Wednesday, August 21, 2024
Audiences at Broadway's Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Can Soon See Showbill Cover Come Alive
Playbill: The New York mounting of the Tony-winning Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which continues at the Lyric Theatre, has unveiled an augmented reality Showbill cover, the first for a Broadway production.
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3 comments:
This is one of those things that I feel like probably sounded a lot cooler on paper. It seems like everything these days requires a QR code and an app, and I can’t say I’d be super excited to scan and download another one just to see a very simple animation that apparently can be posted online, so you could just see it there anyway. I get that moving images is a Harry Potter thing but it just seems like a lot of effort for something that isn’t adding that much to audience experience, and which requires so much extra stuff - an Internet connection, a QR code, a new app. That said, maybe it’s actually really cool and fun and I am needlessly being a hater. After all, if they want to take the time to set this up and think it’ll be fun and maybe make some kid’s day a little more magical, who am I to judge? My net reaction to this idea is pretty neutral.
As much as I love a fun app, this just feels unnecessary. When I first started reading this article, I assumed the app would provide cool AR of the theater, some more information about the show, a game to play, or literally anything more than just a simple animation that will appear over your showbill. This feels to me like a marketing gimmick that just falls flat. Especially with a show like Harry Potter, audiences are expecting Broadway magic that will truly wow them. While I have yet to see this show and haven’t experienced this app firsthand, I think seeing this in my showbill and then finding out what it actually was would only disappoint me and cause me to have less excitement for the show I was about to see. There is so much content that could and should go into a playbill. This is absolutely not that.
The idea of an interactive program is an interesting one. Even for productions that do not have a budget for the kind of interactive program that Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is using, I see completely digital programs all the time. Adding interactive elements to those could be an interesting way to start an audience member’s immersion into the fictional world from the moment they get their program. On the other hand, we already spend so much time on our phones. When I go to see shows with family and friends, I enjoy talking to them before the show and during intermission about our initial thoughts, our analysis, what we find interesting or cool, etc. Even when I’m by myself, I sometimes talk to the people around me; sharing our love of theatre is part of the experience. Heavily interactive programs using the phone could have the potential of taking time away from interacting with each other, if the program-interactiveness is taken to the extreme. But I think a fun, magically-moving program cover is a cool idea, and I would love to see it and learn more about the technology used to make it happen.
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