2. The lifecycle concept from a distribution perspective2. The lifecycle concept from a distribution perspective

The realisation and distribution of XR productions are approached in an interesting way in Digital Catapult's 2022 report, “The Creative immersive content lifecycle: from distribution to restoration.” The report proposes a holistic long-term vision of the entire chain of immersive production, within which distribution is integrated. Such an approach can benefit the viability of IX productions and encourages creators to think about audiences, distribution, and the future value of their work from the very beginning. According to the report, the ideal chain can be divided into five successive stages:

1. Pre-production
In this phase, the concept is developed, and the necessary funding is raised. Although the focus is usually on creative development, this is precisely the time to also think strategically about the intended audience, forms of public outreach, the distribution possibilities and the technical scalability of the work. This is also increasingly required by funding bodies in the Netherlands.

2. Production
During the production phase, the work is realised. Creators spend the majority of available resources on developing their creative vision. For successful distribution, audience development and the design of a content strategy that makes the work sustainable and reusable in the long term should be started in this phase. It is also valuable to think about possible distribution and licensing models as early as this stage. In this way, distribution can become an integral part of the project's design.

Lifecycle thinking requires that time and budget be allocated for the development of the distribution strategy, including in the budget. This has implications for how a project is realized: distribution is in fact already built into the project, for example, by setting up content episodically so that it is easier to localise or adapt later for other media forms.

3. Display
The screening phase starts with the premiere and covers an important part of the life cycle. Maximizing screening opportunities is central here. For many immersive works, early in the development, it must be determined how many visitors per hour will be able to experience the work and at what ticket price. Although profit maximization is not a goal in itself for many cultural and artistic productions, it is important to formulate a concrete ambition around reach, impact or revenue. Within this screening phase, four sub-phases can be distinguished:

• Festival premiere and tour;
• Longer-term screenings at LBE (Location-Based Entertainment) venues;
• Touring, both nationally and internationally;
• Syndication (coordinated distribution) through a distributor or network of presentation partners.

4. Further development
Further development is essential for projects that eventually want to also focus on digital platforms and home use. Consider modularizing content so that updates, episodic extensions or platform-specific versions can be easily integrated. This not only increases the longevity of the work, but can also lead to new audiences or increased exposure when relaunching. Also, re-releasing existing content - for example, an AR installation re-screened in a different location - can contribute to increased audience reach and long-term revenue (long tail revenue), provided the work is technically maintained and remains compatible with new operating systems.

5. Archiving and presentation
The final stage of the chain focuses on the lasting preservation of the work. For contemporary, technically complex, site-specific productions, this is crucial. Documentation of the creative process, artistic intent, technical specifications and contextual information form the basis for future reproduction or research. A good preservation strategy allows for future presentation or reinterpretation of the work.

These project stages can assist a creator/producer in formulating a roadmap for an IX project. For each new release, the production team can plan preparatory activities, such as scaling up or down production, transferring to another technical platform, developing a new episode or localising the content for a specific context.

In a talk on the Immersive Experience Network website, British creator Darren Emerson talks about In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats, and how he and his team make the best use of the project's lifecycle for distribution. What are the different phases and appearances the work has been seen in? He explains how the work is touring around the world after its festival release, and setting up a tour in England where the work remains in one place for longer periods of time each time.

Several elements outlined in this chapter recur in his narrative. Below is a summary.

Darren Emerson’s In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats (2022) is a large-scale, interactive VR installation that immerses the audience in the atmosphere of late 1980s British rave culture. The experience combines haptic technology, sound, wind, projection and light, and is designed as a total experience.

Emerson and his team work with a stepped tiered distribution model: from a full version in which the team as "event producer" provides and executes everything, to lighter versions in which it provides only the software and guidelines that allow a local partner to display the work independently. This is a smart response to the varying resources and ambitions of institutions, and allows the work to be shown in multiple places at once.

After touring some 20 countries, touring began domestically. During this 18-month UK tour, the team has found solutions to the problems they encounter, such as the institutions' lack of technical knowledge or their limited financial clout. Institutions unaccustomed to this type of production are supported in output. And the work can be presented for longer periods of time. Because of the Arts Council's pre-funding, the team has been able - in addition to the set-up and 3–4 days of training for local staff - to take care of the costs and execution for the first ten days of the show itself. This has reduced the risk for the venue, after which it can continue programming independently, and the performance can become profitable.

