Eric Gradman is the co-founder and chief technology officer of the Two Bit Circus, a high-tech spectacle that has a fine eye on old-school showbiz paired with contemporary immersive experiences.
The experiential company is carrying the momentum from a strong 2015 highlighted by $6.5 in funding, being named as a top startup to watch, as well as an installation of their live-action, social immersion game Story Room at Dave & Busters.
Gradman will be speaking at the [a]list summit on April 20 in Seattle to give the audience a taste of what makes Two Bit Circus a trendsetter in entertainment. (Spoiler alert: He’s also beta testing a new way to give highly interactive presentations.)
The interactive artist joined [a]listdaily to discuss how they’re bringing novel forms of entertainment to the world, and innovating at the time.
Can you tell us a little about what you do?
We’re a high-tech circus! What Ringling Bros. did with animals, and Cirque du Soleil did with human performers, we’re doing with technology. For over the last few decades, technology has transformed almost every aspect of our lives. But when you want to go out and have fun with friends on a Saturday night, you’re stuck with the same few options you’ve had for 50 years. We’re revolutionizing out-of-home entertainment with modern technology.
Story Room is an immersive in-real-life-installation that brings six-to-eight players together to experience something that’s a TV episode, video game and interactive theater experience all rolled together. There are plot twists, puzzles to solve and you’ll leave with the satisfaction of having saved the world.
Steam Carnival is a traveling carnival complete with high-tech games, engaging workshops for kids and mind-expanding stage performances. We get to blow the minds of people twice—once when they see classic carnival games reimagined with technology, and then again when we pull back the curtain and show them how we design and build those games. We also recognized early on that virtual is transforming the media landscape, and we’ve pioneered VR activations for top sports brands combining 360-degree video and haptic platforms for total immersion.
What is it like to be a venture-backed circus?
Running a high-tech circus is hard work, but a challenge we’re excited to take on. We’re glad to have funding and investors who believe in our vision. Our venture investment is allowing us to bring some truly novel forms of entertainment to the world while continuing to develop and innovate in immersive entertainment.
You guys are building a content studio for VR. Can you tell us more about that?
We’ve added an extreme sports director to the roster, Bo Bridges, to take what we’ve done so far with live-action sports to the next level. We’ve built out two new cameras that are highly cinematic, and polished. We’re shooting with them right now on projects we can’t yet disclose, but we’re excited about future consumer-focused projects, too. We are building considerable tech to support social interaction and activation within VR, including accompanying haptics and motion platforms. We have also expanded on our VR syncbox capabilities for clients to command a variety of playback sync functions.
How have you worked with brands in the past?
Story Room, VR and Steam Carnival are all entertainment platforms, and we’ve never had trouble finding meaningful brand partnerships and integrations. For example, we built a Story Room to help the CW Network launch their show The Flash. This was a travelling, immersive experience full of interactive that gave every visitor The Flash’s superhuman speed, all stitched into a story and summed up with a social media takeaway. We built our VR studio by creating incredibly memorable activations for major sports brands like the NBA, NFL, the Olympics, Indycar, and more. We’ve become a leader in action-sports VR, and are excited to continue evolving within VR, augmented reality and mixed reality by creating unique storytelling content that reaches new genres and audiences. Our Steam Carnival is made possible with help from incredible sponsors and partners. For our most recent Carnival, we worked with title sponsors—Cisco and Cartoon Network—to create an amazing three-day experience for over 16,000 attendees. We love working with brands who’re as excited as we are about inspiring the next generation of inventors.
Branded entertainment is bound to be on the minds of attendees at the summit. What advice do you have for brands on engaging an audience?
Even when working with big brands, we always try to focus on what’s going to be fun for the customer. We’re limitless in our ability to craft game-changing experiences, so those that know our brands have come to understand that if it’s a Two Bit Circus production, it’s going to likely be something they’ve never seen. We’ve found that when we create products and experiences that keep customers engaged and excited, that we’re able to deliver a successful activation for both the brand and the user.
Follow Manouk Akopyan on Twitter @Manouk_Akopyan.
