Art goes interactive at new attraction
It won’t take visitors long to realize that Otherworld is a unique addition to the Columbus entertainment scene.
Perhaps it will dawn on them in the “video game” room, where you can aim a “blaster” at “invaders from space” suspended from the ceiling. A hit triggers a light show up and down the walls.
Or maybe it will happen when they enter a room and encounter “The Watcher” — a multi-eyed shapeless form above them whose eyeballs will follow them as they move through the room.
The realization certainly will hit them long before they enter one of the last spaces — “Infinity Hallway” — where dozens of LED light posts and mirrors create a fun housetype illusion of space.
There are more than 30 rooms and 32,000 square feet full of scenes such as these in Otherworld, set to open on Friday in an empty
East Side strip mall at 5819 Chantry Drive.
Founder Jordan Renda, 26, a 2015 Ohio State University graduate, leased the former Sports Authority building in June 2018 and has invested nearly $2 million in the space.
Although Otherworld was set to open early in 2019, Renda, who lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, said satisfying the city’s permit requirements delayed the project. Meanwhile, a buzz built up around it; presale tickets have sold out.
“There’s not much out there (like Otherworld),” Renda said. “We’re just building off the whole desire people have to take an active role in an experience they are having rather than passively viewing a thing.”
Visitors to Otherworld will be given a story line: They are beta testers for a new technology company, but things have gone awry inside company headquarters. It is up to them to figure out what happened.
Art director Scott Schaaf said visiting Otherworld will not be like a guided tour.
“We turn you loose to have your own experience,” he said, adding that there will be staffers circulating through the building to ensure no one gets lost.
And based on a tour of the still-underconstruction space last week, getting Art director Scott Schaaf points an infrared light at video game objects as he leads a tour through Otherworld.
lost certainly would be possible. Schaaf said he expects visitors to spend between one and three hours in Otherworld, depending on their explorations.
Otherworld’s rooms, nooks and hallways vary in size and range from art-centric spaces with murals by central Ohio artists to blacklight rooms with large, animatronic spiders.
Although there are some slightly creepy rooms, nothing jumps out or is set to startle, like in a haunted attraction. Some spaces seem suited to children.
One of the first rooms encountered, for example, is set up to resemble a child’s bedroom, featuring an “interactive coloring book” that takes up an entire wall. There also are two huge, furry paws emerging from the walls and, under a bed, a “secret” passageway to the next room, which has a huge,
plush-toy creature that resembles a whale.
Many of the spaces are interactive, meaning a visitor can change the room’s look by pushing a button or some other mechanism.
A heavy emphasis is placed on various forms of creative lighting and projections.
“I have a background in comic books,” Schaaf said, “and I learned that a good way to build suspense is physically make the reader turn a page to have to discover something.
“So every room where you turn a corner or crawl through something, I consider that a page turn. Every time you turn a corner, I want that feeling to almost completely switch.”
Admission is $22, or $20 for ages 62 and older and military personnel, and $18 for children ages 3 to 12. Children younger than 16 must be accompanied by an adult. For more information, visit otherworldohio.com.