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Touring Exhibitions

In this ever-enlarging sector, post-Covid consumers want experiences of other kinds. The strength of audience demand for touring exhibitions post-pandemic is mirroring the concert market…

In this ever-enlarging sector, post-Covid consumers want experiences of other kinds – art, science, design, natural history, museum-worthy antiquities, blockbuster fantasy tales – but always stories of some kind, brought to us through objects, video, audio, technology, and all kinds of cutting-edge immersion.

The range of experiences now circulating under the touring exhibitions banner is increasingly dizzying. “It’s an amazing market in terms of the versatility – the variety of projects and the many different forms they take,” says Manon Delaury, CEO of one-stop touring exhibitions resource TEO. “I think there’s something in it for everyone.”

That means, in terms of subject matter, of course – exhibitions moving the dial on the global circuit focus on everything from Harry Potter, Disney, and Avatar to dinosaurs and deep-sea exploration, to the art of Van Gogh, Monet, and Da Vinci, to the legacy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp –but also in terms of size, which can vary from the truly immense to the distinctly compact.

“You get the very big productions with the big brands and the big names who travel internationally. Those would be 1,500 square all the way to 3,000 square metres,” says Delaury. “And it goes all the way to the smaller projects, like a 500-square-metre art exhibition. I have calls about trying to find1 00-square-metre-specific exhibits.

So, it’s really extremely varied, not only in terms of topics, but also in terms of size. There’s a great variety out there being addressed by travelling experiences.” The engine of the market, albeit not exclusively, is families, for whom such experiences provide a novel way of presenting education as well as entertainment.

“It’s quite hard to drag a kid around the museum, as we all know, but take them to a Van Gogh immersive experience or Monet’s Garden, and they love it – and it’s educating them at the same time”

At a special panel dedicated to touring entertainment at this year’s ILMC, Ingrid Sutej of Eventim-owned Temple Live Entertainment, who promoted the Alegria Exhibition and Immersive Art-produced Monet’s Garden in Scandinavia, said: “It’s quite hard to drag a kid around the museum, as we all know, but take them to a Van Gogh immersive experience or Monet’s Garden, and they love it – and it’s educating them at the same time.”

Quite how big a market we are talking about is open to conjecture. At this year’s ILMC, there was blue-sky talk of a market with $25bn potential, akin to that of the concert market. But realistically there is no consolidated data on the exhibitions market and therefore no way to judge how close we might be.

Anecdotally, however, there is very clear evidence of substantial growth over the past decade or two. One of Germany’s top promoters, Semmel Concerts, launched a division dedicated to touring exhibitions in 2008. Director Christoph Scholz told ILMC this year that exhibition revenues have grown from 2% to 10% of the company total.

“That’s within one of the world’s leading entertainment houses, and that shows significant growth,” Scholz told the panel. “I would say the market is very, very healthy; if you are a promoter/producer, and if you have the right venue and the right approach, just do it. As with anything – any film, any theatre play, any opera – it’s a business, you can win, and you can lose.”

“I would say the market is very, very healthy; if you are a promoter/producer, and if you have the right venue and the right approach, just do it. As with anything – any film, any theatre play, any opera – it’s a business, you can win, and you can lose.”

Like any growing industry, stakes and standards are escalating fast, as is the range of companies involved in the funding, the production, and the supply chain. “Touring exhibitions and the like [have]become way more professionalised,” says Scholz. “Perhaps the same progress the concert industry underwent in the past 40, 50 years or so. Think of where we were some 15 years ago, since my first King Tut exhibitions; so much has changed and so much has remained the same.

We still strive to tell stories in new and immersive ways, technology has changed and become more accessible, the venues have changed, the audience is aware of our niche in the broader entertainment landscape. Major brands are doing more pop-ups, there is an emphasis on engagement, there are new players emerging every day with new ideas and new ways of storytelling that were not always as ‘mainstream.’

“The experience economy has brought a new set of eyes on our industry from both the ticket buyers in the general public who want more of what we were doing in the past and[the] large companies who now see the value and the financial potential of the touring exhibition space.”

You don’t get far into a discussion of exhibitions these days without encountering the concept of ‘immersive’ experiences. Those who build exhibitions to include a variety of hands-on interactions, authentic objects, films, and audio experiences sometimes bristle at the characterisation of projection-based exhibitions in black-box settings as being more immersive than what came before.

