Immersive Entertainment Venue Now Booking Special Events
If you’d like to host your next big event on the streets of Barcelona or in a jungle, a lavender field or even underwater, the operators of the new Royalston Square, near the Farmers Market, can help create that illusion.
We got a sneak peek (video above) at the projection mapping technology that will surround guests attending corporate events, weddings and other special occasions here.
“I would describe it as an innovative, disruptive venue to the event industry,” said Steve Hark, CEO of Entourage Events Group. “Because that’s not the way venues typically look and host events. Typically you make your event fit with the venue. But here, you tell us what your event is and we’ll make a venue for your event.”
Hosts of each event can customize the designs and landscapes to fit the proper mood. “We have a content creators partner, a very talented group of young guys and they are genius with computers and creating content. They can basically create any content.”
For example, he talked about a couple planning their wedding ceremony there who will start walking down the aisle surrounded by stormy skies but end up in bright sunshine as they say their vows.
In addition to the weddings, corporate events and fund-raisers, Royalston Square will host elaborate ticketed events for the general public, two Saturday nights a month, known as The Royalston Experience.
“It starts with a reception from 7 to 9 in the front lobby and at 9 o’clock you walk into the Square and we have three hours of programming,” Hark said. “Every half an hour there is a different programming starting with fire dancers, aerialists, and then you go to live music and you go to a DJ show. The ticket includes food and drinks and it’ll be lounge seating so each group would have their own seating area.” More details will be posted on Royalston Square’s website.
Before being transformed into this high-tech entertainment venue, the building at 501 Royalston Avenue was a big, boxy 1960s-era warehouse, just down the street from Target Field.
Aerial view from summer 2024
It’s a massive building but not every event needs to fill the entire space.
“We call it The Square but the square can be divided into four squares,” Hark said, “with the smallest square basically 6000 ft.² and you can add an increments of 6000 as needed.”
By Mike Binkley, North Loop volunteer
