PHI Studio sponsored today’s episode to highlight that they are expanding their location-based entertainment distribution network to the United States with their EXP Rosemont location in the greater Chicago, IL area that is opening to the public on September 26, 2025. They will be launching with a couple of Excurio pieces including The Horizon of Khufu and Life Chronicles that feature large-scale, free-roaming VR guided tours that I’ve covered previously in episodes #1430, #1431, and #1588.
Both Excurio and PHI Studio are interested in collaborating with creators who are interested in creating large-scale LBE experiences that could draw 100-150 people per hour, and you can reach out to Fabian Barati and/or Julie Tremblay on LinkedIn. Excurio will be making their tools and SDK available to third party developers to expand the number content producers creating this type of large-scale work, and PHI Studio continues to do co-productions across a wide range of formats and throughput scales.
I’m excited to see PHI Studio continue to build out their independent distribution network across Canada and North America as they continue to produce and distribute their own experiences as well as distribute the best of large-scale, free roaming experience from Excurio. EXP Rosemont will be launching with a couple of Excurio pieces, but I expect them to eventually distribute some of their own large-scale VR and non-VR, immersive works as well. PHI Studio continues to build out their own independent distribution networks, which will provide new outlets and opportunities for immersive stories that have featured on the festival circuit to have a home beyond this more insular XR industry exhibition network.
Not all projects will be a good fit for this high-throughput format, but the revenue generated will help support their other more experimental efforts that are helping to push the boundaries of the medium. Look for my more in-depth coverage of Blur coming out here within the next couple of weeks, which was my personal favorite from Venice Immersive and one of the hottest tickets at this years festival.
Thanks again to PHI Studio for sponsoring this episode, and keep an eye on this new location in the greater Chicago area (and apparently only a 10-minute ride from O’Hare Airport if you happen to have an extended layover). I’ll be diving more into more 30+ hours of coverage from Venice Immersive within the next couple of weeks, likely after I return from Meta Connect.
This is a listener-supported podcast through the Voices of VR Patreon.
Music: Fatality
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.458] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. Hello, my name is Kent Bye, 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 special computing. You can support the podcast at patreon.com slash voicesofvr. So today's episode is actually sponsored by PHI Studio, and they're opening a brand new location-based entertainment VR exhibition location called EXP Rosemont. It's in the greater Chicago area. They have a long-term contract here where they're going to be starting off showing a couple of Excurio pieces. Excurio I've covered a number of times here on the podcast where it's sort of like the large-scale blockbuster movie theater version of virtual reality to show free-roaming virtual reality experiences that kind of have a lot of the guided tour ethos for a lot of them where you're walking through with groups of people and They can get through 100 to 150 people per hour through some of these different experiences. And so it's like very narrative driven, guided tour type of things like Horizon Okufu. You're taking a guided tour of the pyramids of Giza where you're actually able to walk inside and kind of float through and fly through the pyramids. And it's pushing the edge of what you can do in virtual reality. So it's like the ultimate tour for the pyramids. And then Life Chronicles, which is kind of like a tour through history and time and looking at the evolution of these different species and ecosystems and And so I had a chance to talk to Julie Tremblay of PHI Studio, as well as Fabian Barati of Excurio, which, you know, I've featured on the podcast a number of times previously. And they talk about their collaboration. So Excurio is producing a lot of the content and PHI is going to be distributing it. And what I think is really fascinating is that PHI is both producing their own content. So expect to see things beyond just Excurio content at these new locations soon. and building out their distribution network for large-scale location-based entertainment. But also they've been in the game of distributing these experiences from like the Infinite to the exhibitions that they've been doing at the PHI Center, which is going back to like 2014 and showcasing a lot of the best from the film festival circuit. You know, one of the challenges with immersive storytelling is that Oftentimes there's a kind of a circuit for exhibiting these experiences within the context of a film festival, but it's very difficult for some of these pieces to kind of break out of that cycle and find a home and a distribution that goes above and beyond this film festival circuit. And so again, PHI 's really been building this out in Canada with these five different locations and now opening up in North America, they're going to start to establish more of a semi-permanent foothold within the United States that will be a showcase for a lot of the latest and best large-scale free roaming virtual reality experiences, but also things beyond VR as well, which is really exciting to hear. So we're talking to Julie and Fabian to get a better sense of this collaboration between PHI Studio and Excurio and how each of them are kind of independently producing their own content and where that all may go here in the future. So we're covering all that and more on today's episode, the Voices of VR podcast. So this interview with Fabian and Julie happened on Wednesday, September 10th, 2025. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:03:10.393] Fabien Barati: So I'm Fabian Barati. I'm the CEO and co-founder of Excurio. The company is 20 years old this year. In 2022, we launched an entertainment format called the Immersive Expeditions, which are giant, free-roaming, virtual reality adventures that we have been developing since then.
[00:03:31.252] Julie Tremblay: And I am Julie Tremblay. I'm the general manager, executive producer of PHI Studio. We are a small studio that started in 2021 creating experiences, but we've been linked to the PHI Center in Montreal and been in the presentation of VR artworks since the early years of probably 2014 as part of the pioneer in the presentation of innovative works. Nice to be with you, Kent, this morning.