You don’t get far into a discussion of exhibitions these days without encountering the concept of ‘immersive’ experiences. Those who build exhibitions to include a variety of hands-on interactions, authentic objects, films, and audio experiences sometimes bristle at the characterisation of projection-based exhibitions in black-box settings as being more immersive than what came before.

“We created the Titanic – you walked inside of the Titanic,” says Imagine Exhibitions president and CEO Tom Zaller, of his very first exhibition, now around 25 years old. “It was supported by objects and media and sometimes three-sided video walls that you walked into. And now people are like, ‘Oh, the new immersive experience world…’ But it’s really not that new. Although it’s nice that it’s getting all the attention now.”

It is easy to see why the word took off. Ina market that took many of its initial cues from the worlds of museums and science centres but whose rivals for our leisure expenditure now include not only live music shows but theme parks and highly sophisticated TV, movies, and games, exhibitions need to find a way to communicate excitement. ‘Immersive,’ often closely followed by ‘epic,’ is usually it.“

The rise of the immersive exhibition is a double-edged sword,” says Neon Global senior vice president EMEA Marc-Elie Robert. “It has brought some amazing content, but at the same time, there’s a lot of people going to shows and being disappointed, and they will push back on buying a ticket for another exhibition.” But there are also good reasons why projections are having a lengthy moment in the sun.

“The appetite for immersive experiences was manifesting itself during the pandemic, but during that time, some of them really took off because there was lots of available space and they didn’t require original collections, so there was less trouble with couriering and management,” says Tim Pethick, CEO of Edinburgh-based Nomad Exhibitions, which bills itself as the world’s most sustainable touring exhibition company and is behind Bowie Taken by Duffy, Golden Mummies of Egypt, and Ming: The Golden Empire.

There are other reasons why immersive projected exhibitions, including those that focus on the works of legendary artists, are a popular bet: the material itself is out of copyright and consequently free to use.

There are other reasons why immersive projected exhibitions, including those that focus on the works of legendary artists, are a popular bet: the material itself is out of copyright and consequently free to use.

 

Roei Amit is CEO at France-based GrandPalais Immersif. The company is a spin-off from an umbrella organisation made up of Paris’s key cultural institutions. Following success with its exhibition bringing Venice to life in the French capital, plus a Mona Lisa display in Marseille, it now has a new all-encompassing exhibition called Eternal Mucha, dedicated to the Art Nouveau master Alphonse Mucha. The exhibition is seeing 1,000 visitors a day, with full price tickets costing €16.

“These exhibitions share the works of artists in a way that’s very engaging and accessible for people who might not have an art history degree; they open them up for everyone,” says Amit.

“Our exhibitions are created with large audiences in mind and with a particular focus on families. We call it ‘meaningful immersion.’ While the images are impressive, what makes our products stand out from some in the market, is we go deeper – we add context and expert knowledge. In that sense, the DNA of what we do is similar to classical cultural institutions.”

He says the company offers two touring formats of its exhibitions: a “tailormade” version, which can be designed for a bespoke space, or a ‘blackbox’ version, which is designed to be projected in rectangular spaces, making it very flexible in terms of the venue it can happen in.

Amit says the company is flexible in terms of the deals it does with promoters. “We are always looking for guaranteed minimum because we bring all the IP and media assets. But after that, we’re flexible with how we structure the deals.”

Belgium-based MB Presents’ Manu Braff says the company has a number of shows touring, including Dino World; Sand Sculpture Festivals, which starts again in July; plus an exhibition called Great Art for Great Kids, which is about art being presented through animals.

It also has an immersive experience called Tokyo Art City: Sakura Fantasy, “which has been very successful [since] it started in December.” Created with a digital art studio in Japan, it enables visitors to the VIAGE Digital Art Theater in Brussels to immerse themselves in the Japanese capital during springtime. In October, its Lanterna Magica light trail reopens.

As well as producing its own events, MB Presents promotes shows. “We’ve seen the big return of Cirque du Soleil, and it’s done amazing numbers with Crystal, and now we have two more shows. We’ve never had so much Cirque in one year here, and it’s gone very well.

