London has quietly become the world capital of the immersive experience — days and nights out where you're not watching the show, you're standing in the middle of it. Digital art that wraps around you, theatre with no stage, dinners in secret locations, concerts performed by avatars, and — our personal favourite — beer tasted feet from the tanks it was brewed in. We've spent over a decade running immersive beer experiences in Bermondsey's railway arches, so consider this our local's guide to the capital's best, from the famous names to the ones visitors walk straight past.
1. Drink inside a working brewery district — the Bermondsey Beer Mile
Most immersive experiences simulate a world. The Bermondsey Beer Mile just is one: a string of working breweries in the railway arches south of London Bridge, where the trains rumble overhead, the fermenters bubble behind the taps and the beer travels metres, not miles, to your glass. On our guided Bermondsey Beer Tasting Tour (2–3.5 hours, £49, beer included) you'll handle fresh hops and malt, learn to taste like a beer judge with an accredited Beer Sommelier, and drink each beer in the arch where it was made. It's immersion for every sense — smell, taste, sound and all — and there isn't a projector in sight. Foodies should look at our Saturday Cheese, Meat & Beer Tour, which adds British cheese and charcuterie pairing to the formula.
2. Frameless, Marble Arch
London's biggest permanent immersive art space: four galleries of floor-to-ceiling projections that pour masterpieces over every surface, from Dalí to Monet, with the music and motion matched to each room. It's genuinely beautiful, indoors (a rainy-day banker), and takes about an hour and a half at an easy pace. Book a timed slot online — weekends fill up.
3. Lightroom, King's Cross
Where Frameless goes broad, Lightroom goes deep: single-artist, single-story shows in a huge four-storey projection hall near Coal Drops Yard. Past seasons have covered David Hockney and David Bowie — check what's on before you plan, because the programme changes through the year. The scale of the room is the trick; standing in the middle of it feels like being inside the artwork's head. We compare these two venues properly, plus the touring Van Gogh-style shows, in our immersive art experiences guide.
4. ABBA Voyage, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
The one that changed what a concert can be. ABBA's digital avatars — "ABBAtars" — perform a full arena show at the purpose-built ABBA Arena in Stratford, backed by a live band, and within two songs your brain simply stops arguing. It's joyous, technically astonishing, and still one of the hottest tickets in London, so book well ahead and treat the dance floor tickets as the immersive option.
5. Immersive theatre — Punchdrunk and beyond
London invented much of modern immersive theatre. Punchdrunk's mask shows — where you roam a vast building choosing which threads of the story to follow — defined the genre, and a new generation of companies runs everything from interactive murder mysteries to horror experiences you genuinely have to escape. Productions open and close throughout the year, so search what's currently running; if a Punchdrunk show is on while you're here, take it over almost anything else on this list.
6. Secret-location immersive dining
Somewhere between theatre and dinner party: you book, you're told a rough area and a dress code, and the rest stays secret until you're in it. Gingerline made this format famous in London, and a rotating cast of supper clubs and themed dining rooms runs year-round — expect actors, sets, and courses that arrive as plot points. Dates release in waves and sell fast. We've written up the full format, plus alternatives, in our guide to immersive dining in London. If your idea of dinner theatre is more "beer and British cheese explained brilliantly", our cheese, meat & beer pairing tour is the Bermondsey version.
7. Immersive cocktail experiences
London's themed cocktail scene is its own genre now. Alcotraz pours your drinks in a prison-break storyline (you smuggle the spirits in yourself), and venues across the West End and City run everything from potion-making classes to fully scripted cocktail theatre. They're brilliant for birthdays and small groups — just check age limits and book the earlier slots if you want the actors at full energy.
8. The Crystal Maze LIVE Experience, West End
The 90s game show rebuilt for real: four themed zones, a proper Maze Master, and your team actually crawling through hatches to collect crystals before the Crystal Dome finale. It's pure competitive joy for groups of friends or colleagues — pair it with a taproom afterwards and you've built a very good Saturday.
9. Van Gogh and the touring blockbusters
The travelling immersive exhibitions — Van Gogh being the famous one — regularly set up in London with projection halls, VR add-ons and very Instagrammable sunflower rooms. They're gentler and more contemplative than the big permanent venues, and good with kids. Because they tour, check current dates and locations before you set your heart on one.
10. Free immersion: Outernet and a heritage walk
Two for the budget-conscious. The Outernet screens by Tottenham Court Road station are a free walk-in wraparound — a rotating programme of digital art in what claims to be Europe's largest wrap-around screen space. And our free self-guided Southwark brewing heritage walk immerses you in 400 years of London beer history — Borough Market, the site of the world's biggest brewery, the Victorian Hop Exchange and London's last galleried coaching inn — finishing at a working brewery on the Beer Mile. Total cost: whatever you fancy drinking at the end.
How to choose your immersive experience
- Screens or senses? Projection experiences (Frameless, Lightroom, Van Gogh) dazzle the eyes; food, drink and theatre experiences engage everything else. If you've done one, try the other kind next.
- Group size: game formats and tasting tours scale best. We take private groups from 6 to 60+ — projection galleries are better as a two.
- Budget: the big names cost the most; the Outernet and our heritage walk are free, and a guided beer tour sits in the middle with the beer included.
- Time of year: December and summer weekends sell out across all of these — book ahead or go midweek.
Make a full immersive day of it
Our favourite London one-two: spend the morning on the free heritage walk from Borough Market, lunch among the street food, then join the Bermondsey Beer Tasting Tour in the afternoon — history, food and beer, all inside the real thing. Planning a date instead? See our date night ideas for beer lovers, or browse things to do near London Bridge to build your own itinerary.
Gift an experience, not a thing
Immersive experiences make the best presents for the person who has enough stuff. Our gift vouchers are delivered instantly by email, never expire, and can be spent on any of our tours — the recipient picks the date and the experience.
More London experiences
The link below is an affiliate link: if you book through it we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only suggest experiences we'd recommend anyway.
- The View from The Shard — the full-city panorama from 244m up; a spectacular start or finish to a day in Southwark, ten minutes from the Beer Mile.