[00:03:59.830] Kent Bye: Awesome, and great to be with you as well. And maybe you could each give a bit more context as to your background and your journey into the space.
[00:04:07.474] Fabien Barati: OK, so on my side, before creating the immersive experience, we were working with companies, museums, creating experiences for brands and tools and for mediation for museums. And we thought that virtual reality could go way further in terms of entertainment and learning. And this is why we worked on both the technology and the content around this format, the immersive expeditions. And so in 2022, we launched two immersive expeditions that we produced. One is Eternal Notre Dame and the other is Horizon of Khufu. So those are the two first immersive expeditions. And we are still producing more titles in this format and still improving our technology to create, to distribute and to operate those titles. And we work with operators all over the world to which we license our technology and title. And that's currently how we collaborate with FILE.
[00:05:11.260] Julie Tremblay: Maybe on my end, in terms of background, it's a little bit different. I come from the advertising world. I've been having a small company in Montreal in the past where we were doing experiential project and mostly stunt. So I've always been really interested by how do we do innovation? How do we do things differently? Trying to do what's never been done before has always been something that's a passion to me. So I don't like to do repeat. And that's a little bit how I came at FI. It was during Red Bull Music Academy. So I don't know if you know a little bit about this event, but Red Bull took over a city three months in a year to do kind of a studio program for emerging artists, music artists. And I had a chance to collaborate with them because they took over PHI Center in 2008. And it's been kind of my introduction to Phoebe and to the PHI team. Just fall in love with this place that was mixing art and technology. And I had a chance to stay here and build the exhibition team. So that's how we started the journey into immersive. And at one point, you know, we had exhibition, a VR exhibition that was traveling around the world. really presenting the best of what was out there. And then COVID hit. So like everybody else, we kind of wonder what we will be doing during that time. And it's how we started creating works. So we kind of changed the focus on being only a presenter to a focus of creating artworks. And during that time, we've also launched an initiative that was called VR2Go. So I don't know if you remember that, but we were delivering headsets in bike in the city of Montreal during COVID. And it was also a way of bringing the experience to the visitors. And it's always been something that stick with us, you know, how do we deliver the best experience to the visitors? And we transform that knowledge that we had from operating to how can we bring it to also creating artworks and then making sure we're creating proper onboarding for people who's never done VR before. So it's been what we've been doing as a journey so far.
[00:07:29.383] Kent Bye: Yeah. And Julie, maybe you could just also follow up because there has been like the PHI Contemporary and then the PHI Center, and those are going to be combining into just PHI. But at some point, PHI Studio came along in your journey and with The Infinite, maybe you could just give a bit more context to PHI Studio as well as the previous productions with Felix and Paul with The Infinite.
[00:07:49.079] Julie Tremblay: Yes. So yes, PHI is an ecosystem of three different entities, but we just merged PHI Center and PHI Foundation together. So now it's under the umbrella PHI , and it's really kind of a first step forward to the new PHI contemporary building that we are building at this time for 2029. And PHI Studio was creating during the pandemic when we decided to change the focus on, okay, let's try to see if we can also create artworks. Our first project as a studio was a brief, and it was coming out of a residency with Diego Galafasi that we did in 2019. We were still under PHI Center, but we started doing those artists residency at that time. And we realized that we had the potential of really bringing something in the technology and the experience itself, start hiring developers at that time to join the team. And this is when the conversation also started with Felix and Paul. They had that idea of creating an exhibition, and it was much more a traditional exhibition in their mind, where they will be presenting seats with virtual realities filmed from the Space Explorer series. And as I've mentioned earlier, we're really ambitious, like to do things differently. So we said, OK, can we envision that people will walk into the International Space Station and that we can have multiple visitors? And most of the people know that I'm passionate about numbers. So starting to look at what a real throughput should look like. We came up with the idea that to make it successful, we will need to onboard 14 people every five minutes into the experience to reach out the point of the 168 visitors an hour. And that will make a model that will work, that will be sustainable, and that will kind of build a new model for the free roaming type of experience. So that's the challenge that we fix business parameters at the beginning of that project and make sure as the creative was going through that we will keep on hitting these business terms. And that's how we created the infinite with Felix and Paul.
[00:10:03.359] Kent Bye: Okay, yeah, that's all really helpful to get that history in the context. And Fabian, just to follow up on your immersive expeditions, you're similarly hitting like a target of 100 to 150 people per hour. Had you heard of The Infinite? Was that on your radar at all? Or was this something that you were working on with, at the time was Emissive, now is Excurio. Was this kind of like high throughput, location-based entertainment thing, something that you were independently working on without really paying attention to what was happening with PHI Studio and The Infinite?
[00:10:33.325] Fabien Barati: Yeah, I mean, we started with the same state of mind, exactly, with this constraint of having a profitable business model. And that means to be able to have a large throughput. So it was kind of the same thinking behind. We were aware, of course, of the Infinite. I don't really remember, I think... I mean, the different launches were almost at the same time, right? And so it was great to see that we are all exploring the same things and trying to push the limits of virtual reality to create a business model that would bring the whole ecosystem up to have studios and producers who at last get money from their productions in VR. And also operators, of course. And so this is also what we had in mind while doing the technology behind immersive expeditions.