“Riverdance has sold more tickets than we’ve had in many years; we had the most successful monster truck show ever: Hot Wheels Monster Trucks, which surpassed all other monster truck show sales of the last 20 years here. It’s been interesting to see how much hunger there is for the right product.”

“We’re in that place where you have to raise the ticket price because otherwise you can’t cover the costs,”

And while there’s huge demand for family entertainment, the spectre of increasing costs looms large. “We’re in that place where you have to raise the ticket price because otherwise you can’t cover the costs,” say Braff. “But you have to be careful not to raise them too much because then you’re not going to sell. The bottom line has been squeezed hard, and so we’ve had to have some tough conversations.”

Braff notes there’s increasing competition in the market, especially as major multinational companies start to produce their own content. “Many people are trying to find models that are big money earners, but the successful people in the industry had to start small and build it up in order to get to where they are today. I’m not sure which model will work out. For instance, Kilimanjaro Group’s Christmas light trails is a fantastic success story.

They started with one, and they’ve made it scalable, and it works really well for them. But to someone who says, ‘I’m going to put €50m into three exhibitions, without any experience,’ I would say, ‘maybe you should buy Bitcoin.’ Experience is key, and it’s important to work with people who know what they’re doing because it’s very easy to fall flat on your face.”

Of course, not all exhibitions are of the same calibre. The challenge for those who are aiming to set standards in the business, says Robert, “is to communicate with the promoters, the partners, the public, and the media about how different the content we have is, versus a couple of guys who have got together and created an immersive project with some screens. Our productions have sets, we have projections, we have screens, we have content.”

Neon Global – formerly City Neon until its rebranding in October – is based in Singapore but recently added a London office to its international network. The primary focus of the company since 2014 has been Hollywood IP –Neon’s touring properties include two sets of Avatar: the Exhibition, four sets of Jurassic World (with a fifth under construction), five Marvel Avengers: S.T.A.T.I.O.N. experiences, as well as The Hunger Games: the Exhibition in Las Vegas and a Transformers set that is currently not touring but available.

The ticker on Neon’s website had clocked up well over 8.15m physical visitors to its exhibitions at the time of writing. Also on the circuit from the same company are exhibitions focusing on Machu Picchu, Ramses the Great, Mummies of the World, Victoria the T. Rex, Pompeii and –currently at the Reagan Museum in California–Auschwitz: Not Long Ago. Not Far Away.

A massive collection of artefacts co-produced with Spanish company Musealia, including personal belongings of victims, structural elements from the camp, documents, and unpublished audio-visual materials.

In practice, every exhibition has its own benchmarks for authenticity and relevance. For Flying Fish, a leading producer of touring museum and science centre exhibitions, which in June will launch the OceanXperience exhibition at Liberty Science Center, New Jersey, in partnership with ocean research organisation OceanX, the recipe is a specific but typical one.

“I think the more authenticity, real objects, and cutting-edge science tech you can bring in, the more interesting and engaging it is to the visitor,”

“I think the more authenticity, real objects, and cutting-edge science tech you can bring in, the more interesting and engaging it is to the visitor,” says Flying Fish founder Jay Brown. “There’s a million different ingredients in that recipe, but if you have a really engaging experience, and bring in IP holders of the calibre of OceanX or National Geographic, you’ll deliver a world-class experience where everybody has a good time and walks away having learned something new.”

Proactiv is the leading family entertainment promoter in Spain. It also creates its own exhibitions that tour worldwide. “The key is producing good content that’s appealing to different crowds around the world,” he says.

“Our exhibition created with the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Meet Vincent Van Gogh, has been touring for the last six or seven years,” says Renna. “It’s been to South Korea, Spain, UK, Chile, and is currently in Argentina.” He says it’s sold hundreds of thousands of tickets around the world.

“In 2021 we opened an exhibition about the football club FC Barcelona. It’s been to Dubai, now it’s in Mexico, and from there it’s going to the USA – it will stop at three or four cities there.”

Innovation

The market is clearly exploding right now, but Covid sent a chill down its spine. Many new, high-end projects pressed pause – to return, in many cases, about now – however, those already in operation often found new ways to keep going, benefiting from their ability to offer relatively distanced entertainment.

“People have been remarkably innovative in the way they manage exhibitions,” says TEO’s Delaury. “They developed new practices, like remote couriering. When you are couriering original collections, they need to be accompanied by somebody who’s watching them at all times. And people have been doing it remotely with webcams, online management.

