There are more immersive experiences running in London on a given night than most people realise. There is still no agreed definition of what one is.
The label now covers everything from a projected art show to a four-hour production where you are handed a costume at the door and become part of the story. Those are very different nights out. Booking the wrong one is how people end up disappointed.
This guide explains what separates them, how to choose, and what actually happens when you arrive.
We build four of them, so we have a view. We have tried to be useful first and promotional second.
Three broad types, and the difference matters more than the marketing suggests.
Immersive theatre. You watch, but you move. The set is a building rather than a stage. You choose where to go and see a different version of the show depending on your choices.
Immersive dining. The story is built around a meal. Courses arrive as part of the narrative. Strong on atmosphere, usually seated, usually three hours or so.
Participatory experiences. You are given a role. You are spoken to in character and expected to answer. The night doesn’t work unless you join in.
The third type divides people most sharply. If being addressed in character sounds like a nightmare, book the first. If it sounds like the best part, book the third.
How much do you want to participate?
Be honest, and be honest about your group. One reluctant person can flatten a table of six.
Are you eating?
Some experiences include a full meal, some serve drinks only, some sell food separately. This changes both the cost and the shape of the evening.
How long have you got?
Ninety minutes to four hours, depending. Check before booking a late dinner afterwards.
What is the occasion?
Birthdays, hen and stag parties, team socials and dates all suit different formats. A loud, chaotic, in-character experience is superb for a group of ten and a poor choice for a second date.
What is the dress code?
Some experiences ask you to dress the part. It sounds like a chore and is usually the thing people enjoy most.
Most follow the same shape.
Before you arrive. You may get an email in character with instructions, a dress code, or a name to use on the door. Read it. It is part of the experience.
Arrival. You are met in character. The transition from street to story usually happens in the first two minutes.
The first act. Setup. You learn the rules of the world, who the characters are, and what is expected of you.
The middle. Where the experience opens up. Split narratives, choices, things happening in more than one place at once. You will not see everything, by design.
The finish. Most build to a set-piece ending everyone shares.
Afterwards. Expect to be turned back out onto a normal London street feeling slightly dazed. This is normal.
Alcotraz is an immersive prison cocktail experience on Hackney Road in East London. You arrive in an orange jumpsuit carrying a bottle you were not supposed to bring. The guards are on the gang’s payroll, the Warden is not, and the inmates working the canteen build four cocktails around whatever you got past the metal detector. There is no menu. You tell them what you drink and they work the rest out. How your sentence ends depends largely on what you decide to tell the Warden about your cellmates.
Duration: 1hr 45min
Location: Unit 3B, 127 Hackney Road, London E2 8GY
Included: four personalised cocktails or mocktails
Nearest stations: Hoxton, Shoreditch High Street
Age: 18+
Runs: Tuesday to Sunday, from £51pp
Best for: birthdays, hen and stag parties, and groups of six or more.
Moonshine Saloon is a Wild West immersive experience in the City of London, three minutes from Liverpool Street. The local tailor fits you out on arrival, because turning up dressed like a Londoner is the fastest way to interest the Sheriff. Inside, you hand over your liquor and the barkeeps turn it into three or four rounds while the regulars deal cards and roll dice around you. The Saloon runs on Clyde Cassidy’s bootlegging money, and Cassidy is a wanted man. Prove useful enough and somebody may show you the distillery out the back.
Duration: 1hr 45min
Location: 28-30 Houndsditch, London EC3A 7DB
Included: three to four personalised cocktails or mocktails
Nearest stations: Hoxton, Liverpool Street
Age: 18+
Runs: Tuesday to Sunday, from £41pp
Best for: big groups, stag and hen parties, and anyone who wants to play cards in a Stetson.
Visit Moonshine Saloon, the Wild West experience in the City
Avora is a sci-fi immersive cocktail experience beneath Shoreditch, built inside a working bioluminescent forest set. You check in at Roscorp Laboratories, lock away your belongings, pull on a jumpsuit and take a briefing from Dr Shelly. The atmosphere on the other side of the gateway is not survivable unprepared, so you carry a sealed flask of Luminol through with you. That is the first of your three cocktails. The Avorians are still deciding whether humanity can be trusted, and the last team Roscorp sent through the gateway did not come home.
