Immersive WATCHOUT show brings Italy to China

Panorama is an immersive experience that takes guests on a journey through Italy's culture, landscapes and craftsmanship from a whole new perspective. The seamless 360° show – produced by DrawLight using Dataton WATCHOUT – premiered to rave reviews at Expo 2015 in central Milan. Since then, Panorama has thrilled audiences at Grand Central Terminal in New York and, most recently, Salone del Mobile in Shanghai.

"Following Milan and New York, introducing our country's fine heritage and, especially, its strong creative industry to the Chinese public through a unique multisensory experience has proved a huge success," said Roberto Snaidero, President of the Salone del Mobile.Milano. "The Salone del Mobile.Milano is one of the leading representatives of Italian excellence behind this project, a reality that successfully combines artisan tradition with industrial production through design culture and creativity."

So far, an impressive 260,000 people have viewed the 15-minute show – flying over the Coliseum, enjoying a front-row seat at top fashion shows or the race-track, and revelling in the splendour of 250 of the greatest artworks created by masters such as Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Giotto and Botticelli. The evocative soundtrack is, of course, music from the finest composers in Italy's history. The show concept was developed by Davide Rampello with Padua-based DrawLight responsible for production.

“Our idea was to show Italy in a completely new and immersive way, highlighting its countless beauties and putting the viewer at the centre of the experience. A unique and incredible journey, realised for the very first time in Italy, at such a complex level and with such wide cultural breath,” explained Alberto Gentilin, DrawLight key account manager. “For DrawLight it was a unique project, putting into play our entire experience and learning a great deal from it.”

The DrawLight team have worked with WATCHOUT on numerous productions previously and specialise in immersive media, 360° videos and mapping – all of which are exploited to the full in Panorama! The show is presented on a wrap-around screen, 134 ft high and 72 ft in diameter.

“The technique of spherical shooting completely changes the way of filmmaking,” said Mick Odelli, co-founder and CEO of DrawLight. “But above all it has to make use of content, opening new ways of narrating the world and daily life. Today we can make people protagonists of every moment, we can take you right inside the story.”

"With WATCHOUT, we knew we would get maximum impact with outstanding image quality, fully seamless content across all twelve projectors, and no surprises during playback! With the event touring different cities, we needed a system we could trust and set up quickly,” concluded Lorenzo Beccaro, co-founder and technical director, DrawLight.

Behind Panorama is the Altagamma Foundation, the Italian luxury industry association, and a host of public and private associations. The project is in collaboration with the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities.