Las Vegas’ attractions are known for being world-class and grand, and its immersive art spaces are no exception. In recent years, Sin City has become one of the best places in America to dive into experiential art, from moving digital sculptures that sync up with your heartbeat to escape rooms that drop you into a horror movie.
Travelers can discover a wide variety of immersive art or multisensory works that transform as they engage with them for an individualized experience.
And true to the spirit of Las Vegas, the creators spared no expense in building enormous sets that use innovative, groundbreaking technologies.
Here are four ways to become the main character in a fantastical world of interactive art.
Escape It
Jason Egan started his career in his teens as a haunted house creator in Nebraska.
When he moved to Vegas, he combined his flair for macabre environments with the escape room format (where teams solve puzzles to unlock a series of doors before time runs out).
With 16 rooms spread over 31,000 square feet, Egan’s new Escape It is possibly the world’s largest exit game.
His team built lavish, multisensory sets based on Stephen King’s “It,” including foggy sewers and a soil path that winds through foliage to a decrepit house. Players will get goosebumps from the extreme attention to detail that hits all emotions and senses, from a slaughterhouse’s meaty scent to secret panels that reveal Pennywise the Clown. If you survive to the end, you can level up with Egan’s other escape rooms, themed after “The Blair Witch Project,” “Saw” and “It Chapter Two.”
Escape It is inspired by Stephen King’s “It.”
Credit: 2023 Joey WongFantasy Lab
A group of artists collaborated on Fantasy Lab, which offers two multimedia experiences aimed at unlocking a range of emotions as “dreamers” move through seven rooms. A guide will usher you into visionary worlds — a space flight, a madcap circus, a nightmare forest — and give you up to 10 minutes to explore each.
Wander through a maze of glass panels as lasers pulse to synthwave music, revealing affirmations etched in different languages. Let your imagination soar as digital projections of nebulas and sea creatures morph around your mirrored reflection. When you “wake up” from the dream, head to the bar for color-changing cocktails topped with mouth-tingling edible glitter.
Floral arrangements abound at the Bellagio.
Credit: 2023 Joey WongBellagio Gallery and Garden Table
Discover boundary-pushing exhibitions with immersive elements throughout the Bellagio Hotel & Casino. Step into the Gallery of Fine Art, featuring rotating works by international artists, curated around a theme, such as rebirth.
Gaze up at Nick Cave’s “Soundsuit,” a wearable sculpture designed to emit sounds as it performs (it was first constructed in response to the 1991 beating of Rodney King). Walk along Michelangelo Pistolleto’s colorful eight-panel mirror painting, designed to add your reflection to the work. Then, become part of the Bellagio Conservatory’s horticulture art by lunching at the private Garden Table, surrounded by spectacular floral arrangements and ornaments.
Transfix is located at Resorts World.
Credit: 2023 Joey WongTransfix
At dusk, Transfix at Resorts World Las Vegas lights up with 50 giant “participatory works” spread over 200,000 square feet.
The outdoor attraction has an alien meets Burning Man vibe. Play with large-scale kinetic, sound and light installations that respond to your body. Join other guests in holding heart rate sensors; the combined biometrics shift the music, and illuminations are emitted by an hourglass tower.
Roll a Sisyphean ball that gives off tones, and be transfixed by a seemingly endless portal that responds to your dance moves with kaleidoscopic ripples.