Duration: 1hr 45min
Location: Unit 5C, 127 Hackney Road, London E2 8GY
Included: three handcrafted cocktails or mocktails
Nearest stations: Hoxton, Shoreditch High Street
Age: 18+
Runs: Tuesday to Sunday, from £44.50pp
Best for: date nights, and anyone who reads science fiction.
Hexmoor is a fantasy prison experience in Shoreditch, built to hold the most dangerous practitioners of dark magic in the realm. You are processed, issued a uniform and locked in alongside them. Magic is outlawed inside the walls, though a smuggling network still moves contraband potions through the prison, and three of those are yours across your sentence. Inmates have begun disappearing. An old prophecy is circulating, an artefact is buried somewhere in the building, and several people will offer to tell you where. Most of them are lying.
Duration: 1hr 45min
Location: Unit 11, 127 Hackney Road, London E2 8GY
Included: three handcrafted cocktails or mocktails served as contraband potions
Nearest stations: Hoxton, Shoreditch High Street
Age: 18+
Runs: Tuesday to Sunday, from £48.00pp
Best for: fantasy fans, and groups who want a mystery to pull apart.
An immersive experience puts you inside a story rather than in front of one. You are given a costume and a place in the plot, the sets are built to be walked through rather than looked at, and live actors respond to what you say and do. At Inventive Productions’ four London experiences, the drinks are written into the story instead of ordered from a bar.
No. An escape room is a timed puzzle game with locks to solve and a clock running. Inventive Productions’ four London immersive experiences have no timed puzzles and nothing to crack. You are processed into a live story performed by actors, you spend 1 hour 45 minutes inside it, and three or four cocktails or mocktails arrive as part of the plot.
All four of Inventive Productions’ London immersive experiences run for 1 hour 45 minutes from the start time on your ticket. That covers check-in, your costume, the full story and every drink included in the price. Sessions run to a fixed schedule and start without latecomers, so arrive at the time you booked rather than the time you finish work.
Tickets to Inventive Productions’ London immersive experiences start at £41 per person for Moonshine Saloon, £44.50 for Avora, £48 for Hexmoor and £51 for Alcotraz. Every ticket includes the full experience, a costume, and either three or four cocktails or mocktails. Upgraded tickets add an extra drink, a souvenir, or in Hexmoor’s case a hand-made wand.
No. None of Inventive Productions’ London immersive experiences require acting, roleplay or lines. The cast do the performing. You can talk to characters, take on a role and push the story around, or sit with your group and let it happen in front of you. Every session contains a mix of both, and the actors are used to working with either.
Yes, and they are among the most common reasons people book. A group gets a shared story to react to rather than a table to sit around, which is useful when half the room has not met before. All four London experiences take group bookings and private hire. Alcotraz and Moonshine Saloon also sell character roles, so the birthday, the bride or the boss can be written into the plot.
It depends which experience you book. Alcotraz and Moonshine Saloon are bring your own: you smuggle in one sealed bottle of spirit and the cast build your cocktails around it. Avora and Hexmoor include their drinks, so you bring nothing. All four provide the mixers, liqueurs, syrups and garnishes, and every drink has a mocktail version at no extra cost.
Inventive Productions runs four immersive experiences in London. Alcotraz is a prison cocktail bar on Hackney Road. Moonshine Saloon is a Wild West saloon in the City. Avora is a bioluminescent sci-fi world beneath Shoreditch. Hexmoor is a fantasy prison, also in Shoreditch. All four run for 1 hour 45 minutes, provide a costume, and include cocktails or mocktails in the ticket price.
Four experiences, four different worlds, all in London. Start with the one that sounds least like anything you have done before.
Inventive Productions has served four million cocktails to over a million guests across ten international locations since 2018.
Cocktails
Served
People
Immersed
Years of
Inventiveness
International
Locations
