state of immersive and some of the movements like The Sphere in Las Vegas or Cosm in Los Angeles and Dallas. We have more dome content where you have lots of people seeing the same content, but they're not moving their body through space. And then there's also been other location-based entertainment that has been less, let's say, like... standardized into a format that could be repeatable like what you've been doing at Excurio. And so just curious to hear some of your reflections on the overall immersive industry and kind of the trends that you're seeing and how you see Excurio fitting into like if you do want to become like the movie theater of immersive, that is kind of like the standard format that could provide a context where you could have potentially even multiple exterior locations in a city or just like we have multiple movie theaters. So just curious to hear some of your hopes for where you want to take it here in the future and how it fits into this overall ecosystem of immersive.
[00:21:34.318] Fabien Barati: Yeah, I think what we're seeing is that the experience ecosystem as a whole is booming with a lot of different formats being created, being explored by different companies. That's very interesting. So it's more or less immersive, more or less social, more or less ambitious in terms of quality of content. So it's a lot of tests and I find it extremely interesting. In our case, We really try to make something that is like a permanent standard, a new standard for entertainment. Like cinema became a standard a hundred years ago. So based on that, that's why we focus really on viability. And so that's why our technology, our platform allows the highest throughput in the world for location-based VR. This is also why we invest in the content. We invest in the creation of the distribution network to create this kind of virtual circle and be able to expand this activity and make it viable not only for us and our operating partner, but for a whole ecosystem.
[00:22:39.181] Kent Bye: Yeah, in terms of throughput, when I talked to Eclipso, they said that they had up to like 90 people at a time in their space, but most experiences are like 45 minutes. And so what's a range of throughput that you've seen through your variety of different locations in terms of the top capacity for how many people per hour can see some of these experiences?
[00:22:56.243] Jules Rimbaud: Well, actually, as for the throughput, as Fabien said, we can go beyond 120 users. So then it will depend on the size of the venue. But the threshold for this kind of LBVR adventure is we ask the operator to have at least 5,000 square feet. So it will allow the platform to manage this huge flow of visitors. And it works well. It works well.
[00:23:23.510] Kent Bye: And finally, what do you each think is the ultimate potential of immersive storytelling in this type of immersive expeditions and what it might be able to enable?
[00:23:32.918] Fabien Barati: So that's a tough question. I think there are so many things to still explore and to test. In my opinion, immersive storytelling is very close to immersive theater in a way, especially in our case when we have to make the people move physically. And so you need to get their eyes with light, with music, with characters, with animation, with everything. And this is a very specific way of telling stories. But we are learning every day around that. And we are learning also from other formats as well. Obviously, cinema, obviously, theater, books, everything. Even if for LPVR, there is a very specific grammar we need to find, we need to refine.
[00:24:16.653] Jules Rimbaud: Yeah, I would say as for now, because the format is pretty new, it's been three years, so very still this wow effect, like people have never experienced something like that. And you know that when they take off the headset, they are just, you know, very amazed and they just have something they would have never expected to live because they are not tech savvy or whatever, because we really focus on the content. And it's like, you know, when there was like this first movie that was released at the end of the 19th century for the birth of the cinema, the train at the Ciutat, when the people in the movie theater were afraid that the train would get to them and would kill them. There is kind of still this experimentation with the general public right now. Well, they are doing the experience. They are like having like, they can be scared of the height. And so there is this kind of thing, but I think it won't last forever and I think people will be more and more requirements to what they want to live what they want to experience and that there will be like new yeah new requirements and new probably you know people would like to see things they know already so maybe with like major IPs or with like very different kind of topics that could be explored through this format
[00:25:25.603] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, I really enjoyed having a chance to check out all the different experiences from Xperia so far. Like I said, I feel like it's pushing forward what we can expect the movie theater of XR might be. And yeah, I'm really excited to see where you continue to develop more content, have more locations out there, and for more folks to be able to see what you're doing. So yeah, it's really exciting to see that there are some real profitable ventures for taking this type of content and getting out to audiences and to really have it resonate as it is. Yeah, it was a real pleasure to be able to get to check it out and to have a chance to talk to you again here today on the podcast. So thanks again.
[00:25:56.764] Jules Rimbaud: Thank you, Ken. Thank you very much, Ken. Bye-bye.
[00:25:59.427] Kent Bye: Thanks again for listening to this episode of the Voices of VR podcast. And if you enjoy the podcast, then please do spread the word, tell your friends, and consider becoming a member of the Patreon. This is a supported podcast, and so I do rely upon donations from people like yourself in order to continue to bring this coverage. So you can become a member and donate today at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. Thanks for listening.
