Kansas City’s new interactive art experience opens soon. ‘The most bizarre’

Past a stories-tall space man, the windowless Atlas 9 building looks as though it’s fallen from another universe.

And in some ways, it has. Outside its heavy doors, static and beeping play over the speaker system — visitors’ first clue that they’re about to leave reality as they know it.

If Kansas City’s newest immersive art experience truly does exist in this dimension, it seeks to walk participants right up to the edge. Upon stepping inside, they’ll enter a place where cinema is not bound to the screen — the “reel world,” its creators call it.

Atlas9, 1100 N. 98th St., Kansas City, Kansas, officially opens to the public Thursday, Sept. 25. The 46,000-square-foot space near the Legends with around 30 themed rooms to explore gives customers access to visuals from artists across the country, as well as dozens of interactive clues activated by RFID wristbands.

Tickets can be purchased at tickets.atlas9.com and range from $25 for Wyandotte County children ages 3-12, $35 for Wyandotte County residents, and $40 for visitors outside the county. Tickets cost $35 for heroes, which are categorized as military, teachers and first responders.

“This is kind of the distillation of, and the most modern version of, storytelling,” Dimensional Innovation’s creative director Randall Statler told The Star at a recent visit to the space. “You can walk through the narrative, investigate details, see artwork … dig in, chew on it.”

Knowing the storyline is important when visiting Atlas 9. Every artpiece, sound effect and clue is centered on a narrative that guests get acquainted with once they step into the movie theater’s doors.

An employee posing as a FACADE agent (Field Agency for the Control of Aberrations and Divergent Energies) plays a video to brief visitors — now fellow agents — on their mission. In 1995, a movie theater projectionist named Frank cobbled together old film projectors to create the Holomax: what he intended to be the greatest projection system ever.

But an explosion of the Holomax wreaked havoc on the theater, merging the movies and reality.

The exhibit itself is set in the aftermath of the explosion. Everything, from the popcorn to the movie characters to the appliances, has now come to life.

Statler promised that there’s something for everyone: customers can simply walk through and appreciate the art (like a 13-foot-tall, color-changing crystal crafted by Tyler Schrader) or play their way through the experience.

There’s tunnels to crawl through, regular live performances from Quixotic that synchronize with the experience, and a functioning 240-seat theater that plans to host film festivals.

A speakeasy is hidden somewhere in the experience, serving cocktails like a popcorn Old Fashioned (bourbon, Nixta, simple syrup, butter and Scarborough bitters), Sour Patch shot (vodka, lemon, limoncello, strawberry and Sour Patch kids), and Finnish Cut (pea blossom gin, lime, lemon, grapefruit soda and Boston bitters).

“The corny way to say it is, ages 3 to 103,” Statler said. “Anybody can come in here, so we’ve kind of tried to honor those audiences.”

While its various clues and challenges may make Atlas9 feel like an escape room, there’s no requirement to complete all the tasks before guests can leave. However, the more tasks you finish, the more bragging rights you have, Statler joked.

The space itself was created by Dimensional Innovations, a Kansas City area-based immersive design company whose first project was Leawood’s AMC theater. The project is a nod to its beginnings. DI’s past clients include The Amelia Earhart Hangar Museum, Knoxville Zoo and Legoland.

Outside the ticketed area, a pizza shop called Splice Bros. Pizza is open to the public. It, too, exists in Atlas9’s universe, with a talking popcorn bucket robot sitting on the bar. Using AI technology, the bot snaps photos of visitors and roasts them.

Pies on Splice Bros.’ menu: the Mona Lisa (apple, goat cheese, caramelized onions, four cheeses and olive oil), Hometown (burnt ends, crispy onions, provolone and BBQ sauce), and the Isabella (pancetta, strawberry, goat cheese, mozzarella and pesto).

Cocktails include the Tiramisu (tiramisu, St. Remy XO, rumchata and chocolate whipped cream), Lemon Meringue Pie (limoncello, lemon, sugar, oat milk and Licor 43) and the KC Horsefeather (whiskey, ginger beer and Angostura).

DI partnered with Homefield and local interactive entertainment company Swell Spark to make Atlas9 a reality.

“The amount of different skillsets and different disciplines that go into this place is bonkers,” he said. “The real magic is bringing all those together and making a cohesive experience. That’s the real art project.”

And all this — eerie music playing throughout the rooms, floors that rumble on cue, and nine fake movies with fully fleshed plots — is just the beginning. There’s still about nine rooms that have yet to be built out and will be added to the story as time goes on.

The team promises that Atlas 9 will be always changing and evolving.

Sitting at the bar of Splice Bros., speakers blaring while chatting about the experience, Statler said he couldn’t be more excited for opening day.

“My 16-year-old-self would be so delighted,” he said. “I’m listening to Nine-Inch Nails … In a place that I’m about to launch, in the most bizarre experience that I think people around here have seen.”

Atlas 9 will be open Tuesdays through Thursdays 2 to 10 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays from noon to 11 p.m., and Sundays noon to 8 p.m.