[00:11:28.191] Kent Bye: Okay. So with location-based entertainment, my understanding is that there's the producer of the content and then the distributor of the content, and then often splitting things 50-50, or at least having those two main roles of people producing the content and also distributing it. And PHI Studio is interesting just because it's both producing its own content, but it's also acting as a distributor of the Excurio content. And so just curious to hear a little bit more around the origins of this collaboration between Excurio and PHI Studio in this capacity of Excurio produced pieces, but distributed by Fi. So just curious to hear a little bit more context of that collaboration.
[00:12:06.215] Julie Tremblay: And I think we are one of the distributors of Excurio content, but it's not exclusive to us. But for us, it was important to build a kind of a part of our activities as an operator. We felt that it's where we come from. And there's also so much learning that you can do by looking at how visitors interact with the content. So part of one of our activities was always, okay, we wanted to distribute what's the best stories that's out there. And of course, we have our colleague, Myriam Achard, in charge of a new partnership who traveled the world and find what's the best content out there. And I remember at the time, Excurio, under the name Inissive, has launched Eternal Notre Dame at that point. And we had the chance to experiment that content in Paris. And it was, you know, an extraordinary experience. So we wanted to bring that content specifically in Montreal. And then we discovered that, okay, there's a model, there's new content that will emerge from their team at a certain lapse of time. And we want to make sure that we can bring that not only to the Montreal audience, but to the Canadian audience as well. And that's how we start opening more and more venues. So right now, at the end of the month, we will be operating six venues across Canada and one in the States. And yes, we are presenting exterior work, but the intention is still to present what's the best of immersive And so at one point, there will be other content provider who will also create large scale experiences. And it will become a choice to find the right content for your audience.
[00:13:48.231] Kent Bye: And it sounds like that PHI has exhibition centers in Montreal, Edmonton, Calgary, and opening up in Quebec City, and that you're going to be actually opening up in Rosemont, Illinois, in the greater Chicago area. And so just curious to hear a little bit around how it's been going so far in terms of this exclusive distributor partnership that's happening in Canada, but also this long-term partnership that's developing. And yeah, just some metrics that you're looking at in terms of evaluating how it's going.
[00:14:15.799] Julie Tremblay: maybe we won't have the same point of view. So Fabien, do you want me, I will start and you complete maybe on my point of view on that. I think it's a questions of, you know, you're trying to, of course, to have the highest throughput that you can, making sure that your occupancy rate is high. So for me as an operator, I wanna make sure that every day when we open, we are sell at 90%. And that's what we will, you know, mostly judge, if capacity of a space and a venue. So we can see that some content are performing more than others, but it's really to find always the content that will resonate with your type of audience. And you can see, you know, this summer I have present one work that was not from Excurio in one of our venues and the audience didn't like it. And now I will have a step forward to bring a next project that will really resonate much more because I need to rebuild that trust with my audience. So I think that, yeah, the NPS score is something I will look into. The appreciation of the piece from the visitors, it's key. And if we want to keep on bringing what's best, we really need to pay attention and making sure we're bringing that right content. And right now, looking at what's out there, what I have the chance to see and what Myriam, my colleague, has the chance to see, Excurio projects are still the best that we can program and we are super happy of that partnership of having that exclusivity on their content because it's a reassurance that we can build on it and continue to grow that audience.
[00:15:50.967] Fabien Barati: Thank you. And yeah, on my side, so as Judy said, we have a few operators worldwide, concentrated in several territories. And so far, the collaboration is extremely great with PHI and we want to develop it more and more because it's important as an operator to be both efficient in terms of profitability, but also having the sense of the audience, really respecting the audience with how to welcome them, how to interact with the audience, and be able also to welcome them in nice spaces where they will have a good experience, they will be able to learn more. And I think Fai is always thinking about everything, about the whole experience, not only the content, right? But the whole experience from the start to when they open the door to when they leave.
[00:16:45.951] Kent Bye: Hmm. Yeah. And I had a chance to check out the Horizon Okufu when I was in New York City during Tribeca. And it was a really great guided tour of a place that I've never been, but also you were able to use the affordances of VR to really take me inside of the pyramid and do things like fly through the pyramid, do things that were kind of the best type of experience I could possibly have, which was giving me a sense of the scale and do things that I couldn't normally do. And when I was at If a doc lab this year, I heard Miriam talking around the advertising of some of these experiences because you've been showing for a number of months now. And I was really struck by how they would be emphasizing more of the experiential aspects rather than emphasizing the technological aspects. And so I was just reading through some of the copy and seeing that you're able to travel down the Nile and arrive at the great pyramid of Giza. It transports the audiences through its chambers, passageways and hidden passages. And so it's, Yeah, just curious to hear a bit more context of the advertising of these immersive expeditions and, you know, what you're really trying to focus on the audience and not try to deceive them that this is a VR experience, but also to kind of focus in on the more experiential aspects for what folks are going to get out of it.
