Illuminarium Announces its Virtual Nightlife Experience

The virtual reality venue is opening a bar with seven rotating virtual "canvases."
Illuminarium Announces its Virtual Nightlife Experience
Photo: Official

Experiential entertainment company Illuminarium Experiences is set to open its first virtual reality venue, Illuminarium, on the BeltLine on July 1st. The gist of the place is to provide customers with fully immersive, virtual reality experiences — an expedition to another planet, say, or trip back in time.

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If a day at Illuminarium doesn’t entice you, or if you’re simply more of a night owl, the virtual reality venue has you covered, too. Also opening on July 1st is The Bar at Illuminarium, the venue’s “unprecedented night life and hospitality experience after dark,” according to a press release.

Developed by the LAB at Rockwell Group, the Bar at Illuminarium will feature seven digital settings that transport guests (metaphorically, of course) to another land. A Japanese night market, complete with glowing lights, lanterns, and holograms make up the Shibuya Night Market experience. Colorful fish and reefs will make for an immersive underwater experience at Luminous Reefs. Cosmic clouds, interstellar dust, and glowing stars will transport customers to Nebulas, the bar’s outer space experience.

There will also be sunset, living mural, Mediterranean garden, and crystal cave digital “canvases,” each of which are made entirely immersive through video, laser projection, and individualized surround-sound.

“The Bar at Illuminarium is the first-ever immersive nightlife environment. We designed the space to complement the truly unprecedented entertainment experience that is Illuminarium,” David Rockwell, Founder and President of Rockwell Group, said in a press release. “Stunning and ever-changing digital worlds will transport guests to far-flung, surreal destinations through sight, sound, and scale.”

As for the fare, the Bar at Illuminarium will serve a tapas-style menu, cocktails, beer, and wine from 8pm to midnight Thursdays through Saturdays. The venue will also have a full service restaurant, Illuminarium Cafe, open seven days a week for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with both indoor and outdoor dining.

Illuminarium’s inaugural experience, WILD, will be an African safari experience, complete with animals and landscapes from South Africa, Kenya, and Tanzania. You can head there July 1st (buy your tickets online) and hit up the bar after for some cocktails in whatever setting is in store for you that day.

Honestly, a virtual African safari followed by a cocktail in, say, a virtual crystal cave, sounds a lot like the grown-up version of The Rainforest Cafe to us. We’re hoping the Bar at Illuminarium will bring back that sense of childlike wonder and adrenaline we once felt while gnawing on dino nuggets inside a surround-sound tropical storm. In other words, we’re here for it.

Sydney Rende

Sydney Rende

Sydney Rende is a freelance writer and soon-to-be graduate of Syracuse University’s MFA program in Creative Writing. Her work has been published in The New York Times Style Magazine, The Michigan Quarterly Review, The New Ohio Review online, and Carve Magazine. She lives in Southern California, where she’s completing her first short story collection and desperately trying to conform to surf culture.
Sydney Rende

Sydney Rende

Sydney Rende is a freelance writer and soon-to-be graduate of Syracuse University’s MFA program in Creative Writing. Her work has been published in The New York Times Style Magazine, The Michigan Quarterly Review, The New Ohio Review online, and Carve Magazine. She lives in Southern California, where she’s completing her first short story collection and desperately trying to conform to surf culture.
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