Forging an Era: Inside the Development of a Football Immersive Exhibition

At Merlins, immersive experiences are not built in isolation. They are forged through culture, technology, and the evolution of how stories are told.

Our creative partners previously designed and delivered an immersive exhibition experience for ACF Fiorentina, bringing a football club’s heritage into a physical, walk-through world. That work continues to inform how we approach new immersive projects today — especially as rapidly evolving technologies reshape what is now possible in storytelling.

We are currently in early-stage development on a new immersive exhibition concept centered on a historic football era — an era that has already been explored through a completed screen series created outside of Merlins.

This is not a continuation of that series.

This is not an exhibition announcement.

This is Merlins studying what happens next.


From Screen to Streets

At the heart of Merlins is the philosophy of Screen to Streets — the idea that powerful sports stories should not live only on screens, but expand into the physical world.

When an era has already been documented on screen, the question becomes:

How do you enter it?

How do you walk through it?

Hear it?

Stand inside it?

Encounter it in the streets, not just in scenes?

Our current development work explores how a football club — and the era that defined it — could be translated into immersive environments that live beyond exhibition halls and extend into city spaces, public installations, street-level experiences, and traveling worlds.


From Era to Experience

Before a single environment is designed, Merlins begins with deep era research — not only matches and athletes, but the cultural forces surrounding them:

• the cities and supporters

• the fashion and sound

• the broadcast style and stadium rituals

• the training grounds, tunnels, and gathering places

• the emotional identity of the time

We study how an era felt to live inside.

Then we explore how that feeling can be rebuilt spatially — through architecture, sound design, projection, interactive systems, and emerging technologies that allow stories to move around the visitor, not just in front of them.


Building Living Worlds

Merlins immersive exhibitions are conceived as living journeys.

Not museums.

Not highlight reels.

But worlds.

Locker rooms.

Streets.

Tunnels.

Training grounds.

Match days.

Night scenes.

After the final whistle.

As technologies rapidly evolve, so does our approach — allowing us to imagine experiences where the visitor is no longer watching history, but moving through it.


Our Philosophy

We do not start with floor plans.

We start with imagination.

At Merlins, development is a creative act — a space where eras are re-interpreted, environments are prototyped, and possibilities are tested long before announcements are made.

Some projects remain concepts.

Some evolve into partnerships.

Some become traveling worlds.

All begin the same way.

By asking:

What if you could step inside an era?


Closing

At Merlins, every great football era is a kingdom.

Every legend, a knight.

Every city, a living chapter of the story.

This exhibition is still being forged.

Our philosophy is simple:

Let your imagination go wild.

Episode 1 – NBC 30 Rock: Where the Merlins Story Began

Merlins Podcast: Knights of Sports

Before Merlins became a world a world of films, immersive experiences, and global sports storytelling, there was the beginning at NBC’s 30 Rockefeller Plaza – a two-part movie, a first real collision with broadcast television and a moment that changed everything.

Episode 1 of the Merlins Podcast opens inside the birthplace of modern broadcasting — where a young idea collided with one of the most powerful media institutions in the world. What began as a simple opportunity quickly became a lesson in storytelling, access, pressure, and belief.

This first episode chronicles the origins of the Merlins journey: the rooms, the people, the risks, and the realization that sports is not just competition — it is cinema, culture, and mythology in motion.

NBC 30 Rock was not just a building.

It was a proving ground.

And this episode marks the first page in the Merlins Journal.

Merlins Podcast: Knights of Sports

Episode 1 – NBC 30 Rock

Watch or Listen to Knights of Sports on YouTube.

The Studio World : Screen to Streets

Where Studio Worlds Begin

Merlins was born from a simple question:

What happens to great worlds after the screen goes dark?

Films live for a moment in cinemas, then forever in memory.

But what if they could live again — in cities, in culture, in physical space?

Not as exhibits.

As experiences.

Not as replicas.

As living worlds.


The Florence Origin

That question became real in Florence, Italy.

Working alongside our creative partners in Florence, Merlins developed and produced an immersive exhibition inspired by the legendary film Cinema Paradiso — a project that transformed cinema itself into a walk-through emotional journey.

As the experience took shape, a larger realization emerged.

If Cinema Paradiso could become an immersive world…

what about the worlds that have shaped generations?

What about epic sagas?

Future visions?

Heroic myths?

Entire studio libraries?

We asked the question.

Could studio films become immersive worlds?

The answer from our partners was immediate:

Yes. Absolutely.


Every Film Is a World Waiting to Be Entered

Every film that has lived on screen carries more than a story.

