CUPRA offers a great event in the middle ground between the real world and the digital world: How digital can an event become?

Hangar 5 of the former Tempelhof Airport (Berlin) became an immersive space, where the digital and the physical merged to result in an immersive experience within a new reality. After a 3-month development, three weeks of assembly and 4,600m2 of construction carried out by Naturact, The Exponential Impulse was presented. In this great CUPRA event, the metaverse was first-hand experienced.

In addition to the launch of the CUPRA Tavascan and Metahype, the brand demonstrated its commitment to technology, innovation and electrification. All this was reflected in the exhibition of its new models aimed at dealers, with the collaboration of Primavera Sound – in charge of providing the music and a gamified DJ academy within the Metahype.

Digitalization, at the center of the event

The inauguration began with the attendees’ entrance to the immersive space through a tunnel of auditory experience together with Sennheiser, also formed by lasers and fluorescent tubes. Thus, the passage through this tunnel meant for participants a transition between the real world they were leaving behind and the phygital space they were entering.

Once inside the venue, they were greeted by a welcome avatar: a hologram whose image was elaborated by Tigrelab and presented on the three-dimensional screen – a 27m3 (333m) cubic structure in which its vertical threads with voxels (3D pixels) made it possible to create a real 3D image and not an illusion – to welcome them to this disruptive space.

In addition, they could feel as if they were inside the CUPRA metaverse thanks to the impressive reconstruction of Metahype in the 4,600m2 hangar. To replicate the virtual world of the brand, a large light and image installation was designed with 2 side screens of 40×5 meters and a 30×12 meter ceiling screen. Huge screens for an impressive visual impact.

Real-time digital projections played a transcendental role in making participants feel as if they were inside the metaverse. Do you imagine the DJ transforming into his own avatar during the event? The movements of the DJs in the central set of Primavera Sound – also responsible for adding the musical point of the Exponential Impulse – were captured by cameras and converted into personalized avatars that appeared on the screens, capable of replicating their movements in real-time.

Tigrelab ensured that, in addition to the avatars, immersive videos were shown on these screens, the content of which varied according to the time of day and the public passing through the square. To make participants feel as if they were inside the metaverse, a panoramic view of the Metahype was projected both during the day and at night. Small video capsules were also prepared for the moments when fans of Formula E – an event that took place simultaneously at the venue – visited the square. These showed the ABT CUPRA Formula E single-seater, which competed in these races, completely disassembled and moving along ceilings and walls.

Attendees were also able to create their own Metahype avatars and custom the CUPRA DarkRebel. This was done through touch screens, whose configurator was developed by the CUPRA Metahype team and Wildbytes. In the square there was also a screen on which, thanks to cameras, the silhouettes of the attendees passing in front of it were replicated and incorporated into the metaverse.