Ever dreamed of stepping into a Van Gogh painting or time-traveling to ancient Egypt?

Well step right this way, as immersive experiences take us deeper into the worlds of art and history than ever before.

Strolling through the enchanted Saint Remy village of Van Gogh's Starry Night or being the discoverer of Tutankhamun's tomb is now possible, thanks to jaw-dropping advances in projection, virtual reality, and brand new design spaces.

Immersive experiences may have been around since the 1960s but tech advances have taken them to another level.

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CGTN visited Madrid's El Matadero – a former abattoir converted into a sprawling creative space – which has invested over $3 million in an entire building designed specifically for immersive experiences.

Giant 360 degree projection rooms, VR headsets, and touchscreen tablets take you on voyages to the past – and the future.

It's impressive and engaging, full of people young and old, and it's hardly any surprise that this industry is growing rapidly.

It's worth over $60 billion in the United States alone, and has grown 30 percent in the last two years.

"We don't want to replace the experience of going to a traditional museum to see the original artefacts from Tutankhamun's grave," Marcos Camara tells CGTN in the Matadero. He is one of the partners at Madrid Artes Digitales – the people who designed the Tutankhamun exhibition – but sees these experiences as an extra, not a replacement.

"We just want to help people discover what Egypt was like back then and the kind of environment they lived in – the temples, the graves, the art, the way the people were. That's something we can do thanks to technology, so why not bring people there?"

Hollywood embrace

In the United States, Disney is the latest big name to sign up. It has hired specialists Lighthouse Immersive to produce an ambitious sensory experience for all its fans.

President Corey Ross gave CGTN a sneak peek at what's coming next in this exciting industry: Bubbles. Lots of bubbles.

"On our Disney show, we have hired the world's greatest designer of bubbles," he smiles. "That seems like a strange job, but we're able to fill 500,000 cubic feet with bubbles in seconds, which is what we need to do – to take the experience, which is currently mostly a video experience, and to begin to introduce tactile elements like bubbles, like interactive video, things that you can touch and move and react to.”

Public spaces are undergoing great change right now, with working from home a fixture after the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.

Lighthouse Immersive has converted spaces like an old printing press in Toronto, a supermarket in Nashville and a record store in Hollywood into immersive experience spaces.

Its success is impressive: The recent Van Gogh exhibition sold more than six million tickets on its U.S. run.

Ross has said that South Korea and Japan are now target markets, but one country would be huge for them.

"We are fascinated by the Chinese market," he says. "It's interesting from a business perspective. It's very interesting for us."

Immersive experiences have gone mainstream and giant entertainment companies are already on board.

In this post-COVID-19 era, these shared collective experiences in public spaces feel more important than ever.