Review: TUTANKHAMUN: THE IMMERSIVE EXHIBITION, Immerse LDN

As someone who was fascinated by Ancient Egypt as a child and who wrote her dissertation on immersive experiences, Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition seemed like the perfect place for me. The exhibition, at Immerse LDN at Excel, promising “extraordinary journey through Ancient Egypt, exploring the myths and mysteries surrounding Pharaoh Tutankhamun using a combination of cutting-edge technology with historical storytelling, original artefacts and replicas.” 

In the “museum” part of the experience, referred to as the “Introduction Room” and “Treasures 1 and 2,” visitors are greeted by several displays, including a replica of King Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus and his gold funerary mask. The majority of the items displayed in these rooms are replicas, with only one display case having mostly original artefacts - anything actually related to Tutankhamun is a replica. And, unfortunately, the majority of the replicas are easy to spot, looking more like plastic than gold. This section was quite unnecessary as it doesn’t give much information on Ancient Egypt, with more information being found at the free British Museum. There are also posters with information on Ancient Egypt, but there are also many on Howard Carter, the British archaeologist and Egyptologist who discovered Tutankhamun’s tomb. There is little to no mention of those who worked for Carter and did the actual digging that led to the tomb itself. 

Next, visitors enter the “Immersive Room,” which tells the story of Tutankhamun’s death and his journey into the afterlife. If you have ever been to Lightroom, it is exactly like that, with spaces for visitors to sit down and watch projections that play on a loop, repeating every thirty minutes. The images are cool and, at times, pretty impressive - I particularly loved the use of Tutankhamun’s funerary mask. But, as visitors are entering throughout the thirty minute runtime, if they enter at a time that’s not the first five minutes, they might be a bit confused hearing the deep voice of a man talking about his life, especially as Tutankhamun was famously a teenager when he passed, definitely not someone with a voice like that! There is also a bit that goes into the discovery of the tomb and, according to the press release, features the voice of Howard Carter himself, but it would be impossible to know that without prior knowledge.

Once visitors have had their fill of the “Immersive Room,” they move onto the “VR Room,” in which they go into a room full of VR headsets and swivel chairs. A member of staff leads visitors to their seats and helps them adjust the headsets before they are transported into the world of the Ancient Egyptian afterlife. As with other experiences that use VR headsets like Layered Reality’s shows (Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds: The Immersive Experience and Gunpowder Plot: A Tower of London Immersive Experience), the graphics aren’t the best and are usually a bit cheesy, which does take away from the immersiveness of the experience. Visitors can enter at any time as the headsets all operate individually, so there were several times when I could hear people around me talking as they either sat down or left.

The hologram promises to show the process of mummification, but it is made into a “magical” experience with the body hovering in the air as linen wraps itself around it, forming the perfect mummy. If they are willing to discuss removing the brain through the nose, why are they not able to show a more realistic mummification? It’s interesting to see how a hologram is used to portray mummification, but I would have liked to see it be utilised in a more immersive way, like having one of the embalmers speaking directly to visitors as the other prepares the body. The hologram experience is six minutes long and plays every ten minutes, so if you catch it at the wrong time, you’ll be waiting a while.

After the “Hologram,” visitors are guided to the “Metaverse Room” - or, to be more accurate, they are guided to the queue to enter the space in which they can see people wandering around with VR headsets. The website says to allow approximately ninety minutes to experience the whole exhibition. It ended up taking over two hours to get through all of the different parts of the exhibition, with over thirty minutes of this beingspent  waiting in queues to have the next “experience” in the journey. 

In the “Metaverse,” visitors become Howard Carter and see they are surrounded by other Howard Carters, identified by numbers, which is a bizarre experience. All of the Howard Carters then explore a tomb, which I assume is Tutankhamun’s, but I am not 100% certain on as no information was given. In fact, no instructions were given either, so visitors were wandering around and stumbling into one another.

Finally, there is the “Egyptian Photo Booth,” where visitors can use an AI photobooth to “become a real life Egyptian.” I already disagree with using AI as a replacement for human creativity, but it also was strange to see the photo results, with visitors being transformed into Ancient Egyptians. To be completely honest, it feels a bit problematic to have people’s appearances altered in this way. 

Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition is a shell of an exhibition with queues that would only be worth it to see the actual tomb of Tutankhamun, not a world of virtual reality. There is potential for it to be better, but it should advertise itself more as an experience than an exhibition and focus on creating a more immersive world.