“People have been remarkably innovative in the way they manage exhibitions,”

“And when you do condition reports– when the artworks arrive, you check if everything is in order in terms of, like, how the collection’s doing – they’ve been doing that remotely as well. That also enables new green practices because it lowers quite drastically the carbon footprint of the exhibition, since you don’t need a full delegation to manage the development and installation. But some installation teams managed to travel during the Covid time and do amazing installs, and it was quite remarkable.”

Since such conditions eased, the market has rebounded with further vigour. “The opportunities are booming,” says Delaury. “Everybody’s so busy. Many producers are fully booked this year, and it’s looking really good for next year.”

For Semmel Exhibitions, 2023 is looking like it could be the busiest year ever, says Scholz. “By the end of May, we will have four large-scale exhibits open in the US alone: Disney100: The Exhibition in Philadelphia; Marvel: Universe of Super Heroes in Charlotte; Spider-Man: Beyond Amazing – The Exhibition in Kansas City; and – he is the Rolling Stones in the world of exhibitions – The Discovery of King Tut & Tutankhamun: His Tomb and His Treasures in Columbus. And we are organising an array of partner events throughout the year.”

Team game

Just as in the concert sector, the touring exhibition business is a team game, involving exhibition producers, promoters, and venues, each one a vital piece of the jigsaw. But its parameters are shifting. Traditionally, the market depended on producers matchmaking their productions with museums or other civic and cultural institutions in need of content, either for footfall or ticket sales.

Now, there are several further potential models, as promoters worldwide experiment with renting or even buying their own venues for permanent or consecutive exhibitions, and larger entertainment venues mull the potential of exhibitions for longer-term revenues.

In December 2022, DEAG-owned Kilimanjaro Group, which produces more than 2,000 live music and theatrical shows each year, announced it had been granted a 15-year lease to transform the London Bridge arches location into a fixed cultural hub featuring 6m high, 360° cavernous galleries. After a £5m investment, Arches at London Bridge is projected to welcome up to 400,000 visitors each year. The move marks the DEAG subsidiary’s first long-term lease acquisition into entertainment venues (see breakout box).

And while museums and other cultural and educational centres were once the most natural destination for many exhibitions, these days lines are blurring and taking on new commercial shapes.

And while museums and other cultural and educational centres were once the most natural destination for many exhibitions, these days lines are blurring and taking on new commercial shapes.

Nomad Exhibitions, for example, recently launched an exhibition of photographs of David Bowie by British photographer Duffy, which debuted last month in Madrid at COAM (Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid).

“Most of our exhibitions have been about ancient cultures, archaeology, and ancient history,” says CEO Pethick. “But we have definitely been interested in taking on more contemporary culture and themes, so when the Duffy archive contacted us in 2019, we were quite excited.”

In this instance, the promoter and producer is the Madrid-based Sold Out, whose calendar this year is virtually a blow-by-blow guide to the touring exhibitions of modern days, including Semmel Exhibitions’ Tutankhamun, Warner Bros/Imagine’s Harry Potter: The Exhibition, and crowd-pullers such as Banksy and Stanley Kubrick.

“Increasingly, the whole market is moving into the private sector,” says Pethick. “Our Bowie exhibition is a good example: it’s not being rented by a museum or gallery; it’s being leased by a producer in Spain. That’s a first for us.”

Other developments have also lowered the barriers to entry in such markets, Pethick adds. “Producers are bringing in design expertise and AV producers, leasing non-traditional venues, investing lots of money in them and having a lot of success.

“Most people buy tickets online now, which makes it easier for exhibitions to run in non-traditional spaces – I suppose that’s another pandemic-related change.”

“Most people buy tickets online now, which makes it easier for exhibitions to run in non-traditional spaces – I suppose that’s another pandemic-related change. All you need to become a company now is some finance to be able to pay a deposit on avenue and bring an exhibition in and ticket it – and you can even ticket with a partner on a revenue-share model.”

Upfront costs

Stories of heady upfront investments are legion and multimillion dollar builds for larger exhibitions are standard. Semmel Exhibitions, for instance, invested €3.5m in the Marvel: Universe of Superheroes exhibition experience before a single ticket had been sold. GAAP raised €4m in private capital for its Sensory Odyssey experience, which recently completed a debut run in Paris (see box).

