The London Boat Show "4D Experience"

One of the advertised "attractions" of the London Boat Show was something it called the "4D Experience". According to the blurb it would:

challenge your senses as you walk through a number of nautical locations. From the heat of the tropics to the cold icy blow of the Arctic, through the beauty of the Northern Lights, the 4D Experience will assail your senses with sampled sounds of the various scenarios, sea breezes brought to life with computer controlled fans targeting your torso and all brought together in a stunning HD experience

Sounds good, eh? Alas....

Ok, this is what it actually involved. Inside there was a walkway with projectors on either side giving a near 360 degree azimuth, 180 elevation view of various scenes. You stood on gratings through which blew air plus the odd cloud of mist in a rather underwhelming way.

The biggest problem was that to create the 360 degree azimuth view they had to cut holes in the screen on either side for projectors to light up the other side. So it didn't actual feel like you were somewhere else as everywhere you looked there was a projector.

Then the "at sea in a storm" segment was really odd because the walk-way didn't pitch and roll as a proper boat did. It felt like you were just looking at a video of the sea, which of course you were.

It would have been better to be slightly more modest and have a 180 - 270 degree coverage with all the projectors behind you, especially as you can't actually see all 360 degrees at once.

It wasn't exactly over-run with crowds as you tell from the pic above, so I don't think that's going to be the saviour of boat shows.