In addition, the team conducts research on audience experience and ticketing. The results are shared after the tour as best practices through the BFI and Arts Council. According to Emerson, it is important for immersive installations to be embedded in an institution's regular programme and not presented as a stand-alone project. In his view, the public's interest is primarily piqued by the subject matter and story rather than the VR itself. That said, experience shows in addition that audiences embrace innovation. Moreover, this way of working also attracts new audiences: in Birmingham, 60% of visitors had never tried VR before. Just as many had never been to the museum itself. Emerson's team also used the tour to develop a multiplayer version. In this way, it has extended the life of the production.

A major part of the work of Emerson and his team was convincing the organizations that programming the production could draw new audiences and would not be a loss. Emerson also had to convince the Arts Council that a successful tour required pre-funding for the first 10 days per venue. This took a lot of doing. Setting up and making the production operable costs between GBP 25,000 and GBP 30,000 per venue. In order to recoup these costs and also make the project profitable, the work has to remain in place for an extended period of time.

From the Digital Catapult report as well as the experience of In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats, we learn that it is crucial to think about preservation and reproduction of an experience from the concept phase: this extends the life cycle of an immersive production. Many immersive works are by definition temporary, site-specific and technologically complex. Moreover, they need to be rebuilt over and over again. This is precisely why it is essential to carefully document the entire creation process - including the artistic intentions of the creator.

Good documentation not only supports the internal process - such as making creative choices or looking back on them - but is also vital for external purposes, such as pitching the work, reporting to stakeholders and archiving for future reuse. Part of the documentation can be a concept bible: a document in which the visual, content and production principles of the work are recorded. In addition, a technical rider provides guidance for sustainable distribution. This brings together technical requirements and information about the set-up so that the work can be built elsewhere without the direct involvement of the original team.

In addition, good documentation and a conservation strategy are essential. Because the concept of authenticity for digital and immersive works is less tied to physical objects, the focus of preservation is on preserving the artistic intent and experience of the work. In some cases, a work can only be re-presented in the future with different or updated technology. This requires that the original intent and core values be well established.

This systematic recording of the essential characteristics and idiosyncrasies of a work were named by Professor Pip Laurenson, who specializes in the conservation of contemporary art, in 2005 in the Tate Papers. The guidelines laid out therein are still relevant and also work well for IX. Good documentation includes:

• Artist's instructions;
• Approved installations for reference;
• The context in which the work was created;
• Description of to what extent technical or content choices are representative of the creator's style or method of working at the time.

Such documentation not only supports future restorations, but also helps curators and technicians make choices when reinstallation, translation or adaptation is needed.

Types of documentation
Media and preservation researcher Annet Dekker, in Enjoying the gap: comparing contemporary documentation strategies (2013) distinguishes three overlapping forms of documentation, each fulfilling a different function within the life cycle of a work.

Documentation as process refers to the use of documentation to aid creative and production decision-making during development. Documentation as presentation refers to capturing the work in text and image, for example, for promotion, education or archiving. Finally, there is documentation for the purpose of future reconstruction, where information is recorded in such a way that the work can later be presented or reproduced again, even if the original technology has become obsolete.

Documenting development processes typically receives little attention. Within educational contexts, it is not a big topic and funding bodies often lack separate budgets for it. However, good documentation costs time, attention and money. As a result, in current practice it is something that is often done quickly afterwards, which means that a lot of valuable information is already lost. Specifically, including good documentation at the start of a project ensures that more conscious and better choices can be made during development. This increases the likelihood of a longer and more successful distribution journey. It is also an essential component for proper archiving of a production

Toolkits and roadmaps
Within media arts, a number of toolkits have been developed in the past for documenting work and work processes. Examples include the Variable Media Questionnaire, The Media Art Notation System (now discontinued) and V2_'s Capturing Unstable Media Conceptual Model. These toolkits provide tools for documentation, but are no longer up to date. For an AR smartphone app or an immersive theatre piece, for example, they do not provide sufficient leads.

For the technical preservation of cultural productions, it is useful to look at the documentation methodologies of software and hardware applications. Appendix 3 of this report has formulated an initial format for creators based on the way technical documentation is done within software development. Such a document can be supplemented with schematics and diagrams of used hardware and architecture.

