SWAMP, Sadie Spencer
Welcome to SWAMP, please don’t take your seats.
Life’s too short to sit in the dark, to pretend to tune in, to put up with imitation. If you get bored, leave. But we promise you won’t.
We’re makers of theatre. We tell cool stories. Our productions are found in abandoned spaces, on internet highways, across sprawling cities and down digital rabbit holes.
We invite you to join us, but whatever you do, don’t trust us.
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SWAMP was founded in 2016 by multi-award-winning theatre and experience makers Ollie Jones and Clem Garritty.
We saw brand experience striving to do what theatre does best – tell stories, move audiences, and create lasting memories.
But too often, these activations felt paper-thin, lacking depth and originality.
With over a decade of experience creating original theatre and immersive entertainment, we knew we could do it better. We set out to create brand experiences that weren’t just marketing moments, but legitimate pieces of entertainment.
From an R&D project in lockdown that evolved into a critically acclaimed global attraction (with a TV show now in development) to groundbreaking, award-winning brand activations, SWAMP continues to defy expectations in the experiential sector.
Today, SWAMP is a dynamic, independent creative agency that combines the best talent and craftsmanship of the theatrical world, with seasoned brand experience specialists to offer experiences that are bold, original and unexpected.
The Audience at the Center: Crafting Immersion Beyond Boundaries
Immersive experiences aren’t just about spectacle, they’re about connection. At their heart lies the audience: their choices, their emotions, and their journey. In this talk, we’ll explore what it means to design with an audience-first mindset, creating bold and memorable encounters that blur the boundaries between the digital and the physical.
Drawing from the dramatic principles of storytelling, we’ll look at how tension, pacing, and catharsis can transform even the simplest interaction into a powerful narrative arc. You’ll discover how to create big drama on a small budget, leveraging the tools of theater, play, and imagination to build worlds that feel expansive without requiring extravagance. We’ll unpack how simple technologies, when used with intention, can deliver profound impact, sparking awe, intimacy, and wonder without overwhelming participants.
Crucially, we’ll examine how to balance audience agency with carefully orchestrated moments of surprise and delight. By inviting people to co-create their experience while still guiding them through meaningful beats, we can design journeys that feel both personal and purposeful.
Whether you’re working with cutting-edge tools or cardboard and string, the principles remain the same: put the audience at the center, embrace the liminal space between realities, and dare to be bold.
