Immersive Nutcracker Review

December 1, 2022 at 2:16pm
By Jason Stettner

I was invited to attend the Immersive Nutcracker: A Winter Miracle event in Calgary. It’s setup at the BMO Centre, and is a similar concept to the Beyond Van Gogh experience I had enjoyed prior. Essentially you’re in this room where a video is being projected upon the walls and other lights are going about. Anyways, the first thing to note is that parking is $15 and it seemed like spots were limited.

They have you walk to the far end of the BMO Centre area and then walk all the way down to the far end for where the area is setup, kind of a trek. Your experience should be about an hour long in terms of the show being around thirty minutes give or take. The other time is getting there to wait, then perhaps choosing to take some photos with the setup displays that are around the exit.

These were actually quite nice, I got some lovely photos from them that are definitely festive. It seemed like they had some small extra accessory type things for purchase, but nothing like the expansive gift shop setup the Van Gogh experience had going. With that, the show itself is fairly immersive with an array of particle effects dripped scenes.

You enter the space with freedom to move around and benches which were nice. I hated having to stand during the Van Gogh event as it was hard on my knee. So being able to set in a bench was nice, have some chats while viewing and taking it in. It’s of course something that’s very photo ready for those that want to have it as a backdrop.

There’s essentially two viewing angles to it as well, so you can watch either side and find space to take it in. I do feel that the show itself is definitely marketed towards a very young audience. There’s a balance of simplistic CGI characters and then a bit of ballet. I was actually expecting more ballet to be present within the showcase. They definitely did have some intensive scenes where the screen was very busy.

Again, I think the younger ones will find that sort of thing delightful. There were a bunch of children moving about during the showing I attended so I imagine they were having a great time with it. I personally would have liked some more floor type lights, seemed to mostly be candy shapes on repeat. So presentation wise I think it was a fine area with fairly vibrant scenes and decent video being showcased.

I don’t necessarily believe I was the target audience in what they’re going for but it was a fine viewing. I actually quite liked the creepy mice, they were fun. It’s mostly going to come down to whether you feel you’ll fit into who they’re targeting here which again feels like the young audience. I personally feel they could have leaned on the ballet more to pad out the experience further. You can read our review of the Van Gogh in Calgary, or check out our general hub for the city below.

Read our Van Gogh Review
View our Calgary Hub