Consequently, the risks remain significant, which is why, for an exhibition of almost any size, lengthy runs in a string of venues are vital. “To build any exhibition requires a huge amount of investment,” says Pethick. “A single venue fee wouldn’t cover the model. We normally say it takes about two or three venues to break-even on a new project. The idea is that tours last five years on average and sometimes, seven, eight, or more years.”

“To build any exhibition requires a huge amount of investment. A single venue fee wouldn’t cover the model.”

As many producers will tell you, finding an appropriate venue for an experience is a critical piece of the puzzle, and as the volume and requirements of touring exhibitions increase, it is one that calls for creative thinking.“

It’s not easy to find a 2,500- to 3,000-square-metre venue with nine meters under the beams and very few columns or pillars in the centre,” says Neon Global’s Robert. “We look at a lot of non-traditional venues – places like old factories that you get scattered around cities like Manchester, London, and Berlin. Those are interesting. The issue is always having to retrofit them, masking the big windows so you can create a black box. There are investors who are acquiring venues like that for exhibition halls, and that’s an interesting development, too.”

In China, where the property crisis has led to a construction slowdown, real-estated developers have used dormant pieces of land for temporary exhibitions structures – a solution less likely to work in Europe, where approvals are typically stricter. Then there are the venues more accustomed to conferences and shows, who like the idea of a single event that runs for several months.

“What [London events and conference centre] ExCel did with Jurassic World in London is a great testament to some of those big venues starting to change their business model,” says Robert. “They probably don’t make as much money when they rent a hall to an immersive exhibition for five months, but it creates a connection. They become a destination for families – it changes the demographics.”

“They probably don’t make as much money when they rent a hall to an immersive exhibition for five months, but it creates a connection. They become a destination for families – it changes the demographics.”

Jole Martinenghi, international culture partnerships manager at Florence- and Milan-based exhibition curator Contemporanea Progetti, used this year’s ILMC to expand the outlets for the company exhibitions and experiences.

These include The Etruscans; Pompeii: Splendour and Death Under the Volcano; Venice: Queen of the Sea; and Gladiators: Heroes of the Colosseum– all deploying collections of antiquities from world-class museums and historical sites, including the Colosseum in Rome and the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.

“In terms of venues, we work 99% with museums, but during ILMC, I presented ourLeonardo Experience, a fully multimedia immersive exhibition that we developed for a museum in Germany in 2020 and for congress centre in Taipei, Taiwan, in December 2022,” says Martinenghi.

“It’s a great example of how we tailor each of our exhibitions to the needs of any exhibition venue – either a museum or a non-museum venue. Concert halls can be also spaces for exhibitions – we organised a Gladiators Experience in an ice hockey arena in Finland some years ago.”

The abiding trend in the experience field right now is a pop-cultural trend, Martinenghi notes, so exhibitions dealing in history and artefacts need to rise to the challenge.

“We have an exhibition about how the modern superhero has its origins in archaeology,” she says. “So, how for example, Wonder Woman comes from the Amazons or how Hercules gave birth to the idea of Superman. We show how pop culture has roots in history and archaeology, and so we can involve very different kinds of audiences– the youngest but also parents and grandparents.”

Blockbuster brands

Given the abiding influence of recognisable brands on even historical experiences, it is tempting to conclude that any blockbuster IP can translate directly into a blockbuster exhibition, but it isn’t that simple.

Given the abiding influence of recognisable brands on even historical experiences, it is tempting to conclude that any blockbuster IP can translate directly into a blockbuster exhibition, but it isn’t that simple.

“The IP helps, no doubt; how much it helps is interesting,” says Zaller, whose résumé includes everything from Angry Birds Universe and Jurassic World to the current Harry Potter: The Exhibition, with over 45 different touring exhibitions out right now. “You put a Harry Potter logo up, it’s going to sell a bunch of tickets. But you have to finish the job. You have a great opportunity, and then you have a responsibility to make it great.”

Zaller says Imagine turns down far more ideas than it adopts, for many reasons. Even big-name brands don’t always lend themselves to the format.

“Some of the sci-fi stuff and some of the music stuff just doesn’t work because it’s too far-fetched for a visitor. There are some things that just don’t translate. In Harry Potter, I can put you in Hogwarts, I can put you in the classroom, I can give you that experience that feels like ‘wow!’”

A vital quality, he suggests, is the ability – clearly not as simple as it sounds – to pick the concepts that work. “Titanic wasn’t my idea, but I was brought into it; I thought it was amazing, and it still works to this day. It had its big moment in the sun, but it’s a great story, and when you tell that tale, it works.

“When Universal Studios called me and said, ‘hey, we’d like to talk to you about creating a Jurassic World experience,’ I was like, ‘That works. I know that works.’”

“When Universal Studios called me and said, ‘hey, we’d like to talk to you about creating a Jurassic World experience,’ I was like, ‘That works. I know that works.’ So, we developed, produced, and opened Jurassic World: The Exhibition, and it was a huge success. I would probably still have it if I hadn’t sold it to another company.

“It’s the same when NBCUniversal International called me wanting to create a Downton Abbey exhibition – I knew that we could make that work. On the ticket side of things, I didn’t know it was going to be as successful as it was, but I knew that I could turn it into an experience that felt immersive: I can put you in Highclere [Castle]; I can take you into the kitchen and recreate where Mrs Patmore stood with Daisy, and you could be there together. That’s what you want.”

The latest auspicious call came from Warner Bros, asking Imagine to create its Harry Potter experience. “I 100% knew that we could make it super-immersive and amazing, because the story lends itself to it,” says Zaller. Technology, of course, plays a big part in the quality of the immersion. Heidi Pinchal of Brand Image Group is an admirer of what Imagine has achieved.

“The Harry Potter experience Tom Zaller is touring now is beautiful,” she says. “It has that interactive quality to it. You’re immersing yourself in the storyline because you know it all”

“The Harry Potter experience Tom Zaller is touring now is beautiful,” she says. “It has that interactive quality to it. You’re immersing yourself in the storyline because you know it all, but you also get sorted by the [Hogwarts] hat, so you’re also participating. You go through the experience and have to learn how to use your wand and things like that. Those are all very much assets that are being brought to life by technology.”

Global differences

Such experiences are designed to tour the world, but inevitably, a global market has to take into account certain regional differences. As Jay Brown notes, the market of virtual exhibitions based around the art and science of Leonardo Da Vinci – all the rage in North America around a decade ago– tends to fall away in Italy, for example, where anyone with an interest can travel a couple of hours and see many of the originals.

“Based on the subject matter, the presentation of the exhibitions we find is slightly different,” says Brown. “North America is all about interactivity and having something to engage with. We find some of Europe is more introspective than North America. But I’d say the UK is probably more North American than European, in that sense.

“However, if you have the right exhibition mix, with IP or subject matter that’s globally relevant, you can go anywhere. We’ve been to the Middle East, Asia, South America, and Central America. I think it’s just a matter of finding those legacy concepts or legacy content that is applicable across cultures and also across time.

“The last thing we want is to produce an exhibition that’s got a shelf life of three years. A lot of our subject matter has a 50-year lifespan because of its relevance.

“The last thing we want is to produce an exhibition that’s got a shelf life of three years. A lot of our subject matter has a 50-year lifespan because of its relevance. Nobody’s going to get sick of learning new things about space or learning new things about dinosaurs or the deep oceans or anything like that. So that’s where we tend to focus our efforts – in making sure that whatever content we’re developing, it has a legacy.”

In the current geopolitical climate, some markets are more primed for action than others, according to Pinchal, who is currently building a permanent exhibition for MGM. She notes that many producers are looking for semi-permanent homes for exhibitions to minimise the spiralling costs of touring.

“The big hit outside of the United States is the Middle East, where they’re putting a lot of money into things. In the Middle East and in the US, we are seeing a lot of location-based exhibitions in places like malls.

That was a model that was followed in Central America and South America about seven years ago, although those markets have almost completely dried up. I also see within the United States that the museum markets are heavily drying up, or else they are having to be very careful with their resources, which have been very limited.”

Clearly, many exhibition producers have already seen the direction of travel, planting their attractions in the fertile commercial soil of the private sector. Where the market heads next is inevitably further into technology-assisted immersion – that word again – and you wouldn’t bet against that $25bn valuation just a little further up the road.

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