Installation documentation and service design
Installation documentation should not only capture the original technical design as completely as possible, but also acts as a living document. It is a constantly updated log that grows with the development of a project. It is important that it become as complete as possible. During the construction or reconstruction of an immersive installation - with projections, VR glasses, sound, physical objects and interactive elements, for example - unforeseen technical and production challenges often arise. The ad hoc solutions and decisions then made (such as recalibrating equipment, alternative cable routes or workarounds for bugs) are crucial to document. This information is often not included in the original design, but it determines the authenticity and reproducibility of the work. This is a live document, comparable to an installation manual in development.

Maker Nienke Huitenga and dramaturg Marijke Hessels began research in the summer of 2025 to develop a cheat sheet for makers. With this, they can archive their work within clear frameworks that help describe what happened: "It's very complicated as a maker to put your own process into words, because a lot of these things happen from maker intuition. You then have to find words for that." What they especially want to retrieve and capture with the cheat sheet is the knowledge gained during a making process about whether, for example, certain collaborations were fruitful, why, what decisions were made and how problems were handled. In this way, they want to ensure that all that "embodied knowledge" can also be shared more widely.

In the roundtable discussion on Artistic Design Research at the Moonshot Meetup as part of Immersive Tech Week (2024), another option for documenting the 'soft side' was suggested: creating a Frequently Made Mistakes (FFM). With this, findings from the development process could be collected and knowledge shared with the industry.

Documentation also ultimately plays a central role in being able to "franchise" an immersive work. Here, other parties can exhibit the experience in new locations without the direct involvement of the creators, while maintaining quality and artistic integrity. For example, the British Marshmallow Laser Feast tours with installations such as We Live in an Ocean of Air, in collaboration with local companies that present the work locally thanks to detailed documentation. This requires not only technical instructions (such as a tech rider), but also creative guidelines (such as a concept bible), as well as documentation of all practical choices, necessary equipment and site conditions. Without such documentation, it is virtually impossible to consistently rebuild a complex work in another city or country.

For good technical documentation, it is important to collaborate with audiovisual engineers, video technicians and other technical service providers. Their expertise and insights contribute directly to a realistic, feasible and future-proof documentation of the work. It is also important to preserve physical elements, such as set pieces or props, and to include information about the ideal or original location. Consider spatial relationships, lighting conditions or the presence of specific technical facilities. Preserving physical material is also important in the context of reproduction costs and sustainability during the lifecycle.

To make the project as a whole better understood and portable, a service design approach can be employed. This involves looking not only at the technical and physical components, but also at the experience of the audience: how visitors are received, how they move through the space and what exactly they experience. It also includes the roles of hosts - such as reception, escorting, on- and off-boarding or technical support. Service design helps to approach all these elements as one cohesive system and capture them in a so- called service blueprint. This "map" shows both the visible actions and experiences of the audience ("front stage") and the invisible processes and infrastructure behind it ("backstage"). By recording this visually and in a structured way, it becomes much easier to re-execute a work later, transfer it to other parties or archive it adequately.

Gaby Wijers also advocates not only archiving the work itself, but also providing more research into the documentation of audience participation: "How is the work experienced, what works and what doesn't in terms of interaction? There are also big differences there between venues. A museum, for example, it is very different from a festival. According to Wijers, you can also see this as a second layer to the impact question that funders often ask: "Impact is hard to capture, particularly and not in quantitative terms, but rather on the qualitative side."

In this context, Caspar Sonnen quotes journalist Joost Broeren. Broeren realised that as a journalist, you have to write not only about the experience itself, but also what you feel during that experience. Broeren:"I also have to explain that my shoes pinched a little when I had to take them off at the beginning of the experience, and that it slowed me down for a while, which made me feel lost from the group for a moment. And that aspect came back very nicely in the work. The context suddenly becomes very important." Sonnen echoes this, comparing writing about immersive experiences to a review of a live concert, where you describe not only the band, but also the venue, the feeling, whether there was dancing or not. "The only problem with IX is that in the same amount of text you also have to explain what a guitar is, what a band is, or what a singer-songwriter is," Sonnen adds.

