- My name is Christopher Reyes-- - I'm Kathryn Hicks-- - I'm Reuben Brunson-- - Marvin Stockwell I'm one of the co-founders-- - I am the CEO-- - I'm the chief of games and technology-- - I am the world builder of Baron Von Opperbean and the River of Time-- - Or “BVO” for short.

[futuristic music] - I knew when I was planning on doing an immersive experience that there needed to be a story.

And I thought it really, in terms of creating an epic universe and series of films, and where people could be the hero in that adventure.

So that's where I came up with Baron Von Opperbean the character, but I don't want people to focus on that character because that character's missing.

The participants are the heroes of the story, you know?

And so what Baron Von Opperbean really does is gives people like the backstory.

I was looking for people to invest in doing an immersive experience of like, a larger scale.

And I was having a hard time with that.

So I was like, well I'm just going to do one.

I'm going to do a prototype and, I got, 2000 square feet in Off the Wall Arts, you know, in a warehouse and started working on it, just started building it.

It took, it took about a year to make.

- I met Chris back in 2019.

I believe in front of the Crosstown Concourse water fountain.

Someone told me I should meet him.

- I didn't know Kathryn when I did the first one, but I had heard of her, right?

And I was--I tracked her down, I saw some of her work.

- I did work on a project for HBO and Snapchat for "House of the Dragon", the TV show, for the first season.

So I was one of 20 Snap creators to develop a House of Dragon AR experience that was location based.

So I specifically chose the Memphis sign on Mud Island, which I think is ironic considering I'm doing another immersive project on Mud Island.

And I chose Mud Island because it seemed like the best place for a dragon to fly around.

A dragon would want to live on Mud Island.

- And I was just like...

I was like, Kathryn, come work on this thing with me.

- He asked me if I wanted to be a part of it.

I didn't do the project then, but he did show me like BVO once, like towards the I think it was right after his last time slots.

- Eventually, she got to come to the first one, to the first Baron Von Opperbean, and, she, I think she really loved it.

And, she could relate to the vision.

- It was incredible he was able to transform two thousand square feet into this immersive space made out of like, recycled, reclaimed materials.

- It really was a game changer, I think, for myself, because I was able to to see how people interacted with the space and the story and what they wanted more of, and what they loved about what I did.

And that's what eventually led me to go after the Coliseum.

That's where I wanted to put Baron Von Opperbean.

- Chris and I got to talking.

Years ago I went to BVO pop-up, Quadrant 360 and thought it was awesome.

And it was so successful that Chris was right to ask the question, “Where do I take this next?” So he started thinking, I'm going to take it and put it in the Coliseum.

- 2023, I think, I met with Mayor Young, he was actually at the DMC at the time.

you know, I was like, asking him to give me advice on how I could get the Coliseum.

And said, "What do you think about Mud Island at the River Museum?"

And at first I was like, no.

It's seasonal and it's not, I don't think it would work for me.

- We didn't think we wanted to do it.

Our memory of what this museum was-- I wasn't, quite frankly, remembering some of the spatial dimensions of it.

I don't think Chris was, either.

- I'm a native Memphian.

And so I, you know, I came here as a kid in 1982 when it first opened.

Loved the place, you know?

Didn't come back a lot because, you know, didn't change a lot over the years.

So, as soon as Marvin and Chris kind of had their first meeting about the possibility of this place we came out here not too long after that.

- When this experience, when the River of Time was coming through, I said, "Hey, Kathryn, you know, you got to come down to see this place with me."

And I had called her, like, in the middle of the night to come down here.

So I get to Mud Island at night and I'm like, where am I going?

What's happening?

It's dark.

Go up the escalator and I'm like, "There's a museum here?"

And we walk through, and we're going on that ship.

And I'm like, "There are boats in this museum?"

- When we walked onto that first boat, the first of two boats here, that's when Chris had the kind like, foundational, like, a-ha moment.

- As soon as I walked in, I realized, oh, I, I don't know what I'm talking about.

I need-- This is the spot.

- Because it doesn't look like that big from the outside.

You're like this brutalist architect building.

But when you go into that first ship, it's incredible.

It's just a well-made ship.

And it was one of two ships.

Like, there's another ship with cannons and different things.

So it was this really amazing facility.

And I'm like, yeah.

Immediately said yes after going through it.

- Literally within about a 30-second span of time, we went from “We probably won't do it here,” to “We're definitely doing it here.” - Yes, of course, this is the perfect place for this to be.

Not too long after that, before, you know, we actually have an official, an official agreement with our landlord.

It was in December.

Like, we were still like, iffy if we're really going to be able to do this at Mud Island.

And then Chris sent this picture of him with the keys, and that was a magic moment.

It was like, yes, this is really happening.

- In hindsight, I look back and I think to myself, you know, to go from a 2000-square-foot pop-up at Off the Wall Arts to the Mid-South Coliseum is a is a heck of a jump, right?

So I think this 33,000 square feet of the old Mud Island River Museum is probably a much more, logical next jump, really in size.

It's still a big jump, and this will still be 16 times as big as big as the original 2000-square-foot BVO.

- And so there's this whole scale aspect of it, but, when you do walk out onto the riverboat and, seeing it with immersive experience, mindset.

I was like, wow, this could be a really great thing.

And that's how we came up with The River of Time.

We wanted the experience to relate to the river, and we had a riverboat.

The imagery that I was already doing was like this flowing, cosmic river already.

And I did it in the first one.

So it was-- The story came together really easy, and I was inspired by the assets that were already here inside the museum.

Taking what I learned from the first one, you know, we're going to use reclaimed materials.

We're going to work with artists.

We're going to incorporate story and a digital layer over that.

- What Chris is doing physically, as you see in the front entrance and here I'm kind of doing digitally with the world this world of BVO.

Extending it digitally through using game engine technologies such as Unreal Engine and, also thinking about, like the game design aspect of BVO, since BVO is a living, breathing, open world game.

- We wanted to take the best things out of a lot of existing immersive experiences, and add our own twist to it with storytelling and the gamification.

- We'll have daily activations and daily events.

So a lot of open world online games have like a daily event, a daily campaign, a season.

And that's another exciting thing.

It gets people to come back in because it's never the same experience.

This is a living, breathing world.

It's not a story you watch.

It's a story you live.

And all these worlds are alternate versions of Memphis.

We won't be, like, publicly saying this, even though I'm saying this right now, but I love doing like, research of, like what the Memphis buildings look like, thinking through how to integrate some elements of Memphis into what this world is.

But this will be connected to Memphis's day and night cycle.

So if it's night out there, it's night in here.

If it's raining outside, it will rain in here.

We might even add some fun effects, like maybe around like holiday time it might snow.

We might have like winter seasons or other made up weather that exists in the world of the Baron.

- To me, this is a project for Memphis, and by Memphians, you know.

and I want I want people to know that this is coming from the Memphis creatives.

And it's really a collaborative project.

Building this is like building a real live game.

- This is several branching, I guess ever-changing narratives and experiences and outcomes.

And you can choose to do gamification, the story side, the playground side, or you don't have to do it and you can chill out on the boat, one of our two ships and just travel the multiverse.

- What's been cool about working on this project is that we've been asked to reimagine, a vacant space that is part of what I would argue is a Memphis treasure.

You know, one of the central aspects of Mud Island.

So to reimagine that and be a lifelong Memphian.

And know that our project is kind of the tip of the spear or the beachhead for what I think will be Mud Island's comeback is just a real treat.

- It's an imagination realized.

[upbeat music] [gentle music]