How ‘Elementa’ in Los Angeles is shaping the future of dining shows | Interview
“Elementa” at The Gallery in downtown Los Angeles is the first experiential dining show and venue for the talented team at Allureum, a joint venture between Chuck Fawcett and Daren Ulmer, who have had decades of experience creating unforgettable theme park entertainment around the world.
Sensory dining experience from the artists behind the Hagrid animatronic and ‘Fantasmic!’
“Elementa” is a two-hour, five-course entertainment dining extravaganza. This multi-sensory journey explores the five classical elements of nature: Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and Aether. It is guided by a live performer known as The Curator.
Fawcett’s past experience in the theme park world features a lot of work with puppetry and animatronics. Some of his work you’re most likely familiar with is the Hagrid animatronic in Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure, and a lot of the motion-based characters in Super Nintendo World. Beyond Universal theme parks, he has done extensive work for Disney, SeaWorld, and more.
Ulmer’s theme park experiences greatly focused on the world of music and projection. He was the music producer of “Fantasmic!” at Disney’s Hollywood Studios as well as for “it’s a small world Holiday” in Disneyland. His experience in media design and production lead him and his team onto the job of creating the projection mapping on Hogwarts for the grand opening of The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in 2010.
Now these two visionaries have left the theme park world behind them and teamed up to create something more personal. “I don’t want to just be known as an animatronics expert and Daren doesn’t want to be known as just a media expert,” Fawcett said. “We want to be known as kind of leading the way in terms of new sensory entertainment experiences.”
‘What’s missing out there?’
When the two decided they wanted to work together, the brainstorming began. Ulmer explained, “We weren’t going to go build our own theme park. That was not really where our heart and passion or scale were. The question arose a few years ago, what’s missing out there? What are the gaps that could be filled? And we were starting to see the emergence of immersive-type experiences.” He continued, “What we really built was a venue. ‘Elementa’ is just the first show in a venue that has endless possibilities of the types of shows and experiences that we can create … I bet if I collected all the notes, there’s over 100 concepts for different shows that we want to do.”
A meal with projection mapping
As you enter the dining room, the personal experience begins immediately as you find your individual names projected on the tables where you’ll be seated. After having some time to meet your dining neighbors, the lights dim, the music swells, and we meet our host for the night, The Curator.
Each of the five elements is introduced by The Curator as he unfolds the story of our dining experience. The room comes to life with projection mapping not only shining on the walls around us, but also on the landscape of our dining table.
Playful whimsy is added when you realize you can control the table projections simply by waving your hands to make the projected water shimmer and poking at the table to pop the projected bubbles. Your plates of food glimmer by the shine of a projected spotlight as it’s placed down in front of you. And when you move your plate, the spotlight follows.
The “Elementa” menu was crafted by Chef Joshua Whigham. Whigham created a menu that perfectly complements the immersive storytelling of “Elementa.” A vegan, gluten-free menu option is also available, ensuring inclusivity for all guests. The five courses on the regular menu are as follows:
“It’s always been part of our vision that we were going to be delivering a meal that itself would be worth the price of the meal, whether there was a show or not,” stated Ulmer. “And then if we could stack that on top of one of the best show experiences you can have in a transformational place and environment, that was the recipe for us.”
Although Ulmer and Fawcett both admit it’s easy to be critical of their own work when reviewing it themselves, they’ve both been absolutely delighted and proud of the food and overall experience this new venture has been offering.
“The thing that surprised me the most was the guest response to the food and the service,” stated Fawcett. “Daren and I both appreciate good food, but we’re not food creators and we’re not food & beverage operations people. And I think we got that right. So many of the things we run around the world and have done together, we walk in and we go, experience was a nine or a ten, but the food was a four. Or the food is a ten, and there was no experience at all. I really feel like we got it … All five courses are exceptionally good, and most people like them.” He continued, “That surprised me at how well we executed the food and how the food visually ties to the storytelling as well. That is great hospitality.”
‘Elementa’ video highlights + tickets
Watch highlights of the “Elementa” experience in our video:
Tickets for “Elementa” start at $200 per person and are now on sale at TheGalleryDining.com. If you’re looking for a more laidback experience, the nearly 8,000-square-foot facility at 330 W. Olympic Boulevard in downtown Los Angeles also houses Horizon, a sophisticated bar and restaurant offering an extensive menu of wines, artfully crafted cocktails, and seasonal dishes.
Fawcett and Ulmer see this as the first of not only many experiences at The Gallery, but just the beginning for more experiences launching around the country. Their goal is to own and operate location-based entertainment and immersive hospitality destinations beyond simply Los Angeles.
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This sounds like it’s right out of the Hunger Games. An artificially created “environment” as a substitute for real nature. An escape into a box which controls you in a surreal environment.
No thanks, I think I’ll go on a picnic.