[00:18:01.861] Julie Tremblay: that's a really good observation because for a while you know at the beginning when we've launched the infinite it was in 2021 we were seeing visitors with a headsets and we were communicating that it was a vr experience and it was kind of a um a break sorry i don't have a better word to purchase people were reluctant to try this type of experience So we realized that when we were taking out the VR notion and bring immersive instead, people were more inclined to try it and to purchase a ticket. And we've seen a switch at one point where we could, we'd say maybe in 2023, when we've launched Horizon of Khufu, in their advertising, you really see people, yes, they are next to the pyramid, but they are wearing a headset. And that was not a break to purchase. People were a little bit more inclined. When we add the notion in the copy, weirdly, it was not converting. And with this type of venue, we are attracting again today, still today, 80% of our visitors have never done VR. So it's really an introduction to the technology. And people are buying the fact that they will be able to travel somewhere else. It's the travel, it's the journey, it's the expedition that's appealing. It's not the technology. The technology could have the opposite effect. So for us, we've realized that when people come on site, OK, they are embarking in that journey of VR. But most of the time, they don't really know that they will be doing a VR experience.
[00:19:40.316] Kent Bye: Do you find that across the other vendors as well, Fabian? Just curious to hear any reflections on the advertising of these different types of immersive expeditions and what is really resonating with drawing new audiences in to come see these immersive expeditions.
[00:19:54.437] Fabien Barati: Yes, I think Julie explained it very well. This is also our stance. We don't really talk about technology and we are telling our partners not to talk too much about technology because this is not really the main point of the experience. The point of the experience is to be able to travel elsewhere, to travel back in time, to enjoy the experience with their friends, with their family. And then the meme to do that is a secondary thing, in my opinion. So that's true that in most of the venues, the visitors haven't done VR. Some of them don't even know they are going to do virtual reality things. Even if you don't hide it, sometimes they don't really get that they will wear a headset. And in the end, they understand that VR can be a very, very interesting thing. But again, technology is not the main thing, the main appeal for the audience.
[00:20:51.112] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, the new news that is being announced that we're really diving into today is that PHI is actually going to be opening up a brand new location in Rosemont, Illinois. It's in the greater Chicago area with a couple of exterior pieces with the Horizon of Khufu and Wells Life Chronicles. So why don't you just give a bit more context to this new location of EXP Rosemont and what you're excited about?
[00:21:12.179] Julie Tremblay: Yes, I'm excited about the location. Honestly, I'm excited about the fact that, you know, it's a brand new building. It's a huge space that has amazing potential. Rosemont, yes, it's a neighborhood. It's a small community a little bit closer to the airport, if I can situate it. but very, very dynamic. It's kind of a hub for entertainment, for going out at night. And the city has been the leader of that initiative. They wanted to have an entertainment center in their small communities. And they are driving a lot of traffic from the neighborhood around, which is pretty large in terms of traffic. potential of visitors and just creating a new space, a new building. It's something that it's a dream for a producers because you have the chance to put all of your parameters into it and really design the space with the intent of what we could bring in the future. So our goal with building that destination is to build something that will be long lasting, where we will be able really to create a hub for innovation and bring different types of project. So yes, we are starting with VR. It's not going to be exclusive to virtual reality. We'll bring other type of immersive works. But the goal for us, of course, by bringing Horizon of Khufu and Life Chronicles at the beginning is to set the tone, is to say, okay, this is the type of expeditions that you will do in this location. We will make you travel into other world. And I think it's starting with a very strong offer for us to be able to let an indelible impact on each of the visitors.
[00:22:54.949] Kent Bye: Yeah, and talking to Miriam, she also emphasized how that it's a multi-year contract where a lot of the other existing locations that you've had in Canada were like on more year-long contracts. And so having a multi-year contract means that it's a more semi-permanent location for PHI to really build out and to not only distribute the pieces from Excurio, but also, you know, potentially go into other content above and beyond Excurio. So it sounds like it's a pretty big space. And it's also close to the airport. So if people are flying in and have a long layover in O'Hare International Airport, there is a possibility for them to take a little 15 minute trip over to eXp Rosemont to check out an experience while they're waiting. So that sounds pretty cool. So it sounds like it's pretty big to around 26,000 square feet or so.
[00:23:43.351] Julie Tremblay: Overall, yes, the exhibition space is 20,000 square footage. And yes, this is a long-term lease, but that's also our goal. Yes, sometimes our lease is shorter because we want to try to market. We want to make sure that, okay, this is a city that can sustain having this type of content in a long term. But our goal is really to open up more permanent location than touring exhibition. So we had a chance with Rosemont to be able to build that type of destination with them.
[00:24:13.669] Kent Bye: Nice. And when I was in New York City, the Life Chronicles was going to be opening like the following week. And I think it had opened in previous locations. And so it's going to be opening at EXP Rosemont as long with the Horizon Okofu. And so Fabian, maybe you could just give a bit more context to the Life Chronicles that will be showing there.
[00:24:31.274] Fabien Barati: So Life Chronicles is a co-production between Excurio and the Museum of Natural History in Paris. And it's a travel back in time to discover the history of life. So we go back 3.5 billions of years to attend the beginning of life on Earth. And then we jump through time to discover the evolution of species, of ecosystems. And to do that, we follow two characters. One is Charlie. She's an Egyptologist. And with her is her little robot, Darwin. And this is like a sci-fi movie. But we are inside this sci-fi movie. We are actors. And I think it's a great adventure for the families. And I mean, it's already in Montreal. It's having great numbers, great attendance. And so it's another step for Life Chronicles.
