Quick taste of things to come in this short dreamlike experience.

Experienced: July 29, 2017
Location: Midsummer Scream 2017
Address: Long Beach Convention Center
Price: Free (with Midsummer Scream 2017 admission)
Audience Size: 1-4
Runtime: 5 minutes
More Information: Shine On Collective Site, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook

This year’s Shine On Collective showing at Midsummer Scream had significantly more capacity than last year’s one on one experience at the two Halloween conventions (Midsummer Scream and ScareLA). Those shows relied on a signup sheet that would likely have gotten full in minutes as their audience has grown significantly over the year. This time around there was a queue and 4 people at a time would go inside a tent to experience a short 5 minute show.

In Part One we met Philip, an intense and slightly disturbed individual, who is looking for his lost love. We later met Rose in a dream sequence and we weren’t sure if she was alive, dead, lost, captured, or something else completely. Part Two is another dream sequence.

After crawling into the tent the four of us were instructed to lay down on a blanket and put on the sleeping mask sitting on a pillow. As we lay there headphones were put on our head and momentarily the show began.

It was the voice of Rose as she tells a story. It’s implied that she is still alive. There were some moments where you feel someone brushing up against your skin during the dream. Another moment someone pressed down on my chest before a heavy blanket was laid on my chest. I thought this blanket was a person pushing down on me and was holding my breath for the longest time until I realized it wasn’t going away. The weight was a nice touch to add a bit of tension to my dream.

At one point in the audio you are told to raise up a hand. This was reminiscent of a sequence in last year’s Alone Experience at Scare LA. My finger was “pricked” and a band-aid was wrapped around it. I later noticed that there was a phone number on it. It was a subtle and effective way of continuing the story beyond the show.

Ultimately this show succeeded in setting up the world and acted as a teaser for the full show coming in October. Hopefully many first timers were won over by this unique form of storytelling but will likely not have any idea what is to come. This teaser was more of an immersive podcast listening experience.

The headphones I had were too low for me to pay close attention to the dream sequence as it was hard to hear over the noises of the showroom floor. Nevertheless I enjoyed the show and will be looking forward to Part Three in October!