Stills from the Shanghai version of "Sleepless Night".

"The Sleepless Night, which has been in operation for more than 8 years, has been renovated!" Last weekend, Dong Minghai walked into the "McKinnon Hotel" in Jing'an District for the 402nd time and found that the plot that is familiar with you has begun. As the "hard-level" audience of the show, his first reaction was surprise, and then ecstasy: "The new version embodies the characters and stories that originally existed only in lines or magazines in front of me, which is too real. The unique Shanghai version is worth repeatedly reading."

As the first immersive performance to be launched in Asia and produced internationally, the Shanghai version of "Sleepless Night" subverted the Chinese performing arts market back then. Since the drama was put into operation in 2016, it has a total of nearly 2,200 performances, with a project revenue of more than 540 million yuan and an audience of more than 640,000. The producer Shanghai Cultural and Radio Performing Arts Group (hereinafter referred to as "Chinese Cultural and Radio Performing Arts") uses "Sleepless Night" as the core to create an operating model of "acting arts-based commercial complex", using high-quality performances as the inlet, superimposing retail, catering and entertainment formats, expanding the marginal income of the performance and obtaining the spillover effect of the content. At that time, "Sleepless Night" set a precedent for China's immersive industry.

In April this year, the special edition of "Sleepless Night" was launched, providing the audience with a diverse and immersive experience of "thousands of people and thousands of faces" through the dual-track design of "deep interaction" and "classic narrative". Shencheng has become the only city in which this phenomenon IP is currently resident in the world, creating a new paradigm for deep integration and organic symbiosis of cultural IP and urban space. "Shanghai is an incredible city, with audiences from all over the world, who have unparalleled passion and desire. We never thought that this work could take root here for 8 years, and it will continue to explore and grow in the future." said Felix Barrett, director and artistic director of the Shanghai version of "Sleepless Night".

A "must-answer question"

"At first, I was attracted by the promotion of "Breaking the Fourth Wall" and bought the pre-sale ticket for "Sleepless Night". Unexpectedly, it opened up a new immersive world. In recent years, I spent nearly 300,000 yuan on tickets to watching TV shows, but I still haven't finished it." Dong Minghai told reporters that at that time, I lived in Xinzha Road, adjacent to the "McKinnon Hotel", and watching TV shows was a way to go; a few years later, I moved to Putuo District and still often went to "McKinnon" to watch TV shows; sometimes I even took the subway from Zhangjiang who works - it has become a habit to watch TV shows. "Put on a white mask and walking through the winding corridor, it seems like breaking into someone else's dream. That illusory and real sense of mystery suddenly touched my curiosity."

The main storyline of "Sleepless Night" is adapted from "Macbeth", with multiple versions such as the London version and the New York version, while the Shanghai version incorporates Chinese local cultural elements such as "The Legend of the White Snake". There are more than 20 main actors in the whole play, and almost every actor has a story line. Different story lines are parallel and connected to each other. Coupled with the film-level stage design and zero-distance dance tension, it provides a comprehensive sensory experience. The audience wears masks and turns into "invisible people". They can not only choose the route of watching the drama, but also participate in the performance and form a new "plot point". The sense of presence, interactivity and imagination provided by the immersive experience prompts a profound connection between the works and the audience, and repeated plays have become a "must-have option" for many drama fans.

"Sleepless Night" Shanghai version was jointly created by Wenjian Performing Arts and Punchdrunk Company in the UK. In front of production is a "must-answer question": overseas versions are ahead of their predecessors, how can the Shanghai version be innovative?

Since the beginning of the project, a principle has been clarified: "Sleepless Night" Shanghai version is not a copy and paste of the New York version, but a recreation to achieve the goal of "international elements, Chinese expression, original production, innovative operation". "It was a 'necessity' for the launch of "Sleepless Night" in Shanghai. At that time, Shanghai was already the city with the best performance market environment and the most mature operation in the country, and one of the cities with the highest income level. Young people have a high acceptance of imported culture and are very interested in innovative forms." Ma Chencheng, president of the Arts of Culture and Radio, introduced that the company has formed an international crew composed of more than 40 Chinese and foreign performers, and a Chinese production and operation team of more than 50 people provides strong guarantees to create a "original-production-operation" collaboration system. The foreign team is responsible for creating and designing space based on the original standards; the Chinese team mainly contributes to content localization and theater construction.

"Sleepless Night" constructs a time and space intertwined with reality and dreams through the transformation of more than 90 drama rooms on the five-story floor. One of the core problems of introducing such complex overseas productions is to create a suitable large venue, which means that the project cost is much higher than traditional performances. Considering the positioning of the play and the convenience of watching the play, the project team found an idle six-story building at No. 1013 Beijing West Road. The place is densely populated and convenient for transportation, and the surrounding commercial facilities are relatively mature. Jing'an District, where it is located, has been actively creating cultural landmarks. When the team first took over, the building had only an infrastructure, and it took them only 7 months to complete all the scene decoration and layout. Finally, the story background of the Shanghai version of "Sleepless Night" was selected in Shanghai in the 1930s. In order to echo the New York version, the small building was named "McKinnon Hotel". In July 2016, the Shanghai version of "Sleepless Night" officially released performance information, and 10,000 pre-sale tickets were sold out in less than 100 hours.