It carries:

atmosphere.

architecture.

philosophy.

ritual.

emotion.

identity.

These are not films.

These are worlds.

Worlds that can become places.

Worlds that can be walked through.

Worlds that can be felt.

Worlds that can gather filmmakers, fans, artists, technologists, and cities into a single living experience.

Merlins exists to help studios unlock that next life.


The Role of Merlins

Merlins is not an IP owner.

Merlins is a creative bridge.

We work alongside the creative forces of any studio — filmmakers, storytellers, designers, archivists, and technologists — to translate cinematic worlds into real-world journeys.

From screen into reality.

From story into living experience.

We bring those worlds out of theaters and into streets, museums, arenas, historic spaces, and global touring environments.

This is our philosophy.

This is Screen to Streets.


From NBC to Now

Merlins began in 1998 with NBC, built on the idea that stories could live beyond broadcast.

Today, that same philosophy guides everything we build.

Only now, the tools are richer.

The worlds are larger.

And the opportunity to merge cinema, culture, and immersive design has never been greater.

What started as an experiment has become a platform.

A studio collaboration model.

A world-building practice.

A living development room.


The Journal as an Open Chronicle

Every Studio World Merlins explores is not just an outcome.

It is a journey.

Each project we pursue is envisioned as a documented creative expedition — from the first idea, to design, to collaboration, to construction, to public experience.

Nothing hidden.

Nothing manufactured.

A living chronicle of how worlds are awakened.

So filmmakers, fans, partners, and future creators can not only experience the worlds…

…but witness how they are brought to life.


What Comes Next

The Studio Worlds you see forming are not announcements.

They are invitations.

To imagine what cinema can become.

To explore how film libraries can evolve.

To consider how studio universes can move through cities, cultures, and generations.

Because great studios create worlds.

Merlins exists to awaken them.

Because we believe magic is real.

Exploring the Studio World

Each Studio World represents not a project, but a possibility.

They are starting points — visual invitations into the kinds of cinematic universes Merlins is able to translate from screen into living experience.


⚔️ 

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

This world opens the gates to a realm of kingdoms, orders, and ancient rivalries.

Visitors are transported into a living medieval universe where they can journey across multiple realms, each with its own identity, architecture, and mythos.

Through immersive design, AR layers, and emerging storytelling technologies, guests do not simply observe these kingdoms — they enter them.

They walk their streets.

They step into their halls.

They become part of their legends.

This is a world of quests, brotherhood, honor, and discovery — where cinematic fantasy becomes a place you can physically explore.


🌌 

The Galactic Studio World

This world explores humanity’s oldest dream: the stars.

Here, visitors step into a vast cosmic civilization — a place of star travelers, ancient orders, advanced cities, and unseen forces.

They train.

They explore.

They choose allegiances.

They confront the unknown.

Through immersive environments, interactive technologies, and live-experience design, guests are invited to wield new identities, challenge shadowed powers, and move through a universe shaped by light, conflict, and discovery.

It is not a film world.

It is a galactic reality.


🚀 

Beyond the Starship

This world is about exploration itself.

Visitors don’t watch the journey — they become part of the crew.

They depart from orbiting vessels, travel beyond known space, visit imagined worlds, and drift through deep cosmic environments where sound, gravity, and perspective are transformed.

Floating through space.

Entering unknown systems.

Encountering new worlds.

This Studio World is designed to merge cinematic science fiction, experiential technology, and environmental storytelling into an adventure that makes space feel personal, physical, and unforgettable.


🟢 

The Reality Shift World

This world asks a different question:

What if reality itself is the experience?

Here, visitors enter a universe where perception is unstable, movement becomes narrative, and physical challenge merges with cinematic illusion.

Guests navigate environments where gravity, balance, speed, and choice are part of the story.

They ride, run, climb, and confront scenarios where reality bends and identity is tested.

Are you observing the world…

or inside it?

This Studio World is built around philosophical science fiction — where technology, choreography, and immersive design create experiences that blur the line between story and self.


An Invitation to Studios

When these worlds were first imagined, our creative partners said:

“Let your imagination go wild. We can build them.”

That spirit defines the Merlins Studios platform.

These examples are not limits.

They are sparks.

They exist to invite studio leaders, filmmakers, and creators to imagine what their own libraries, universes, and legacies could become when translated into living worlds.

Places where new adventures begin.

Where cinematic heritage evolves.

Where magic moves through cities.

Where dreams are given form.

Because great studios create worlds.

Merlins exists to awaken them.

Because we believe magic is real.