Responses by James Longmire, Story Improvement Director
Transport your self to a fantastical realm of worlds that mixes fantasy, exploration, and storytelling. Meow Wolf is revitalizing the idea of immersive and interactive experiences by offering attendees with a thoughts bending exhibition that opens up the portal of creativeness. Take a stroll by means of the macrocosmic journey of “Home of Everlasting Return” in Santa Fe or money in your Vegas earnings for a ticket to a grocery store with a surreal world at Omega Mart.
These interactive and interconnected multiverse experiences are in contrast to another and have been co-founded by Sean Di Ianni, Matt King, Corvas Brinkerhoff, Emily Montoya, Caity Kennedy, Benji Geary, and Vince Kadlubek. Meow Wolf represents extra than simply an instagrammable second, they attempt to assist social change and collaborate with artists all around the world to create new initiatives. As they’re creating everlasting and momentary exhibitions around the globe, they’re utilizing QR Codes to assist attendees join with the storytelling of every set up.
Bitly was excited to speak with Meow Wolf Story Improvement Director James Longmire and their Advertising crew to study extra about this superb enterprise and the way our QR Codes assist to reinforce the shopper expertise.
Inform us just a little bit about MeowWolf
Meow Wolf creates huge immersive experiences and began off as a small arts collective in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Our first everlasting expertise was opened in 2016 and we referred to as it the “Home of Everlasting Return”. Previous to that opening we had created immersive experiences for a restricted time earlier than shifting to a everlasting one which later led to our second expertise, “Omega Mart”. This was ideated in 2009 when Meow Wolf first was began as an artwork collective and it was a strategy to placed on a pretend grocery retailer idea. In 2012 we rented out an area in Santa Fe and created a press launch advertising the set up and folks confirmed up with baggage pondering they have been procuring at an actual retailer.
The second Omega Mart expertise opened was a partnership with the Chimera Institute the place the scholars created among the merchandise. In 2021 we opened up a everlasting place in Las Vegas. Our third everlasting exhibition, “Convergence Station” is in Denver, Colorado and is our largest expertise to this point themed round an interdimensional transit station the place you might be transported to 4 totally different worlds and it’s run by an organization referred to as QDot. We’re the primary immersive expertise firm that mixes artwork, narrative, and story that’s interwoven into the expertise for our prospects.
What are some memorable moments for Meow Wolf?
We’re usually discovered by individuals like Megan Thee Stallion and Dua Lipa who went to our Denver exhibition. Throughout Easter Sunday we had the crew behind Fantasy Busters come to go to and share their experiences about merchandise they bought in our Santa Fe retailer. Some of the notable attributes of Meow Wolf is that writer George R.R. Martin helped to get our first everlasting in Santa Fe began as a result of he has knowledgeable relationship with our co-founder Vince Kadlubek.
What Bitly merchandise are you utilizing and the way are you utilizing them?
First, some context…
Meow Wolf, the US-based arts and leisure firm, opened a mysterious pop-up immersive expertise at SXSW 2022, creatively directed by Sandra Wang and produced by Jax Delaney. Partnering with Spatial, an audio simulation platform, Meow Wolf took vacationers on a mind-opening exploration of the inventive course of.
Vacationers have been invited to voyage deep right into a mysterious place referred to as the Stream: a psychic channel between worlds the place misplaced concepts resonate off each other, coalesce, and bloom into islands of manifested chance. Every of those islands held a novel sci-fi story exploring the inventive course of.
Every of those tales have been accessed by way of Bitly QR codes that have been artistically built-in into the island itself.
As friends marveled on the detailed miniature worlds earlier than them, they’d uncover these cleverly hidden Bitly QR codes. Merely scanning the QR codes would lead Vacationers to a web site unlocking the tales of those islands by means of an array of “Psychic Artifacts”: a “Zoning Guide” for an absurdist metropolis ruled by “artwork legal guidelines”; a playful “Coming of Orb Story” exploring the significance of particular person expression inside an aesthetic utopia; a “Trash Consumption Log” for a recycling bot on the verge of an inventive existential awakening; and an “SOS Message from an notorious Meow Wolf character” marooned within the wilds of an unknown realm. All of the 14 QR code photos linking to psychic artifacts might be discovered on Reddit, or [SPOILER WARNING] can be unlocked in a single click on with this secret hyperlink.
Vacationers had plenty of enjoyable participating with the islands, and uncovering their tales. Over 12,000 Psychic Artifacts have been unlocked throughout the 4 day activation.
This journey into the Stream was an inspiring journey into the collaborative unconscious of Meow Wolf’s artists, and Bitly QR codes allowed vacationers a fast and enjoyable method of diving deep into our storyworld.
Are the merchandise fixing the challenges you hoped they’d?
At any of our Meow Wolf reveals or activations – every thing is interactive – and we satisfaction ourselves on utilizing any methodology of interplay that lights up our personal imaginations.
For this SXSW activation – we had a really tight timeline from idea to supply, so a few of our extra complicated strategies of narrative interactivity simply weren’t possible. Utilizing our slick web site (designed by Lead Visible Designer, Marley Prudeaux, and constructed by Geet Jacobs, Senior Director, Digital Ops) Bitly QR codes as a supply mechanism for accessing the story of the islands, allowed us to make sure that every bit of art work within the present had a wealthy and accessible story artifact, all inside an excellent tight timeline.
Persons are additionally tremendous accustomed to QR codes! Which ensured a simple studying curve for Vacationers wanting to work together with the story, inside this mind-bending expertise.
Are there advantages to utilizing Bitly merchandise collectively (e.g. branded hyperlinks & QR codes)?
Sure! For us the power to model urls and populate QR codes inside one enterprise answer was invaluable – particularly with our tight timeline.
Bitly’s streamlined merchandise allowed us to construct the web site, write content material, design natural QR borders, and fabricate bodily QR codes all on the similar time – and simply – inside a lightning fast supply window. Many of the bodily QR codes have been populated, designed, fabricated, QC’ed and built-in – inside a two week timeframe.
What would you inform a good friend or colleague who’s wanting into utilizing Bitly?
For creators and customers alike: utilizing Bitly QR Codes is so dang simple! When simplicity and timing are paramount, Bitly is a superb software in an artist’s package.
In the event you’re visiting Denver, Santa Fe or Las Vegas quickly…you positively need to plan to go to one in all these superb installations. Are you prepared so as to add Bitly QR Codes to your software package? Click on right here to study extra.
