A spooky and unsettling ‘ghost hunt’ is heading to the Trafford Centre. Called Radio Ghost, it’s an audio-based tour through a ‘haunted shopping mall’, where those taking part will interact with three ‘individuals’ amid the usual shoppers.
It’s been constructed by digital performance innovators ZU-UK, an award-winning theatre and digital arts company, and uses an app to guide users through the unique experience. They will be taken on the 75-minute performance through the Trafford Centre, to ‘unlock the stories of the mall’.
Those taking part are given a phone with access to the Radio Ghost app, and then head off into the centre to discover its secrets. The audio is narrated by fictional DJ Iva Toguri, a long-dead Japanese-American disc jockey and radio personality, with themes including consumerism and Tsu-ku-mo-ga-mi, the Shinto belief that everything has a spirit.
The avant-garde company’s previous work has included projects like VR experience Goodnight, Sleep Tight, the post-immersive dating experience Binaural Dinner Date, #RioFoneHack for the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London, interactive audio experience Pick Me Up (& hold me tight), Project Perfect Stranger and Plague Round.
Persis Jadé Maravala, ZU-UK’s artistic director said: “In some ways, making this app over the past five years, has been about trying to make the scale and tempo of global change more accessible on a human level. The game is thrilling, but it is also about inviting people to slow down and make palpable the ghosts that we have been manipulated and bullied into not seeing; not hearing. A hunt that leads to understanding how interconnected we are.”
The experience, for ages 16+, will happen from July 22 to 24, with 90-minute slots bookable between from Friday at 7pm, Saturday from 1pm to 6pm, and Sunday from 1pm to 3pm. The cost is just £5.
You can book tickets here.
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