Live at SXSW in Texas
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Somewhere in East London, the next ABBA Voyage is waiting to be invented. The people who intend to find it have just announced their plan — live from Austin, Texas.
At South by Southwest, Here East CEO Gavin Poole sat down with Graham Hitchen, Director of the Policy Unit at Loughborough University London, to unveil the Creative Experience Lab London (CELL) — a new research and innovation space born from a partnership between Loughborough University London and University College London, and housed at Here East on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
It is, as Hitchen is quick to clarify, emphatically not a concept lab. There are no mood boards, no vague mission statements. There will be motion capture studios, LED screens, high-performance computing facilities — and, critically, a network of collaborators that already reads like a who's who of East London's creative world: the V&A, Sadler's Wells, Studio Wayne McGregor, Sports Interactive. The kit matters, but the connections matter more.
The ambition is to work at the intersection of immersive technology and live experience — to ask what theatre, stadium concerts, museum spaces and public installations will look and feel like in five or ten years' time, and then to actually build them. PhD researchers will work alongside industry partners. Creatives will be placed in proximity to technologists. The production lineage of ABBA Voyage — which drew on companies based within a mile of Here East — is both the inspiration and the benchmark.
It is, in many ways, the Olympic legacy finally finding its sharpest expression. The games brought infrastructure. The universities followed. The creative industries gathered. What CELL represents is the moment all those ingredients are put in the same room and asked to make something remarkable together.
From the park that once hosted the world, East London is now quietly building what the world might come to see next.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
What the Creative Experience Lab actually is — a physical, industry-first research space designed to prototype the next generation of immersive creative experiences, from reimagined museum spaces to radically new live performance formats.
Why place matters as much as technology — how Here East's unique cluster of universities, cultural institutions and creative companies makes it the right environment to turn experimental ideas into world-leading innovations.
The role of storytelling in the age of AI — why the most sophisticated technology will only succeed if the human creative impulse is placed at its centre, and how CELL is being built around that conviction.
Watch the episode on YouTube below, or listen via your preferred podcast app.
