Description
Immersion has been researched for many years as a concept in fields as diverse as the performing arts, exhibition experiences and computer game design. However, due to the development of new technologies that enable the concept to transition from novelty to reality in a number of new settings, immersion has gained popularity as a research topic once more in recent years. Immersive events, and the use of immersive techniques in event design and production have also become increasingly prevalent in industry, yet research in the field appears to be limited. The events industry's complexity means that the emerging literature that does exist on immersive events is dispersed across a variety of fields, including science and technology, engineering, architecture, psychology, marketing, and event management. As a result, this study aimed to conduct an intensive academic literature review on immersive events by applying the PRISMA 2020 methodology (Page et al., 2021) to synthesise and reflect on this current body of knowledge.
Three databases, including Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar, were searched to identify articles from journals across different disciplines. The term 'immers*' was used to collect immersion-related papers. To capture literature relating to events management, types of events were identified and refined as a comprehensive list consisting of 28 terms (Beech et al., 2014, Getz and Page, 2019, Booth et al., 2020, The Event Academy, 2021, Bowdin et al., 2023, Norman, 2023). The Boolean operator “AND” was then used to search for studies that investigated the immersion concept in events management contexts. The inclusion criteria used included documents relevant to the immersion concept and events management published in English language within study areas including computer science, social sciences, science technology, theatre, business, management, and accounting, and business economics. After an abstract screening process followed by a full-text screening process, 65 publications are included in this study, from an initial corpus of 8,920 potential sources. The 6-step thematic analysis technique by Braun and Clarke (2006) was then applied to analyse the thematic areas of research in immersive events using NViVO R1 software.
Results of this analysis identify that publications on immersive events span the period 1990 – 2023, and are dominated by research in computer science and technology. Research was evenly split between quantitative, qualitative, and conceptual approaches, with most research carried out in in Europe and Asia. The thematic analysis led to the identification of four thematic areas that dominate the literature on immersive events including immersion theory, technology and innovation, event design, and attendee behaviour. Immersion theory involves the factors of immersion, degree of immersion, process of immersion, and challenges associated with creating and delivering immersive events. Technology and innovation mainly related to systems or platforms for immersive events and digital reality technology that supports immersive events, nevertheless limited implementations of immersion theories were spotted. The uniqueness of immersive events research is demonstrated by the fact that event design is the only theme that only contains articles that are specific to events. Lastly, three stages of attendee behaviour; pre, during, and post event, were identified in the final themes, which focused on how to create better immersive experiences, a topic often considered in the marketing literature. In this study, these four thematic areas are integrated into a novel conceptual model for future research on immersive events, and into the use of immersion techniques and technologies in event design and management.
The literature incorporated into this thematic analysis are mix of event-centric and non-event-centric publications in several disciplines, resulting in a large body of knowledge that can be applied to future research in the events management field. Novel immersive technologies are driving new and interesting research as well having a range of practical implications in the event industry. This research concludes with a future research agenda for immersive events, which can support new studies informed by this study’s new conceptual model for immersive event research, which supports the integration of multi-disciplinary research in events.
Keywords: Immersive Events, Systematic Literature Review, Event Design, Immersive Technology
References:
Beech, J. G., Kaiser, S. & Kaspar, R. (2014) The business of events management. England: Pearson.
Booth, P., Chaperon, S. A., Kennell, J. S. & Morrison, A. M. (2020) Entrepreneurship in island contexts: A systematic review of the tourism and hospitality literature. International journal of hospitality management, 85, 102438.
Bowdin, G. A. J., Allen, J., Harris, R., Jago, L., O'toole, W. & Mcdonnell, I. (2023) Events Management. London: Routledge.
Braun, V. & Clarke, V. (2006) Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3, 77-101.
Getz, D. & Page, S. J. (2019) Event Studies: Theory, Research and Policy for Planned Events (4th ed.). London: Routledge.
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Page, M. J., Mckenzie, J. E., Bossuyt, P. M., Boutron, I., Hoffmann, T. C., Mulrow, C. D., Shamseer, L., Tetzlaff, J. M., Akl, E. A., Brennan, S. E., Chou, R., Glanville, J., Grimshaw, J. M., Hróbjartsson, A., Lalu, M. M., Li, T., Loder, E. W., Mayo-Wilson, E., Mcdonald, S., Mcguinness, L. A., Stewart, L. A., Thomas, J., Tricco, A. C., Welch, V. A., Whiting, P. & Moher, D. (2021) The PRISMA 2020 statement: an updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. Systematic Reviews, 10, 89.
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The Event Academy. (2021) The Types of Events You’ll Manage During Your Career as an Event Manager, Published 3rd November Available at: https://eventacademy.com/news/types-of-events/ [Accessed 13 June 2023].