[00:25:24.755] Kent Bye: Julie, I don't know if you have any comments on both the Verizon of Kofu or Life Chronicles.
[00:25:29.118] Julie Tremblay: Maybe just say that we've sold a little bit more than 100,000 tickets for Life Chronicles in Montreal. And we open, I think, correct me, Fabien, if I'm wrong, but we open at mid-February. So we're pretty excited by these numbers. This is a really good result. We're selling around almost during the summer, we were selling almost 5,000 tickets a week. So yeah, it's very popular, maybe much a little bit more for family oriented, I would say. And this is what for us, it's great in Rosemont because it could bring something to do during the day in a hub that tend to be a little bit more night evening. So we'll be able to bring the family audience to this destination.
[00:26:12.003] Kent Bye: Hmm. Yeah, so I understand there's a Dave & Buster's that's like right next door as well.
[00:26:16.956] Julie Tremblay: Yes. I've never been. I will have to check this out. But my understanding is that they're driving a lot of visitors as well. So we'll try to grab that part of an audience as well and work with them.
[00:26:30.954] Kent Bye: Fabian, you mentioned that you were collaborating with like a cultural institution on Life Chronicles. And I know that you were also collaborating with other like subject matter experts on previous projects. And so it seems like that Excurio is really interested in this preservation of cultural history, paying attention to the accuracy of the experiences. And so just curious if you could make a few comments on, you know, why is Excurio so interested in ensuring the historical accuracy of these pieces?
[00:26:57.557] Fabien Barati: Yeah, I think it gives a huge value to the content. So it's not only having fun and discovering things and traveling in time. It's also learning things. And so for each of our projects, we are making sure that everything is accurate in terms of scientific, historical accuracy. And so we work with experts. In the case of Life Chronicles, we worked with paleontologists of the Museum of Natural History, more than 30 paleontologists, because they are all experts in one very specific era. Sometimes they are specialized only in plants, sometimes in animals. And so we had to cover a lot of data. We worked a lot with them. So to define the different ecosystems and species we're going to encounter during the experience, but also how all those animals looked before because no one ever saw one of those animals in real life. Dinosaurs, of course, but a lot more species. And so we worked with them on how they looked and also how they moved. It was a huge work because they are species only with their fossils. And the paleontologists had to really understand, thanks to the for some of the muscles and bones, how those species were moving, you know, for the balance, depending on if they are flying or they are walking or they are running. And so, um, this was extremely interesting, huge work, but in the end you can discover that in a, in much more in life chronicles.
[00:28:37.897] Kent Bye: And I understand that FISE received some grant funding to be able to focus on exhibiting some of these different immersive expeditions to school groups and community groups. So Julie, I'm curious if you could maybe expand on some funding to help bring in new audiences to see some of these experiences.
[00:28:54.085] Julie Tremblay: I would say in Rosemont. It's not something that it's across the board. It's really in Rosemont. It's the city of Rosemont who've decided to invest to be able to bring school group to be able to experience this. And we've seen it's extremely popular in Montreal in the Old Port location. We've been welcoming for Horizon of Khufu a little bit more than 8,000 students. So the teacher are really looking for this type of experience to bring their group. And we are adding educative content so that the teacher can really make a learning experience. So this is something they're really looking forward to it. And they always ask us, what's the next experience? Would it make sense with my curriculum to bring the students to experience these works? So that's something we will try in Rosemount as well and see if we can bring that learning experience to students.
[00:29:50.214] Kent Bye: And Fabian, we were talking at Augmented World Expo around how Excurio is expanding into North America, but also that you're interested in collaborating with different independent producers. And when I was at Venice Immersive doing my 30 plus interviews with the different creators, I had a chance to talk to Richard Turco from Interspace. And they said that they're actually in the process of pitching and potentially working on a number of large scale location based entertainment projects with Excurio. And one of the things that really stuck out to me in that interview was just to hear the a bit around how the shifting landscape of the markets of VR in terms of like meta's shift over to free to play games for a while, they were saying the future is going to be narrative games. And so they're funding a lot of narrative games, but then when the time came for a lot of those games to come out, then meta had kind of like moved on to the next thing and didn't really even support those as much. And so you have a lot of like narrative driven VR shops that are looking for opportunities to expand out and diversify beyond the meta store and the games and that ecosystem, which over time is becoming more and more fragile in terms of really supporting these different studios. And so just curious to hear around how that's been going, if you've been seeing more independent narrative driven VR experience creators coming to you and yeah, just kind of the larger shifting landscape and how in some ways excurio with this location based entertainment is providing an opportunity to find new revenue streams and opportunities for people to explore what's possible in that large scale format, but also to at least help folks diversify from just relying upon a very fickle market of VR experience creation.