A "new option"

Unlike traditional travel show products, the Shanghai version of "Sleepless Night" does not go through group buying channels. Sales are mainly about cooperating with ticketing platforms, and relying on the project's reputation and publicity to attract audiences. On the "Dianping" platform, the Shanghai version of "Sleepless Night" has a score of 4.9 points, with real reviews from more than 50,000 users, with a 95% positive review rate. It ranked first in the performance list, the total transaction volume of immersive performances in the country, and the number of performance collections in Shanghai. It has been selected as the Dianping must-play list for two consecutive years. The popularity of #Sleepless Night# in performance topics exceeds 2.2 million, ranking first in the list.

Why does "Sleepless Night" make the audience watch the drama repeatedly? "Because you will fall in love with this experience of free exploration, surprise discovery and deep empathy." Dong Minghai's "entertainment" is very representative. "After watching the first scene, I was completely shocked by the famous scene of "Flash Dance", but the plot seemed to have only captured some fragments. In order to understand what the main story tells, I followed each major actor's "running pictures" and made about 30 scenes; then I followed the interactive plots of different branch characters, and 50 scenes passed quickly; then I focused on the details and explored secrets, and unknowingly reached 80 scenes, and I really enjoyed the satisfaction of completing the plot's "puzzle". Every actor update or special event, I will come back here."

"Many people's leisure time is to eat, go shopping and watch movies, and I have added a new option - to swipe "Sleepless Night". On the weekend, meet with friends in "McKinnon", have a drink before the show, have a dinner, and have a meal after watching the show, or stay in the '802 Room' to experience a mysterious adventure." Dong Minghai said. The consumption habits of young audiences bring new opportunities for business expansion. Taking Broadway as an example, it attracts 12 million to 15 million visitors every year, and more than 60% are foreign tourists, bringing a large amount of related consumption in terms of food, housing, transportation and shopping. From 2016 to 2017, Broadway contributed up to $12.6 billion in economic benefits to New York City. It is estimated that the average box office revenue of every $1 will bring additional consumption of $4 to $5, and the spillover driving effect will be obvious.

As the project operator of the Shanghai version of "Sleepless Night", Shangyan Culture, a subsidiary of Wenjian Performing Arts, has derived a series of immersive entertainment content. "Content is the core element of performing arts products, but it is no longer the only element." Pan Tao, general manager of Wenguang Performing Arts, believes that the core content plays a role in attracting works, and high-frequency consumption formats such as catering, bars, accommodation, and retail that are strongly related to the content play a function of traffic monetization. "From the work to become a performing arts product with strong market competitiveness, the innovative operation of cultural IP should focus on the internal hierarchy and comprehensive experience of the business combination." Shangyan Cultural Innovation has introduced a rich integration of cultural tourism and business formats, such as the company cooperated with the Ator Hotel Management Group to develop The Drama Hotel, and the room was named after Shakespeare's works, and the design and layout added many dramatic elements. The Shanghai version of "Sleepless Night" also works with brands to carry out implant marketing, giving the potential audience a unique consumer experience and incubating a series of creative linkages that trigger the market.

A "nuclear explosion point"

Driven by the Shanghai version of "Sleepless Night", the scene of China's immersive entertainment has been further extended and has become one of the keywords for urban cultural and tourism creation. As of the end of 2023, the domestic performing arts market had 32,024 experience projects labeled as "immersive", the industrial consumption market size reached 92.7 billion yuan, creating nearly 928,000 jobs, ranking first in the world in terms of project number, consumer market size, investment scale and total output value.

"In more than ten years, China's immersive industry has achieved a 100-fold growth in overall scale, becoming one of the largest markets in the world with the largest scale, fastest growth rate and largest number of projects." Wu Fan, associate professor of the School of Media and Communication of Shanghai Jiaotong University and director of the Center for Cultural Brand and Digital Innovation Research, said that immersive experience stimulates diversified consumer demand and has become a "nuclear explosion point" for the rapid growth of new business formats. "This not only brings unlimited business opportunities, but also further promotes the upgrading and transformation of the cultural industry."

Today, the story of "Sleepless Night" continues. In recent years, the Arts and Television Performing Arts has successively introduced immersive entertainment projects such as "Alice Adventures" and "Secret Cinema". At the same time, "Sleepless Night" went out of Shanghai in the form of "drama+" and held special exhibitions in Changsha and Shenzhen to show the creative stories behind it. The latest special edition of "Sleepless Night" has launched a popular price: the basic ticket price is reduced by 30% compared to the classic version, further reducing the consumption threshold for watching dramas. At the same time, the performance duration was adjusted to 2.5 hours, controlled within the threshold range for the audience to experience the best "emotional and physical strength".

On the other hand, the integrated global development of immersive experience is creating new industrial space. In 2022, the first Shanghai Immersive Art Week will be upgraded to create the "Zhujiajiao Super Immersive Art Season" in 2023, expanding from business districts to cultural and tourism attractions, and creating the "Super Immersive Manufacturing Bureau" brand. At the end of 2025, the immersive music scene "League of Legends: Battle of the Two Cities" will be unveiled in the auxiliary building of Shanghai Hotel, jointly produced by Tencent Video, Cultural and Radio Performing Arts, Wajijiwa and Oriental Pearl.

"Tonight, you decide the direction of the story" is not only the core concept of the special edition of "Sleepless Night", but also vividly reflects the new trend of urban cultural consumption. Ma Chencheng said that the cultural and television performing arts will continue to work on the "new scene, new landmark, and new experience" strategy, with the creation of the "world's only" immersive consumption landmark as a fulcrum, build a cultural magnetic field with global appeal, and "cultivate an international cultural consumption ecosystem and explore a new paradigm for the integrated development of cultural, tourism, business, sports and exhibitions in megacities." (Wenhui Po reporter Xuan Jing)

[Editor in charge: Tang Wei]