HINK MUSEUMS ARE DUSTY, BORING PLACES? That’s so old school. World Heritage Exhibitions, a Fort Myersbased company, is in the business of giving people immersive experiences.
“We produce, promote and design blockbuster exhibitions,” says owner and president Anthony Tann, a Cape Coral resident.
He recalls seeing the infamous King Tut exhibit (“Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs”) at the Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art in 2004, when he was 16. It made a big impression upon him.
“I remember walking through that exhibit, looking at all these 3,200-plus years old (artifacts),” says Mr. Tann. “King Tut was one of the biggest rulers of the world at that time. I thought it was spectacular.”
The exhibit happened to be produced by John Norman, who Mr. Tann credits as “the guy who took exhibitions and started producing them theatrically, making them a fully immersive experience.”
As an adult, Mr. Tann worked with Mr. Norman for five years, before starting his own business, World Heritage Exhibitions, in early 2020.
In co-production with Cityneon, a Singapore company, World Heritage Exhibitions is in the process of setting up “Machu Picchu and the Golden Empires of Peru” at the Boca Raton Museum of Art. This world premiere of the exhibit, which opens Oct. 16, will be in South Florida for nearly five months before embarking on an international tour.
Coincidentally, Mr. Tann points out, the executive director of the Fort Lauderdale Museum at the time of the King Tut exhibit is now executive director of the Boca Raton Museum of Art.
“It pulls this thing full circle,” he says.
Bocamag.com calls this upcoming exhibit “a watershed event for South Florida,” noting that the area also contains the highest concentration of Peruvians in the nation.
But the museum expects people from around Florida and surrounding states to also attend.
The online story quotes Jody Harrison Grass, chair of the museum’s board of trustees, as saying the exhibit is “a signature milestone for the cultural life of Boca Raton, Palm Beach County, and the state of Florida.”
The exhibit boasts 192 artifacts, including, Mr. Tann claims, “one of the largest collections of gold to ever tour the globe.”
The artifacts, worth billions of dollars, Mr. Tann says, are on loan from the Larco Museum in Peru.
Attendees can expect videos, music and an interactive experience, including a virtual reality show at the end.
The show uses cinematic chairs that move right or left when the patron looks that way. The images were shot by a drone.
“The virtual reality experience will be hugely popular,” says Mr. Lippman. “You can enjoy the experience of walking around Machu Picchu in the comfort of your cinematic chair. You can experience flying over the Andes and walking the trail. When it was closed to visitors during the pandemic, they had a drone camera going around the area to capture the scene. That’s the first time that has ever been done. So you can ‘walk’ up the trails and look out over the Andes.”
Mr. Lippman traveled to Machu Picchu
40 years ago.
“It remains one of the most memorable experiences I’ve had,” he says. “When I heard from Anthony Tann that they were putting this exhibit together, and we happened to have this time slot to work with them, I knew it was a match that was meant to be made.”
Both floors of the Boca Museum of Art will be devoted to the exhibit.
“We’re taking over the entire museum,” Mr. Tann says. “It’s a massive installation, with hundreds and hundreds of people working every day. It’s a massive effort.
“We tell a story. From the second you walk into the exhibition, you’re involved in a story. It brings you through. We have artifacts from Machu Picchu and also from other areas in Peru. Each artifact has a moment in that story.
“We built the show around the artifacts — billions of dollars’ worth of artifacts. We have them on loan and produce the experience, bring them to life. I have the most experienced production and tour operators in the world. I’m so proud of the people we have.”
Mr. Lippman, who has worked with John Norman in the past with two blockbuster exhibitions — one about Princess Diana and the other on King Tut — says, “It is very exciting that this new company has been created and have many people who worked with John on previous exhibitions. I’m sure it has all the markings for being a successful venture.”
World Heritage Exhibitions also is opening “Ramses the Great and the Gold of the Pharaohs,” an exhibit of ancient Egyptian artifacts, at the Houston Museum of Natural Science on Nov. 20.
On Sept. 9, the company announced it recently had acquired three museum exhibitions: “Pompeii: The Exhibition,” “Mummies of the World: The Exhibition” and “Victoria: The T. rex.”
The Pompeii exhibit opened Oct. 2 at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh.
The announcement quotes Mr. Tann as saying, “These exhibitions provide an opportunity to share a piece of history with the world. It’s a unique collection of exhibitions that has a tremendous track record at driving museum attendance across the globe. The topics align with our current offerings seamlessly and round out our portfolio of exhibitions unlike any available to the public today.”
As for the Machu Picchu exhibit in Boca Raton, Mr. Tann can hardly wait until it opens, he says.
“It’s a beautiful show. I was looking at all the renderings,” he says. “I can’t wait for opening day, for everyone to walk through it. I want to see the joy on everyone’s face.” ¦
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