[00:31:28.106] Fabien Barati: Yes, I think we, since 2022, when PHI launched the Infinite and we launched Horizon of Khufu, I think since then there is a lot of interest from other producers. I think we proved that there is an effective business model in terms of format, but also in terms of the themes that we are tackling with the this kind of experience and so a narrative way to travel and discover our world and so that again there is a lot of interest from other producers and this is why we are starting this year providing to other producers our tools so what we call our platform So all the tools we are using to create our immersive expeditions in-house in our studio, we are opening them to other studios very soon, actually. So those studios will be able to use those tools and benefit from an already made framework. And so they won't have to redo all the network stuff we did and all the navigation system we did and a lot of things we did to be able to manage a very large for visitors, equipment, content, space, all of that is already done. And this is what we want to offer. And I think this is important for all of us, for the ecosystem to grow and for this format to become a real new standard for entertainment. And so behind that, we are trying to provide a technical standard.
[00:33:08.740] Kent Bye: And Julie, I'd love to hear from your side, because PHI is both distributing pieces of content from Excurio, but also producing your own content. And I'm just curious if you are interested in potentially collaborating with other independent producers of immersive narrative experiences and which pieces might be well suited for something that goes beyond what Excurio is doing, but that you've... had an opportunity to develop your own tools. I'm not sure if you're at the point of releasing them as a tool set or SDK, but yeah, just curious to hear a little bit more around your interest in potentially collaborating with other producers on Fi's side as well.
[00:33:42.533] Julie Tremblay: Yes, we are interested in collaborating for sure. We do co-production as well. We have a project we were pitching at Venice Immersive this year, which is a co-production with Atlas 5 and EconM called Carve in Time, which will also be a free roaming large scale experience. So as part of our priorities, we want to continue to develop commercial work. But at the same time, we are very small studios. We have five developers in-house. So there's no intention for us, like Excurio will do with their platform, to put our platform accessible. It's something we wanted to keep as internal to help support our own development. It's maybe a much more modest investment that we're making in that platform. So for us, it's a tool to propose our own project. But as co-production, I'm changing a little bit, we are also very interested by experimentation. And I think you had a chance to see our latest production, Blur. We've really tried to combine multiple technology to change ways of telling the stories, to use the technology available to support a very strong narrative. And we will really look into collaborating with other artists. We have a fabulous collaboration with Craig Quintero, but we're opening that doors for XR Theater because it's something we are really passionate about. So we'll continue also in that trend for us, the development of our studios. And I just want to say as well in the Excurio platform, I think that as an operator, having this type of solution is really cost efficient for us to have one platform that maybe is much more present, much more accessible. because it's really allowing us to invest in one type of servers, what type of installation, and be able to support multiple content, present multiple content based in that technology.
[00:35:42.486] Kent Bye: Yeah, I can really see the fingerprints of the infinite and some of the way finding type of technologies you had to develop in-house for that and how that fed into a project like Blur where you're really inviting people to have a choreography of how they're moving through a space and really quite innovative. I was quite disappointed that Blur didn't make The top three, I think personally, I think it should have definitely been there. In fact, that was my favorite of the experience. So I was a little disappointed that the juries went with pieces that were a little bit more conventional. But, you know, juries will have different opinions about what they're valuing. But I feel like Blur was one of the most mind blowing experiences I've ever seen. And I'm excited for more folks to start to have a chance to potentially see it. It sounds like though, that the throughput of something like blur from like eight to 10 people per 45 minutes is not really on the same scale of something that might be shown at something like eXp Rosemont. But just curious to hear a bit like what happens to blur now as you move forward.
[00:36:38.047] Julie Tremblay: Yeah. Thank you for your kind word because of course we were extremely disappointed as well. Honestly, we've really, really tried to build a story world and support it differently, but it's theater. So it's a different, it's not film, it's theater. Blur is, I mentioned it, it's an experimental project. So I know there's not a business model that's supported. It's 10 visitors every 45 minutes. But I do feel that those pieces are really important to bring our imaginary of where we are going forward. And we've launched this project in Taipei at the National Theater. And it was really interesting to see that 40 curators from around the world from National Theater came to see the piece. And they all loved it. They all called us. We're having conversation with these theater. So while I was, you know, building this project, in my mind, it was a project for institution like Fife Center and museum. But then I discovered not at all. The network for distribution is the theater. They are interested by that. And we'll see an amazing tour getting in place for this project in Europe, in Asia as well. But it will be really anchors into the theater network. So it will travel, it will be presented at five for sure in February, 2026, but it's short run. It's a very different business model. People are looking, theater are looking at 10 nights. So in terms of costing, we have managed to find a way that it can break even. but you need to do it for four weeks. So if you want to do it for less than four weeks, it's going to be an investment for the theater. But in Europe also, they have a different mindset as how they program and they make these programs sustainable.
[00:38:28.695] Kent Bye: That's great. Yeah, because there is a live performative aspect to this piece. And yeah, like I said, it's bringing in so many innovative aspects that I think it's a piece that is going to leave its mark on what's possible with blending and blurring all of these different media together. So yeah, I'm excited that it's going to have a life after the festival because it's one of the hottest tickets at Venice this year that people were trying to trade all sorts of favors to get in to see it so i know it's certainly in demand at a place like venice immersive and it'll have a rich full life but also again a hard ticket to get a hell of for folks to see it so but yeah you mentioned earlier the co-productions uh fabian and liberty here is something like a co-production with five is that something that you might be entertaining in the future
[00:39:10.652] Fabien Barati: Yeah, I mean, it would be, of course, awesome to co-produce a title with Fai. So, yes.