Appendix 3 provides an outline for a universal roadmap for creators and producers to document IX, covering technical, spatial and interactive aspects.

Case studies documentation
A successful Dutch documentation methodology is that of the Instrument Inventor Initiative (iii). They have been publishing the Blueprint Series since 2023, a series of publications offering detailed documentation of performative sound art works and interactive installations developed by artists affiliated with iii. Each publication acts as a manual through which a specific work can be reconstructed and understood, emphasizing the underlying concepts and technical specifications.

For distribution of immersive experiences, this method provides a valuable model that can be an inspiration for other initiatives striving for broader and more sustainable distribution of immersive art experiences. Documenting works in the form of instructional manuals not only enables their reproduction and presentation in other venues, but also contributes to the preservation and archiving of this discipline.

In addition, the Blueprint Series encourages an open approach to knowledge sharing within the art community, which can lead to new collaborations and interpretations of existing works. This broad knowledge sharing within the sector is at least as important as documenting itself. This requires structural anchoring through, for example, existing network organizations such as Platform ACCT, the Museum Association, The Moonshot Coalition, festivals, or the VSCD. Representative bodies on the maker side, such as VPT, NAPA or Kunsten'92, can also play a role here.

In conclusion
Although the need for good documentation in immersive arts projects is becoming increasingly clear, the practice often remains ad hoc and unsystematic. As a result, it is not always clear where the responsibility lies: with the creator or the producer. As Gabey Tjon-A-Tham notes, "I know that making good documentation takes a lot of time. So again, it feels like another job." Another factor is that documentation often becomes fragmented once multiple technologies, physical installations and media forms come together. This makes it difficult to rebuild, transfer or commercially exploit the work over time. It undermines the sustainability of a project - both artistically and economically.

To really do justice to the complexity as well as the potential of immersive works, it is necessary to rethink what conservation means in this context. This requires not only technical documentation, but also smart formats: simple cheat sheets, concise completion templates and practical questionnaires based on previous cases.

It would be valuable to collaborate early on with documentation and archiving specialists, such as LI-MA. Bringing in their expertise from the concept phase onward lays the groundwork for a work that is not only compelling in the here and now, but can endure in the long term - in its full glory, and respecting the original intent of its creator. As Vevi van Vliet states, "We could provide input from the moment the work is made about what that means for maintenance and preservation, but also for distribution. What do you run into when you want to distribute such large immersive works nationally and internationally?

Although it sounds logical to involve the intended audience during the development or production phase, makers and producers still do this too infrequently. In light of the full lifecycle - and following on from section 2.2 on documentation - it is actually crucial to deploy user testing early on. Tupac Martir explains how his studio creates a permanent set-up of an installation in progress and brings people to the studio on an ongoing basis to test and improve the work: "That's how we learn what's needed. But that's not the norm. Few works actually integrate code into the headset to collect data and understand what people are doing and how they interact with it."

Testing the work with end users, preferably from the intended audience, clarifies whether the work achieves the intended effect: does the narrative come across, how does the interaction design work, is the flow clear? It is also valuable for the further development of a work. In the game industry, such user-testing is a standard part of concept development, as Yannis Bolman, CEO of Little Chicken explains, "If you're going to make something, first you're going to see what type of game you want to make and whether there are 'communities' for whom this is interesting. You then start asking what they find interesting."

Bolman notes, however, that few creators doing this, even though it can significantly improve the chances of their work landing successfully. Little Chicken therefore regularly conducts a survey even after a game is published: "What do you think? What do you like, what don't you like? That's a great moment, because then someone knows exactly what they played and can give valuable feedback." Marieke Nooren also sees the importance of testing, preferably as early as possible, with a diverse audience to see if a story 'lands': "I think it helps if a creator not only looks at what story they want to tell, but also at what they really want to convey and what kind of impact they want to have."

It is important to view user testing not as a one-time moment, but as an ongoing process within the lifecycle of the work. Each new version, iteration or context brings a different audience. Structurally testing with diverse audiences - from the initial prototypes to after the festival round - not only increases the quality and impact of the work, but also the likelihood of long-term sustainable dissemination and relevance.

Many immersive projects develop in stages, with research processes in which each version leads to new insights in terms of interaction, narrative and technical feasibility. Within the development and distribution of immersive productions, it is important to distinguish between prototyping and 'versioning'. Whereas prototyping is about developing a work through successive iterations, versioning involves showing multiple versions of the same work side by side. Both play their own role in the lifecycle of a work.

