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Terminal 1: a temple of thrills

Located on the site of the 1935 and 1958 World's Fairs, you'll find Terminal 1. It's not a museum, not an amusement park, not a concert hall, but a hybrid venue unlike anything else in Europe. Digital art, esports, virtual reality, gaming and education come together in this experience space.

The concept revolves around one idea: immersion is something you experience together. While VR and gaming are often individual experiences, Terminal 1 aims, across more than 10,000 m², to create connection — between friends, generations and disciplines. Technology is never the goal in itself, but the means to experience something together.

Of course, SCENIO couldn't resist the call of this place, so we went to test it out.

What is there to experience?

• EVA (Esports Virtual Arenas): Across 1,200 m², you step into an imaginary universe with a VR headset and a connected weapon. Go on a space mission together, full of zombies, or take each other on. For a younger audience, there's a team mission fought out with paint weapons.
• Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition: A colossal video-mapping hall with projections up to eight metres high tells the story of Egyptian civilisation. Through a metaverse you end up in the Valley of the Kings, and a virtual reality journey takes you to the Egyptian afterlife. You can also admire both refined replicas and original artefacts.
• The Sim Power: Ultra-realistic car simulators for anyone wanting to feel the thrill of speed, grip and concentration, from beginner to experienced driver.
• Supercube: electric karting inside an immersive "cube" with 360° projections of digital challenges and visual effects.
• Time Mission: A reinterpretation of escape games in which, as a team, over 60 to 120 minutes, you choose from more than 25 challenge rooms full of puzzles, speed and logic.

At the centre of all these different activities at Terminal 1 lies the central island, where you can grab a drink or a snack. Naturally, with digital ordering terminals, a coffee robot that prints custom latte art, and a fries robot that prepares fries to order.

Tested!

You can find a full article on Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition over on SCENIO. But how does the VR really hold up? This writer already gets queasy just looking at a boat. Early VR experiences left me feeling quite "green." With Tutankhamun, that's completely no longer the case. A good piece of advice for the metaverse: have the nerve to just walk around. Always keep in mind that you're simply walking around an empty space and that nothing can happen to you, at most bumping into someone. That way you get the full experience and can see everything there is to see. Tested with various people, and the verdict was unanimous: highly recommended!

In EVA, we hunted zombies with a group ranging in age from 45 to 75. Against all expectations, everyone had an absolute blast. Group spirit obviously played a major role in that. Which is exactly Terminal 1's goal: everything is designed so that technology fades into the background in favour of the experience itself. What sticks with you isn't "the VR," but "what we experienced together." In short: mission accomplished!

Finally, we crawled through the various rooms of Time Mission with a few people in their twenties. This concept is clearly aimed at active, sporty people. Some of the rooms call more for logical insight, but most lean toward action — think running, jumping, flying, diving, falling, getting back up and carrying on, as the song goes. And all of it against a clock ticking away the time relentlessly. If you go in expecting a classic escape game, you'll be disappointed. But if you want to experience action as a group, this is the place to be!

If you're looking for an original experience with your company, your class, your group of friends, or anything else, you should definitely check out Terminal 1. We'll certainly be going back — not just to try the other experiences, but also to relive the ones we've already had.

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