The Flight Experience is presented by Darkfield a, ‘multi-sensory sonic theme park ‘. The event takes place in complete darkness within a shipping container located outside the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre. Visitors are taken through a 30-minute sound orientated experience in the shipping container.
The event is open from Tuesday the 1st of October until Monday the 7th of October and will cost £8 or £5 with a student card.
Glen Neath is the co-organiser of the event and has been working in the industry for 10 years. Glen shared with The Linc more information about how and why the event was created and what they hope people will take away from the overall experience.
SJ: How did you come up with the idea?
G: David (co-organiser) and I have been making shows in the dark for about 10 years. So, we did a couple in theatres and then we came up with this idea that we wanted it to be portable and taken to different venues. The sound technology that we used there was a disparity between the room we were in and the sound when we were in different sized theatres. So, we wanted to sort of make sure that we had control over the recording in the space that it was in. We thought if we had our own space, we could actually have complete control and we could also build some sets within the spaces because in the theatres there were no sets. That was the kind of starting point to do this shipping container show. We’ve made three so far, this is the second one in the series and they are all set in pitch darkness, using all sound, which you listen through headphones and the general idea is to try to make every audience member feel like the protagonist as if the whole show is geared around them. That’s where the sound and the darkness work really well to give you some sort of feeling like people are whispering in your ear. It feels pretty much about you.
SJ: How does the inside of the shipping container look?
G: We thought for the flight experience how brilliant it would be to put a plane inside of a shipping container. It is basically built like the inside of an airplane. We always start off with doing the design idea or a conceptual idea and we try and find a tech that works around how the experience might feel or we try and find sounds that might be interesting and then we bring in some techs. To me, the idea of this experience was everyone knew they were on a plane, so we came up with this idea of multi universes, and it’s this idea that everything that could happen, is happening in different places. So, I decided that you would be on a plane but also on another plane elsewhere that maybe does not have the same sort of positive outcome. We wanted to show two different realities, two captains, two stewardesses.
SJ: Would you say that people who have a fear of flying, would find it be quite simulative?
G: People have walked in and walked out. It is difficult to say whether people would be afraid of it. I mean it is more to do with the fear of the dark, I think. The experience plays a little bit with people’s fears and trying to work with a person’s fear and anxiety. The first two shows we tried to not make people too afraid, but ultimately, they kind of were. People just felt unnerved about being in the dark, so we thought let us use a bit of that. We used some very short, intense pieces, which is why all our shows are less than half an hour.
SJ: How different are the three shows that you have organised?
G: The first show Séance, which was here last year was a sort of spirit idea, contacting the dead. It was kind of a much simpler show compared to the Flight experience which is a much more technical show. Whereas Coma the other show that’s just finished, you are all lying on bunk beds, which feels more severable and is more about ideas, specifically we put this idea of quantum mechanics in this one, but it feels a bit more about other stuff as well. Coma feels a lot more about this idea of when the lights go out to space disappears. We had this idea that the container that you are in, and the container that you collectively reimagine are completely different things.
Let us know how you found the experience!