A digital show featuring sea life is displayed at Mohegan Inspire Entertainment Resort's Aurora, a 150-meter-long immersive digital entertainment street with giant LED screens, on Incheon's Yeongjong Island. Courtesy of Inspire Entertainment Resort
INCHEON — “It's coming, the giant pink whale will appear in just a minute,” a young woman said to her child, pointing at the immersive digital entertainment street at Mohegan Inspire Entertainment Resort in Incheon.
Next to her were hundreds of visitors who flocked to “Aurora,” the 150-meter-long, 25-meter-high ultra-high-definition LED screens that run from the entrance of the mega resort, who also came to watch the digital art show presented every 90 minutes.
As the clock struck 4 p.m., images of bricks collapsed and seawater rushed in, bringing vivid sea life scenes to the LED screen that stretches along the ceiling and walls. Visitors holding their camera phones gasped and burst into cheers as a giant pink whale swam across the ceiling.
The mega resort, which quickly became a social media sensation since the resort's grand opening in March, also presents a unique digital entertainment experience: space travel.
This month, the resort launched “Le Space,” the largest media art exhibition hall in the country in collaboration with Hyundai Futurenet, the producer of the renowned whale show and the digital exhibition venue Arte Museum.
Under the theme “Beyond the Cosmos,” the exhibition navigates around a story of a wormhole being discovered on Yeongjong Island. The 6,142-square-meter venue featuring 18 exhibition spaces takes viewers on an immersive digital journey to outer space and a parallel universe.
An exhibition hall at Inspire Entertainment Resort's "Le Space" / Courtesy of Inspire Entertainment Resort
“Le Space was built without pillars and high ceilings to enable beaming of projects on all six sides — up and down, front and back, left and right sides — of the exhibition space,” Oh Tae-yoon, the chief of the exhibition project, explained regarding the two-year project.
“Unlike existing media art exhibition halls, we used the entire space, including the ceiling, as a medium to maximize the immersive experience,” he said. The venue will present a new media art every two to three years, he added.
Notably, the exhibition hall features interactive technologies such as touch and motion recognition and sound detection to maximize the immersive experience. Also, the art space is operated through a reservation system to prevent overcrowding and maintain the quality of visitors' exhibition experience.
An exhibition hall at Inspire Entertainment Resort's "Le Space" / Courtesy of Inspire Entertainment Resort
An exhibition hall at Inspire Entertainment Resort's "Le Space" / Courtesy of Inspire Entertainment Resort
Also, the resort has strengthened its food and beverage sections with an international food court that launched in April. Dubbed Oasis Gourmet Village, the food court seats 1,000 diners and offers food from around the world.
Inspired by the resort's geographical proximity to Incheon International Airport, it was designed with a motif of the world tree, which refers to the center of the world and the source of nature.
In response to the growing popularity of Korean food culture among international travelers, the food court also has several Korean food brands offering reasonable prices that are popular in many city centers.
Inspire mall's international food court "Oasis gourmet village" / Courtesy of Inspire Entertainment Resort
Notably, Inspire mall also offers a wide range of trendy K-street brands leveraging the growing popularity of K-fashion.
The mall features multiple activity facilities such as a water park, a slime concept theme park, a bowling center and a gaming arcade for families.
“By utilizing our location adjacent to Incheon International Airport, the resort aims to attract many visitors during the holiday season from nearby cities such as Tokyo, Osaka, Taiwan, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, which are all within a 4 hour flight time,” the resort's official said.
Inspire Entertainment Resort's fashion market "1st Dress" in its shopping mall / Courtesy of Inspire Entertainment Resort
The resort has seen over a million visitors walk through its doors in the four months after its soft opening in December and expects to achieve its goal of receiving 3.5 million visitors within its first year, according to the official.
Mohegan Inspire Entertainment Resort, set to become the largest integrated entertainment resort in Northeast Asia, completed the first phase of a four-stage development project in March. The resort also features three five-star hotel towers with a total of 1,275 rooms and a multipurpose performance venue Inspire Arena.
Considered by some to be the Korean version of Las Vegas, the mega resort is the eighth property developed and operated by Mohegan Gaming and Entertainment, an integrated entertainment resort developer with a Native American background headquartered in Uncasville, Conn.