In recent years, Quebec-based studio Supply + Demand has established itself as a key player in the field of immersive experiences and location-based entertainment worldwide. Their approach does not claim to have all the answers, but it opens up a relevant space for reflection: how can we move immersive experiences from a series of isolated “hits” to a more structured activity, without sacrificing the pleasure of storytelling or the curiosity of audiences? Interview with Ludovic Langlois-Thérien, Senior Director, Strategic Development and Corporate Affairs at the studio.
Cover: MINECRAFT EXPERIENCE: VILLAGER RESCUE
From live performances to mediation spaces
Supply + Demand’s DNA comes from live performances and international tours. Even before signing on to create immersive exhibitions, the team designs shows where video, lighting, and set design must withstand constant setup and teardown, different venues every night, and constant pressure to deliver technical reliability. This highly operational culture does not disappear when the studio turns to immersive experiences: it transforms.
With the pandemic, the model of large-scale tours has stalled, forcing part of the sector to reinvent itself. Supply + Demand has therefore decided to shift its expertise to museums, science centers, and cultural institutions seeking new formats. This is not simply a change of scenery. It requires a shift from one-off events to exhibitions that remain in place for several months, adjusting the dramaturgy to allow for wandering, integrating educational content, and working with mediation teams. It is in this shift that the studio’s positioning is gradually taking shape.
An infrastructure to move beyond the “permanent prototype”
At the heart of Supply + Demand’s thinking is the idea that you can’t build an industry on facilities that are reinvented from scratch for each project. Hence the creation of a modular system—the Modular Exhibit System—comprising freestanding walls, projection surfaces, and calibration tools, designed to be reconfigured from one location to another without heavy construction work.
Economically speaking, the ambition is clear: to transform part of the production costs into reusable investments, enable institutions to program several experiences on the same basis, and bring a catalog to life rather than one-offs. Creatively speaking, the question is more delicate: how far can we standardize without crushing the diversity of writing styles? The studio presents this system as a technical foundation, not as an aesthetic signature. Modularity should save time and money, while leaving room for scenographers, artists, and authors to express themselves.
In practice, each project becomes a full-scale test of this compromise. Some experiments exploit the possibilities of reconfiguration to the fullest, while others focus more on light, sound, and storytelling. The appeal of following Supply + Demand lies precisely in seeing how this tension between industrial efficiency and creative plasticity is negotiated throughout the productions.
Life-size Minecraft: a license facing reality
One of the studio’s most visible projects, MINECRAFT EXPERIENCE: VILLAGER RESCUE, is a good example of this approach. The challenge is both appealing and risky: transforming a video game that millions of players know by heart into a physical journey for groups of visitors. Here, the audience does not watch a projection: they traverse biomes, collect resources, and face enemies within a scenographic space designed to accommodate large numbers of visitors day after day.
The transposition raises some very concrete questions. How do you make the game mechanics legible in a real-world environment? How do you preserve the spirit of Minecraft without slipping into Instagram décor or pure experiential merchandising? How do you ensure solid throughput without turning the experience into a selfie factory? Supply & Demand tackles these questions with its partners, juggling fidelity to the universe with safety, ergonomics, and maintenance constraints.
This kind of project also raises questions about the role of major IPs in the immersive ecosystem. They draw large audiences, reassure investors, and structure operations. But they can also take up a lot of symbolic and economic space. The studio moves forward without dogma: Minecraft is not a universal template, but one concrete case among others to test how far a license can become an interesting immersive playground, and not just a marketing argument.
A catalogue for museums and science centers
In parallel with these very visible productions, Supply & Demand is developing a body of experiences for museums and science centers, particularly in Canada. These include projects such as EVERY SECOND (by Sébastien Soldevila and Shana Carroll of Les 7 Doigts de la main, narrated by Isabella Rossellini), GOODNIGHT MOON (an adaptation of the children’s classic Goodnight Moon, written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd, published by HarperCollins), SACRED DEFENDERS OF THE UNIVERSE (an adaptation of the original series by Justin Jack Bear and Earl Benallie, Jack Bear Legacy Pictures), QUANTUM SANDBOX (inspired by “Cymatic Quantum,” an original concept by Romain Constant in collaboration with Raphaël Dupont), and NOTES TO NEURONS, all designed to travel from venue to venue while relying on the same technical backbone.
These experiences share a common goal: to say something about the world rather than simply string together “wow” moments. EVERY SECOND explores our relationship to time and perception through a sensitive form of writing where narration, light, and sound intertwine. GOODNIGHT MOON transposes a classic of children’s literature into an immersive environment designed for families, playing on the pleasure of recognition and the discovery of a lived-in space. SACRED DEFENDERS OF THE UNIVERSE draws on Indigenous superheroes to address ecology, justice, and cosmologies, placing often marginalized imaginaries at the center of the experience. QUANTUM SANDBOX uses immersive tools to explore quantum physics, seeking to make abstract concepts more intuitive.
This corpus raises a key question for institutions: can immersive experiences genuinely contribute to scientific and cultural mediation, or do they remain a spectacular veneer? By co-producing with museums and science centers, and involving research and mediation teams, the studio tries to ground its projects in substantive issues. The outcome is not fixed; it is adjusted according to feedback from audiences, programmers, and operational constraints. Here again, the interest lies as much in the process as in the final piece.
Between institutions and commercial entertainment
Supply & Demand thus occupies an intermediate position between several territories. On one side, there are very mainstream projects built around international licenses or concert tours where the studio handles visual design. On the other, immersive exhibitions co-developed with public institutions, science centers, and mediation venues. In between, collaborations with other XR players, where the studio acts as both technical and creative partner.
This circulation requires constant work of translation: turning brand constraints into playable scenographies, scientific content into accessible experiences, and artistic ambitions into setups that are operationally viable. This is likely where the studio stands out: not through an immediately recognizable visual “signature,” but through its ability to hold together sometimes conflicting economic and cultural logics, while keeping the audience experience as its main reference point.
L’HOMME QUI PLANTAIT DES ARBRES: An Immersive Tale transposes Jean Giono’s short story and Frédéric Back’s Oscar-winning film into a physical journey where visitors literally move at the pace of the shepherd who reforests his valley. Conceived with the Canadian Museum of Nature and presented in Ottawa and then Montreal, the exhibition invites the public to cross some twenty zones where models, projections, soundscapes, scientific content, and interactive devices intertwine. Visitors follow the gradual transformation of a barren landscape into a living forest, while discovering the role of trees in water cycles, biodiversity, and climate. Designed as a family experience, guided by an audio guide and powered by the strength of the original story, the installation is as much about emotion as transmission: it reminds us that a patient, repeated gesture can change a territory—and invites us to feel that with our bodies, rather than merely watching it on a screen.
A scale-up still in progress
Presenting Supply & Demand today is less about describing a finished model than about following an immersive scale-up in motion. The studio is betting on a modular infrastructure, on a catalogue of experiences designed to travel, and on alliances with museums, science centers, IP holders, and other producers. It is concretely testing what an “immersive industry” could look like—one that does not abandon storytelling, mediation, or the pleasure of play.
Many questions remain open, and that’s precisely what makes their trajectory worth watching: how far can standardization go? How do you preserve a diversity of forms and narratives? How do you reconcile the need to fill time slots with the desire to tackle demanding subjects? Supply & Demand doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but its projects already offer valuable material for those in the field who are trying to think about immersion beyond prototypes and one-off showpieces.
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