Building Worlds People Return To
Immersive Core is an experience design company creating permanent, story-driven immersive attractions built for repeat visits. Veil House is our first venue. It won't be the last.
Immersive Core is an experience design company creating permanent, story-driven immersive attractions built for repeat visits. Veil House is our first venue. It won't be the last.
The immersive entertainment market is growing fast, but almost nobody is building permanent, purpose-built venues with repeat-visit mechanics designed in from day one. That's the gap. That's the company.
Each Immersive Core venue is a permanent installation, not a temporary pop-up. The initial capital goes into the build. Once operational, the venue generates recurring revenue with relatively low marginal cost per guest. The physical infrastructure and technical systems are reusable across narrative refreshes, extending venue life without requiring a fresh build each time.
Every Immersive Core experience is architected so that a single visit only reveals a fraction of the total story. Different characters, different rooms, different revelations. This isn't a gimmick bolted on after the fact. It's the structural foundation of every concept we design. Audiences return because there's genuinely more to discover.
A single show is a bet on one creative outcome. Immersive Core is a platform: the creative methodology, the guest-flow system, the technical design framework, and the operational knowledge are all transferable. Once the first venue proves the model, the second venue doesn't start from zero. The IP, the systems, and the brand all carry forward. That's the difference between investing in a production and investing in a company.
Permanent immersive horror venue in a London warehouse. 100 guests per show, four narrators, 25% story per visit. 17 rooms across 1,100m², 41% EBITDA margin at scale. Full creative concept, financial model, and venue design complete.
A second London site or UK regional city using the same creative framework and operational blueprint. Different narrative, same repeat-visit architecture. Lower risk, faster build, because the systems are already proven. Two venues at steady state could generate £4M+ combined EBITDA.
Licence the format to international operators. Sleep No More's Shanghai run proved this works for immersive theatre. Licensing generates revenue with minimal capital outlay: royalties on a proven format without the build risk. This is where the return profile changes significantly.
The physical infrastructure of each venue is designed to support multiple narratives. New characters, new storylines, same house. A narrative refresh resets the repeat-visit cycle without a fresh build, extending venue life indefinitely and giving returning audiences a reason to come back all over again.
Veil House is horror because that's where the creative passion started. But the underlying model — permanent venue, branching narrative, repeat-visit mechanics, small-group intimacy — works across genres. Mystery, fantasy, thriller, sci-fi. The Immersive Core framework is a design system, not a genre.
The UK immersive entertainment market generated $7.5 billion in revenue in 2024 and is projected to reach $29.6 billion by 2030. The UK accounts for 6.5% of the global immersive entertainment market, with London serving as the primary hub. Over 40 immersive experiences have launched or been announced in London in the past two years alone, representing hundreds of millions in investment.
The global immersive entertainment market was valued at $138 billion in 2025 and is projected to exceed $1 trillion by 2033, growing at a compound annual rate of 29.4%. This isn't a niche. It's a mainstream consumer category that's still in its early stages, with most of the growth yet to come.
UK discretionary spending on experiences has grown 9.2% annually since 2021, outpacing essential spending at 5.0%. In London, experiences now account for 34% of total consumer spend. Half of British consumers say they plan to spend more on experiences than the previous year. The shift is structural, not cyclical.
London now has at least 15 venues that could be classified as permanent immersive spaces, including Immersive LDN (the UK's largest immersive entertainment district), Lightroom, and Labyrinth London. The infrastructure for immersive entertainment is being built. What's missing is a permanent, repeat-visit venue with narrative depth.
Escape rooms, Secret Cinema, Punchdrunk, immersive dining, and attractions like Monopoly Lifesized have trained London audiences to expect interactive, story-driven entertainment. The audience exists and is growing. The supply of purpose-built permanent immersive venues with genuine repeat-visit mechanics is essentially zero.
There is no permanent purpose-built immersive horror venue in London. The Burnt City closed in September 2023. Sleep No More closed in January 2025 after 14 years. Punchdrunk's replacement, Lander 23, is a 90-minute gaming hybrid, not immersive theatre. The live immersive category in London is effectively empty. Immersive Core has the opportunity to define the category before anyone else.
Merlin Entertainments, ATG, LW Theatres, and TodayTix (who acquired Secret Cinema in 2022) all actively acquire proven experiential brands. A multi-venue operation with licensing revenue and strong brand recognition commands a premium multiple. The acquirers are already in the market.
The barrier to imitation isn't the concept. It's the capital, the build timeline, the 17-room technical infrastructure, and the operational complexity of running integrated CCTV, atmospheric systems, and live performance nightly. First-mover brand advantage compounds over time. By the time a competitor starts, Immersive Core is already on venue two.
Immersive Core is founded by Finley Murray, an experience designer who has been building immersive and themed entertainment since his teens. His background spans creative production at Gulliver's Theme Parks (seasonal productions serving thousands of guests per night), scare attraction design, character and world creation for themed environments, and sound design for immersive experiences.
The creative work for Veil House is complete: full narrative structure across eight beats, detailed floor plans for 17 rooms, technical specifications for CCTV and laboratory integration, and a bespoke guest-flow system designed from scratch. What Immersive Core needs now is the right investment partners and experienced commercial leadership to turn that creative foundation into a running, profitable business.
Finley is honest about what he brings and what he needs around him. The creative vision, the design methodology, and the passion are his. The commercial strategy, operational management, and business development require experienced partners. Senior hires — Venue Director, Production Manager, and Commercial Lead — are budgeted from day one, not deferred.
Full portfolio → finleymurray.co.ukQuestions, introductions, or just want to talk? We'd love to hear from you.
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contact@immersivecore.co.uk