A tornado is about to destroy Poitiers. Your mission, if you accept it, is to get into the pick-up truck of a scientist and tornado hunter to prevent disaster with the help of a super-powered probe. Be careful, it might shake. Futuroscope is opening a new attraction this Saturday, July 2, dedicated to a phenomenon as fascinating as it is unpredictable: tornadoes.
In this new immersive experience combining synthetic images, real sets and actors, visitors gather on a dynamic 120-seat platform in the center of a cylindrical screen. The latter, the world’s largest LED screen of its kind, measuring 17 meters in diameter and 8 meters high, or 420 m², is made up of panels that retract to reveal live scenes where the real and the virtual merge.
The spectators, surrounded by the screen, are placed in armchairs on a rotating platform with a diameter of 11 meters, which can move in three axes with an amplitude of one meter. The platform raises, lowers, tilts while rotating at a speed of 30 km/h or a complete rotation in 7 seconds.
21 million euro investment
Before arriving, visitors walk through several scenic areas recreating a tornado training center: a tornado simulator, a workshop, a pickup truck garage, or a tornado monitoring headquarters. The budding tornado hunters are then directed to a holographic theater room with a vibrating floor featuring the TromBX, a (fictional) meteorological phenomenon neutralization device. Initially, the images projected on the screen are advanced towards the audience by ground-mounted LEDs, which project the images onto a transparent film.
This attraction represented an investment of €21 million, the park’s largest to date. The teams worked with five companies specializing in immersive filmmaking, and the live images mobilized more than forty people at the studio in Aubervilliers.
Futuroscope, avenue René Monory, 86360 Chasseneuil-du-Poitou. The park is open from 10am to midnight (closing time varies depending on the nightly show). Adults: 38 euros. Such. 05 49 49 30 80.
Source: Le Figaro