Gaby Wijers explains how prototyping works: "Many media artists are constantly coming up with new versions, often because the (work) is not only a concept, but also a work-in-progress, or rather, a research process." When testing a new prototype, audience interaction is important. By presenting prototypes, creators can test whether their work has the intended effect on the target audience. In doing so, it is important to include the process of on-boarding and off-boarding, the moment just before and just after the IX experience, in testing. Yet in practice, prototype testing sometimes creates friction in an industry accustomed to premieres. An early presented prototype can undermine the premiere status of the final work, reducing the chances of presentation at A-list festivals. Communicating clearly in advance whether it is a test presentation or a premiere can partially overcome this problem.

Even within grant schemes, there is sometimes confusion about the status and value of further development, and a work is sometimes too quickly seen as "finished," making funding for prototyping as a separate phase difficult.

Versioning is a term used when multiple final versions of a completed work are on the market. This can be of great strategic value: think of a work that can be accessed both on a VR headset and via a web browser, or that is modularized for different contexts (such as festivals, museums or educational environments).

Thinking about possible versions from the concept phase - for example, by incorporating technical flexibility or dividing content into episodes - can increase a work's scalability, distribution possibilities and longevity.

XR artist Daniel Ernst sees the importance of versioning. For his work The Great Orator, he has developed three versions: a festival version with a linear narrative and framed duration; a game version that offers players an infinite simulated open world; and a museum version that emphasizes the physical exhibition experience.

Other creators are also experimenting with these kinds of hybrid forms. For example, Marshmallow Laser Feast sometimes translates VR works to dome projections or flat screen configurations. And recently Ali Eslami and Mamali Shafahi translated two VR chapters from their work Nerd_Funk into the physical space, using sculptures, objects, visuals and video.

For XR, experts recommend thinking about versioning at the very beginning of the production process. As the case of In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats showed, different versions (small, medium, large) are crucial to touring a work. For example, it is good to think early on about how many people might see a work per hour. Such considerations play an important role in a final screening. Tupac Martir says he is open to making a smaller version of 2019's Cosmos within Us, if that would allow the work to tour: "I think there is potential in a different way of presenting it. If we want Cosmos Within Us to tour, maybe we could make a smaller version - one with just one musician, a conductor and a voice-over. It's about figuring out how far we can take it back without losing the essence."

Both prototyping and versioning are crucial within sustainable lifecycle thinking of a production. Prototyping is an instrument for quality improvement during the realisation, can respond to technological changes, and thus ensures future-proof preservation. Versioning enables wide dissemination in different contexts and responds to diverse public expectations.

Finally, in the context of versioning, it is important to think in terms of reuse and sustainability. Digital Catapult's research asks whether digital components such as 3D models, animations or sound assets can be reused in other contexts or formats. Making smart use of existing content and making it more broadly applicable can increase the value of the work, strengthening the resilience and scalability of the sector as a whole.

Ideally, the marketing and communication strategy is incorporated from the very start of the concept phase. In practice, this often happens late or inadequately. Questions such as who your audience is, how to reach that audience and through which platforms and networks, should be asked early in the lifecycle. According to Yannis Bolman, there is a big difference between quantitative reach and qualitative visibility: "At the Gamescom conference we had about 6,000 people visiting our booth, which is quite a lot. But if one social media post can reach 50,000 people, of course that's not comparable." Still, the physical presence at such a trade show is valuable precisely because of the media attention it generates: "Around a conference, there is a lot of press looking at what stands out on the trade show floor or is new. Then you get interviews and stories, which in turn leads to media exposure. Ultimately, with as much visibility as possible, you want to ensure that people who find it interesting can discover it and follow it."

The question of who your audience is and how to reach them is inextricably linked to the work's positioning and promotional strategy. Tupac Martir points out that it is difficult to keep the earmarked marketing budget entirely reserved for this purpose: "You'd rather put that budget into the work itself than into a huge marketing campaign." According to Martir, it would benefit distribution if funding bodies had separate budgets for marketing and development. You would then think more consciously about the design of a promotion strategy, preventing it from becoming an afterthought. A work also often caters to different audiences, each requiring a different communication and marketing strategy. Experienced visitors to IX require a different form of communication from newcomers, who have a greater need for accessible branding and clear explanations.