[00:39:18.037] Julie Tremblay: I always say good co-production takes time. So, you know, we've been knowing each other for a while now, so it's going to come at one point. But I think we're two ambitious studios with different ways of producing. So it's to find something that, you know, where we can meet and really bring the strength of both teams to the table. people.
[00:39:42.526] Fabien Barati: It's going to happen.
[00:39:44.166] Kent Bye: Nice. Very cool. Well, certainly looking forward to, you know, whatever piece that's going to be. But yeah, I feel like that overall, this format of the immersive expeditions is a really great format to have the throughput and it allows the ability to experiment, to see what's possible. You know, Julie, I don't know, in terms of programming, it sounds like you're going to be starting with exterior pieces. I'm not sure if you can say anything else in terms of like future plans, but yeah, just curious to hear anything else you can share on that front.
[00:40:11.864] Julie Tremblay: I can't. Unfortunately, there's many conversations going on. I mentioned we're not going to be exclusive to virtual reality. So I would say that in Rosemont, probably that after presenting Life Chronicle and Horizon of Khufu, we'll go with another format as a presentation piece. But we'll come back to VR as well after. So it's really kind of... to keep the audience on their toes and to expect what's the next big thing that's coming. So we do in terms of programming have a lot of conversation right now to go in other formats, but I can't say more at this stage because it's not fine.
[00:40:50.285] Kent Bye: Gotcha. Yeah, so more to come. Keep an eye out for the programming. It feels like with places like the Sphere and Cosm, Cosm is a place that is a little bit like a mini sphere that can be a little bit more experimental, but there's a lot of experimentation in live sports in the Dome context. But it feels like we're in this phase of really... trying to figure out what the content and the formats are to really sustain this kind of big blockbuster type of formats. And then depending on how well those do, then you have other formats that's going to be there at five that you can experiment with at your own locations, but also perhaps other locations as well. So it feels like it's kind of an experimental phase of trying to see what works and what really resonates with audiences. So awesome. Well, I express the 12th. Awesome. Well, I guess as we start to wrap up, I'd love to hear what each of you think is the ultimate potential of virtual reality and these different types of large-scale immersive expeditions and what they might be able to enable.
[00:41:47.655] Julie Tremblay: For me, if I go first, it's the cross-discipline that's of interest to me is really to see how we can mix different art forms together to create new hybrid performance. That's what's really excited me and what I want to work on the next couple of years.
[00:42:03.340] Fabien Barati: And on my side, so for me, there are two different things. On the technology side, how to have even more, to be able to welcome even more visitors in even better way in the different venues so they can enjoy the best of free roaming VR. So this is on the technology side and on the UX side. And on the content side, we're exploring, not only us, but the whole ecosystem is exploring how to tell new stories. And I think it's really the beginning, right? It's like the beginning of cinema where we are trying to understand the format and what it can bring and how to tell stories in it. And so we're going to see a lot of very interesting things. coming in the next month, years. This is also why we are opening our platform to other producers. We have our own way to tell stories and we are trying to expand and test new things in our projects, but obviously the possibilities are endless. And so this is important for the whole ecosystem to be able to express itself. And yeah, this is what I think for the next month and years.
[00:43:17.935] Kent Bye: If there are folks who are interested in following up, what's the best way to get in touch with each of you?
[00:43:22.958] Julie Tremblay: LinkedIn, I would say.
[00:43:24.598] Kent Bye: LinkedIn?
[00:43:25.659] Julie Tremblay: Yeah.
[00:43:26.920] Fabien Barati: Yeah, me too. Or you go on our website, xqr.com, and you can reach out to us. Very easy.
[00:43:35.544] Kent Bye: Nice. I'll be sure to link to your LinkedIn profiles in the show notes for if people want to follow up, they can reach out to you. And is there anything else that's left unsaid that you'd like to say to the broader XR community?
[00:43:45.578] Fabien Barati: Well, on my side, I'm really excited for this opening in Rosemont. So I'm really looking forward to it. So I hope to see a lot of people there.
[00:43:55.771] Julie Tremblay: And for me, there's just so infinite possibilities right now. And we can really see that the audience are eager for more experience. They're willing to try. We have a chance to have a specific ecosystem here in Montreal where visitors are really inclined to try new stuff. So I'm interested to see innovation coming up in the next couple of years.
[00:44:19.699] Kent Bye: Nice. And when is the opening of the XP Rosemont?
[00:44:23.100] Julie Tremblay: September 25th.
[00:44:24.981] Kent Bye: Okay. Any big plans for the grand opening, like a big party or celebration?
[00:44:29.104] Julie Tremblay: There's always a big party and celebration. So yes, that's going to be happening, but we will welcome our first guest on September 26th.
[00:44:37.029] Kent Bye: Awesome. Well, Julie and Fabienne, thanks so much for joining me here on the podcast to help break down a little bit around what's happening in the immersive expeditions and this really exciting collaboration that's happening between PHI and Excurio in terms of the content distribution and also the independent distribution production and distribution on Fi's side as well. So really excited to see how this new semi-permanent location in United States in the greater Chicago area, you know, how that's going to be the first stop of, I'm sure, continued expansion and continuing to grow out this location-based entertainment and what Fi's doing. It's really quite exciting and yeah, looking forward to see where you all take it here in the future. And thanks so much for joining me here on the podcast to help break it all down. Thank you, Kent.
