Immersive Experience Awards 2026: Award for “Wetterextreme”
The new permanent exhibition “Weather Extremes” at the Klimahaus – pictured here is the “Uplift” – has received an Immersive Experience Award.
© Foto: Sarner International Ltd.
(eap) The consulting and creative agency studio klv from Berlin has received an award at the first edition of the new Immersive Experience Awards for “Wetterextreme”, the experience that opened at Klimahaus Bremerhaven in March 2025. The staging of extreme weather phenomena as the fourth permanent exhibition at Klimahaus Bremerhaven impressed in the category “Production Design and Craft” with its 360-degree projection environment, a hydraulic uplift platform as its centerpiece and the accompanying interactive stations. Further project partners involved in the realization included Sarner International and Moonraker, among others.
Ingrid Hayen, Managing Director of Klimahaus, is proud of the award: “Klimahaus makes climate knowledge tangible, and this international recognition confirms our approach: People do not understand climate change through more data, but by experiencing for themselves what it is like to stand in a virtual storm. ‘Wetterextreme’ makes this possible in a unique way. We are delighted to receive this great recognition, which considered experience worlds from across the globe.”
The Immersive Experience Awards are organized by the British consultancy Alternative Future Ltd., a company based in Thames Ditton in the north of Surrey that organizes international creative and industry competitions, among other things. For the first edition of the awards in 2026, independent creatives, agencies, studios, producers, venues, collectives and companies of any size were invited to submit projects that had been launched, opened or operated in 2025. According to the awards website, an independent jury assessed the projects on the basis of the submitted materials.
Awards were presented worldwide in seven different categories. In the “Immersive Theatre” category, the award went to China and the three project partners Dream Awake, China Merchants Shekou Holdings and The Production Family, whose production “The Deal” created a distinctive live experience aboard a converted former cruise ship in Shenzhen.
British event agency Private Drama Events received an award in the “Immersive Dining and Hospitality” category for the five-hour murder-mystery experience “One Way Ticket” aboard the moving luxury train British Pullman, A Belmond Train. In the “Escape Rooms and Puzzle Experiences” category, Perth- and Sydney-based escape room operator Escape This – Australia won with the escape game “Hotel Murder Mystery”.
Another award category was “Brand Activations”, in which British design and creative agency Imagination impressed with “The Guinness Open Gate Experience”. The attraction in London’s Covent Garden district is a reinterpretation of a classic brewery tour. Across five distinct spaces, including a 360-degree cinema, visitors explore the history of Guinness in London. ■