Outreach
Actively seeking out relevant partners, networks and audiences - also called outreach - is indispensable, but time-consuming. During the busy production period, this work is often neglected. Distributors or publishers can be of great value by taking on (part of) this task and actively using their network. Think for example of connecting with theatres, museums or festivals in different cities, where local partners help with the technical side of things, promotion and audience recruitment. Or by structurally involving and inviting the programmers and decision makers of museums and theatres, for example already during prototype testing. In the Netherlands, unfortunately, there are almost no specialized distributors or publishers in the field of IX.

Babette Wijntjes of Nu: Reality also sees a lack of people who focus specifically on marketing and publicity: "The disadvantage is that at the moment there are very few people in the cultural sector who deal specifically with this subject. So I also very often say to marketers, social media specialists or publicity people: specialize in it. Research it. Become an expert. There's a real need for it."

According to Wijntjes, it would be a good idea to investigate whether a helpdesk or service desk could be set up in collaboration with funding bodies or, for example, the Moonshot coalition to do structural marketing for immersive media. Such a counter could ensure that projects get the attention they need, similar to what See NL does for film. Another example is the Creative Industries Promotion Office in Japan, which employs the ‘Cool Japan’ strategy with support programmes for digital culture, including VR and AR, as part of Japanese subcultures that are promoted internationally.

Marketing specialists can also help with other marketing strategies, such as rolling out bundled presentations. Says Wijntjes: "Potential venues don't easily open their doors to one individual project. If you want to present, find two other creators and producers, bundle them, and offer a package, this increases your chances."

In line with the case study In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats, Tupac Martir, Marieke Nooren and Amy Rose also think that in a good communication strategy you should not focus too much on technology. Instead, you need to clearly communicate what the work is about, what the aesthetic or cultural value is and what the audience can expect in terms of experience or story. This helps not only with audience outreach, but also with connecting with programmers, press and other stakeholders. Martir calls this addressing the performative power of a work. Marieke Nooren prefers to combine projects by theme, for example climate and nature: "A lot of people are concerned about these issues. How do you make that experience tangible? Immersive work related to these themes could also be shown at conferences, because it shows a theme differently."

Amy Rose also says that for Watershed's first immersive exhibition, it was not the technology that was leading, but the idea and the experience: "The theme of the exhibition was the body and embodied experience, and how these projects can stimulate your senses and help you understand the world or yourself differently. Each project achieved this in a unique way, whether that was through physical movement or by telling a story around a specific sense." According to Martir, what works best is when you position projects as part of a larger selection that together form an exhibition: "We should get involved in city festivals where it's not the 'XR section,' but just a part of the overall exhibition - something you can go to like any other section."

In order to properly substantiate the value of a work and develop strong business models, reliable audience data and revenue figures are important. These are generally lacking in this sector. There are no sector-wide insights or projection tools that help creators and producers predict their audience reach or revenue models. Caspar Sonnen: "We have too little data, but we still have to make choices all the time." A number of tools have been developed in the United Kingdom in recent years to facilitate the processing of audience data for projects. For example, i2 Media Research developed the Audience Impact Metric service as a paid service to monitor a project's exposure on an ongoing basis.

In addition, audience research plays an important role in decisions about updates or extensions to a work. Immersive projects often evolve: in order to decide whether further investment makes sense, insights from audience data are crucial. However, this requires access to detailed data. Digital Catapult's research shows that it's not just about how many people saw the work, but also, for example, when they dropped out or which part appealed to them most. Such data is essential to build a good business case for, say, porting a 6DOF experience (a VR experience where the visitor can walk around in the virtual environment) to a 360 video format, something that can easily cost €50,000 to €100,000.

A study on the economic and social impact of IX, Understanding of the market and needs of XR companies in France was conducted in France in 2023. A similar study in the Netherlands would be very valuable. There may be a role here for organizations such as CIIIC, the Boekman Foundation or Nieuwe Instituut. There is also a lack of structural information provision in the Netherlands. There is no up-to-date overview or open database of, for example, suitable locations or screening venues.