[00:45:19.671] Julie Tremblay: Thank you, Kent.
[00:45:21.860] Kent Bye: So that was Julie Tremblay. She's the general manager and executive producer at PHI Studio, as well as Fabian Perotti. He's the CEO and co-founder of Excurio. So of a number of different takeaways about this interview is that, first of all, well, I'm really excited to hear that PHI is continuing to expand their distribution network of immersive storytelling pieces and large-scale virtual reality experiences. They are going to continue to produce their own kind of experimental theater and other projects that may not fit this kind of blockbuster scale of 100 to 150 people per hour. A good example is Blur, which just premiered at Venice Immersive. And I just wanted to say a few words about Blur because it really blew my mind and it was my favorite experience from Venice Immersive 2025. It was more of a embodied and kind of theatrical, experimental, kind of surrealist, absurdist combination of all these different topics and ideas and mixing different formats from like a bit of architecture and theater and performative elements, but also like 360 video and CGI and mixed reality. And it's all kind of seamlessly blend together as you're walking through these different spaces, like with six other people that was being shown there at Venice Immersive, but could expand out to eight or 10 or 12. And so this is much more of a small scale experience that they're going to hope to exhibit at more theatrical locations that have theater troops that may be able to staff up. And it requires a much smaller space and they can only have a much smaller throughput. So it's not something that would expect to be seen at EXP Rosemont, but having something that is a successful large scale distribution network for not only these immersive stories and guided tour things to push 100 to 150 people per hour, but But they can also experiment with other different types of content from different scales as well at their different locations, especially as they are moving towards this opening of this combination of PHI contemporary and the PHI center now just to be FI. And they're building their opening about 2029 in Canada and their existing distribution network where they have exclusive distribution partnership in Canada for Excurio content and then kind of a non-exclusive agreement with long-term partnership that's developing between Excurio. So they're each producing their own content and also distributing their content. So they're really a premier distributor, but also a premier co-producer of content that I'm really curious to see where they take this here all in the future. And I think it's just healthy for the overall ecosystem to have these networks of distribution set up so that, you know, in the film festival world, films get picked up and they get distributed and But there isn't necessarily that existing distribution network for XR content above and beyond what we have already seen from SteamVR and from the VR gaming market that has these different app stores and people can certainly see things at home. But I think the location-based entertainment sector is a way that is creating these new revenue streams for these immersive creators and also creating these high quality premium experiences for people to go and experience online. And just one more final thought in terms of the type of content that works well with the Excurio type of format. I've had a chance to see three of their different experiences now. I've saw the sit-down versions of the Eternal Notre Dame, the Impressionists at Venice Immersive, but also the walkthrough versions. And I've also seen the Horizon of Kofu. And the ones that really stuck out with me are the ones where you're walking through space and like, say, Eternal Notre Dame, you're kind of taking a walking tour through the Notre Dame Cathedral and you're kind of going through space and time in a way that you really couldn't have that same type of guided tour today just because you'd be constrained with what kind of physical architecture you could see. But walking through physical space and getting this kind of guided tour is something that works really quite well and so this horizon of kofu fits into that category of this guided tour where you're walking through these different spaces and you're also able to go through time and space in a way that you wouldn't be able to do in a normal tour but also kind of fly through and get really large scale and lean into the affordances of virtual reality doing stuff that you just wouldn't be able to do otherwise i haven't seen the life chronicles yet but it sounds like it's a similar kind of like walking through space and time where you're looking at the evolution of these different species and ecosystems. And so that also sounds like it's resonating with audiences in terms of this compelling content. The Impressionist wasn't as compelling to me just because it was much more focused on the kind of social dynamics and more of a character driven story rather than a story around a place. And it seems like this stories that are specifically focusing on a place and walking through that place seem to do really quite well for this kind of large scale format. So They are looking for different producers to produce these different types of large scale experiences. And so if you're interested, definitely reach out to Fabian Brody. You know, they've got the communication channels you can find on Excurio's website, or you can also reach out to them on LinkedIn. And Julie Tremblay also have her LinkedIn profile information in the show notes. If you have other types of projects that you're interested in collaborating with by studio, then you can reach out to them there as well. So that's all I have for today. And I just wanted to, again, thanks for the sponsorship from PHI Studios. So you can check out the EXP Rosemont that's opening up on September 26th, 2025. It's in the greater Chicago area. And yeah, it sounds like it's going to be in this entertainment center and go check out one of either horizon kofu or life chronicles i'd recommend the horizon kofu i haven't seen the life chronicles yet but definitely go check out all the different content that's there and yeah it's just a new phase of kind of expanding out into north america and continue to develop out this distribution network for large-scale location-based entertainment and free roaming virtual reality experiences and other formats beyond that as well So thanks again for listening and look out for some more Venice Immersive coverage coming out here within a couple of weeks. I'll also be heading out to MetaConnect. So thanks for listening.
