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Panasonic and Holovis bring shared immersion to Gunwharf Quays

At Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth, Holovis and Panasonic combined projection, sound, live performance and storytelling to create an immersive family attraction. Visitors to the ApolloDomes installation were invited to step together into a fully immersive environment, surrounded by light, sound and storytelling.

Inside the large-scale projection dome, visuals extended across the field of view, unfolding across the curved interior to create a sense of movement, presence and scale. Families and groups encountered the same stories together, reacting in real time not through individual screens or devices, but as part of a collective moment.

Delivered by Holovis in partnership with Landsec, the installation featured six Panasonic PT-RZ24K 20,000-lumen, WUXGA 3-Chip DLP laser projectors. While visitors might also shop during their time at Gunwharf Quays, the dome was not conceived as a retail environment in itself. Instead, it formed part of the wider experience of visiting the area. “We’re seeing a real appetite for experiences”, says Matt Dobbs, Business Development Manager at Holovis. “It’s about repositioning retail and creating reasons for people to come back out and spend time in these spaces with their friends and loved ones.”

The project reflects a broader opportunity for physical destinations: giving people reasons to visit that go beyond any single activity. At Gunwharf Quays, that meant using immersive technology to create an attraction centred on entertainment, storytelling and shared family experiences, with the surrounding destination benefiting from the additional activity that those experiences can help generate.

Holovis developed a large-scale geodesic dome structure capable of housing fully enveloping projection while remaining flexible enough for temporary or semi-permanent deployment. At Gunwharf Quays, the dome hosted a series of seasonal experiences, ranging from festive productions to Halloween-themed shows.

These were not simply passive visual displays. The experiences brought projection together with live performers, narrative storytelling and sound design to create an environment that felt closer to immersive theatre than traditional digital signage. “It’s about bringing technology and theatre together”, says Alex Kunawicz, Head of Marketing at Holovis. “Ultimately, it’s not about the technology, it’s about the experience.”

Unlike wearable solutions such as VR headsets, which can separate individuals into their own virtual environments, the dome creates a collective space. Families, groups and audiences experience the same moment together, reacting, engaging and connecting in real time. “If you want a connected, family experience, the last thing you want to do is put your head into a headset”, Dobbs notes.

The dome format reinforces this principle. With visuals spanning the field of view, it creates a sense of presence that is both deeply immersive and inherently communal, combining individual engagement with shared storytelling. Inside the dome, multiple projectors must work together seamlessly to create a single, continuous image across a curved surface. This requires precise alignment, geometry correction and edge blending so that transitions between projected images remain invisible to the audience.

Holovis deployed a multi-projector solution based on Panasonic’s 3-Chip DLP laser projection technology, designed for demanding, continuous-use environments. Equally important was the way content itself was designed for the space. Rather than relying on large, flat areas of colour that can reveal seams between projections, the creative team incorporated texture and movement into the visuals, helping disguise transitions and maintain a cohesive image. “It’s about understanding the medium”, states Kunawicz. “If you design the content in the right way, the technology disappears.”

While projection formed the visual backbone of the experience, sound played an equally important role in reinforcing immersion, guiding attention, enhancing storytelling and helping to ground audiences within the environment. For the project, audio systems from KV2 Audio were selected to deliver sound within the constraints of the dome structure. With limited space and a need to keep equipment unobtrusive, the system provided coverage using compact loudspeakers, including CS6 tops, ESD 1.15 subwoofers and ESD 6 surrounds.

“You’d be forgiven for wondering where the speakers are”, concludes Tom Weldon, Director at KV2 Audio, who helped select the technology deployed at the installation. “The goal is always the same: if you’ve done it right, people don’t notice the technology at all.”

(Photos: Panasonic)

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