Improved visibility is also essential to fully utilise the potential of the IX sector. For end users and visitors, there are no platforms that can show them the way to Dutch immersive works. In Phase 1 of this research, it was already signalled that the visibility of Dutch titles lags behind. Section 1.3 described the idea of the Festival Collection. Such a platform for Dutch immersive content, for example, could be set up by See NL.

Lifespan
As described earlier in this chapter, there are numerous efforts that creators and producers can make to extend the lifespan of an immersive work - by documenting early in the process, developing a thoughtful marketing strategy, planning several versions, and engaging audiences in a timely manner. Yet in practice, this proves problematic. Amy Rose recounts her time at Anagram: "As a company, we were never really able to distribute projects successfully if they had been on the festival circuit before that. It was incredibly difficult to follow up a project with an installation in a meaningful way. Very occasionally something was chosen by a gallery, but that was always based on relationships and allies, not through some existing distribution network. But that's not a sustainable business strategy in the long run. It was just enormously frustrating how few real opportunities there were."

Caspar Sonnen also agrees: "The moment a work is at IDFA, the ambition is to have it go around the world. But the chances are very real that such a work will never be shown anywhere else after that, simply because it is so expensive and complex."

This 'festival-dead-end' proves difficult to break: the moment when a work has nowhere to go after a first premiere or limited festival tour is an impasse perpetuated in part by the stubborn premiere requirement of many A-list festivals. They prefer to program world, European or national premieres. This can exclude the work from wider festival circulation and hinders sustainable distribution. In this current system, festivals function too minimally as the springboard for follow-up trajectories. In addition, immersive works are still too often seen as an "extra" within the program, and not as a fully-fledged artistic offering.

According to artist Boris Acket, the fact that the existing presentation infrastructure does not facilitate sequels means that the pressure to move on to the next project is great: "With me it was often the case: we just managed to realize this within a festival. But it is so expensive to repeat it, because those big works - like at DGTL - were actually only possible within the architecture of that festival. If you wanted to build a work like that separately, it would be maybe four times as expensive." Focusing on a new work, which in turn can be premiered at a festival, then soon seems easier.

Beyond the festivals
The aforementioned Nu:Reality, which structurally programs 360-degree VR and VR installations in film theatres, is trying to break this impasse. Yet it is still proving difficult to continue the initiative without a structural subsidy, while continuity is essential for success. Babette Wijntjes: "If you don't have structural VR programming in film theatres for a year, then the accumulated knowledge within the organization and with the staff disappears. You also have to re-tap the audience, and so you need money for marketing again. So continuity is really crucial."

With that, Wijntjes also underscores the importance of ongoing screening opportunities and organizational anchoring. As long as these are not in place, the work remains dependent on occasional project funding - and thus vulnerable. Festivals are key players in the ecosystem around immersive works. They provide visibility, legitimacy and access to a professional network. They fulfil tasks in the sector not yet taken up by other experts in the areas of producership, distribution, marketing, knowledge sharing, research, sales and curation.

At the same time, there is an inherent temporariness to the festival format, which is also reflected in the way productions are viewed: as temporary, one-off, fleeting. This temporary nature is at odds with the need for sustainable distribution and long-term availability of immersive works. Yet some festivals are actively seeking a broader role, for example as partners in distribution and knowledge sharing. Partnerships emerge in which resources are shared or productions are carried collectively. Examples like Ars Electronica in Austria and WRO Art Center in Poland show that it is possible to keep software-based works accessible longer. They facilitate prolonged care and distribution, including through collection building, but are still the exception to the rule.

Festivals such as IDFA DocLab also try to build a bridge to follow-up circulation. Caspar Sonnen stresses the importance of matchmaking and knowledge sharing: "There is also a very large part of matchmaking in what we do, such as us sitting down with MIT as Moonshot. So knowledge exchange and partnerships can happen organically and directly between people. For example, the programmer from Portland, with whom I've had a professional relationship for many years, comes to DocLab. He then sees a work there and then takes it to the Portland Museum."

It remains a challenge to show IX in other venues after an initial (festival) premiere. This requires not only structural investment, but also a cultural shift at festivals and institutions. The work must be able to land more widely - not only at festivals, but also at museums, galleries, libraries or even amusement parks. Without an infrastructure equipped to do so, immersive works disappear after their first screening.