Around this time every year, Spectra Art Space takes us into Spookadelia, a spooky immersive, interactive narrative art installation offering an alternative to the haunted house experience. Here, you won't find zombies or ghosts. While Spookadelia is inherently spooky, it's family friendly, inviting questers of all ages to explore a colorful, psychedelic world.
Each year's Spookadelia acts as both a sequel to previous installations and a standalone story. This year marks the show's fourth iteration: Spookadelia 4: The Curse Of Novo Ita. Designed by more than 30 artists, the show builds upon Novo Ita, a Spectra Art Space experience introduced earlier this year as an indoor-outdoor fantasy world created out of reclaimed and recycled materials.
Novo Ita presented a utopian botanical world in which all its living systems existed together in harmony. Spookadelia revisits that world after a "Spectra Spectre" has unleashed a curse on the land, casting a dark shadow over the colorful utopia and infecting all of its botanic inhabitants. Goo oozes from every surface, carrots and beets seem to writhe in pain and critters peer from ceilings and dark corners of a world that was once peaceful and harmonious. Now, it's up to you to put things right.
Questers will start indoors at Spectra's gallery space and store, where you'll watch a video introduction to Novo Ita and the mysterious Spectre. Then the will then enter the realm, where they'll face challenges, spirits and themselves as they strive to assemble an artifact that can lift the curse and save the city.
Each installation is interactive, and provides hidden clues in journal entries and audio recordings to help visitors break the curse. Questers will scan QR codes to activate a game on their phones, which guides them from installation to installation as they piece together the mystery behind the curse and work to solve it. Spookadelia artist David Hann also implemented Pokémon GO-esque Augmented Reality technology to bring the world of Novo Ita into our own, allowing guests to interact with Novo Ita spirits and characters using an app. At the end of their quest, they'll play a final game, and maybe come to face to face with the Spectre itself.
Most of the experience takes place outside. When buying tickets, guests will choose entry times, which are staggered at 15 minute intervals to encourage space between parties. After you enter, there is one hour to complete the quest.
You can catch Spookadelia 4 at Spectra Art Space, 1836 S Broadway from Wednesday-Sunday, October 9-November 28. Timed entry tickets are $20 for Adults, $12 for Children. You can also pay $30 for a priority ticket that grants you admission at any time on the day you purchase, plus an art swag bag.
