The Immersive Experience’ at El Paso County Coliseum

Borderland residents can find out what it feels like to seemingly float inside a masterpiece.

“Beyond Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience” runs through Jan. 20 at the El Paso County Coliseum, 4100 E. Paisano St.

The event, which lasts about an hour, projects more than 300 of Dutch Post-Impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh’s masterpieces for viewers to enjoy, said Billye Thompson, event manager for Paquin Entertainment, which produces the show.

El Pasoans welcomed the exhibit, which uses music, moving projections and canvases rising high above the Coliseum floor to transform the artwork into a multisensory experience.

“Right now we are sold out for the next few weeks of the exhibit, but we expect to have a full capacity attendance,” Thompson said.

“People here in El Paso are excited about what we’ve brought here.”

The event is presented by Paquin Entertainment, based out of Winnipeg, Canada, and Normal Studio, out of Montreal.

“They banded together and came up with this idea to offer this immersive experience,” Thompson said.

The showcase was created by French-Canadian creative director Mathieu St-Arnaud and his team at Normal Studio, according to a news release.

Attendees are greeted at the start of the exhibition by a colorful tunnel leading to the Education Room, which has informative panels about Van Gogh’s life in English and Spanish. Next is the Waterfall Room, with colors flowing down a wall and around the entrance to the Immersive Experience Room, where the high canvas walls come alive with moving projections of the artist’s work as the floor shifts in color.

Between the moving images on the walls and floors, visitors can experience a sense of floating in masterpieces. Make sure you have someone or something steady to hold on to if you have balance issues, as the experience can trick your senses into thinking the floor has given way to platforms of color that support you in the air.

Thompson didn’t know how much the production cost, but said, “it’s a great investment not only in finances, but in people that we bring here to set it all up.”

“We have a production team that goes from city to city to set it up,” he said. “It takes about six days to get into a city, set it up and get it going. And once the exhibit is over, we have a crew come back and tear it all down and we ship all this equipment to the next city we go to.”

A traveling crew consists of 12 to 18 people, he said.

The El Paso show is just one of the company’s productions.

“We have the ‘Beyond Van Gogh’ exhibit, so we’re in multiple cities now,” Thompson said. “This is one of three ‘Beyond’ shows, a franchise of Paquin Entertainment. We have ‘Beyond Van Gogh’, we have ‘Beyond Monet’, we also just kicked off ‘Beyond Tut’ as well. So, we have several shows that are currently active in several, different cities. “

Thompson has advice for the El Pasoans joining the millions who have taken part in the immersive art experience.