Your words: Readers get crabby about the Immersive Van Gogh Orlando experience | First Words | Orlando

¶ Baby don’t Gogh: Attendees grumble about ‘Immersive Van Gogh’ experience

From the beginning, there’s been a whiff of the scammy about the Immersive Van Gogh Exhibit Orlando that promised to come to Orlando for months. From the hard-to-parse differences between competing exhibits with similar names to the lack of an announced venue (just vague promises of a special historic building in downtown) to the unceremonious rescheduling of the opening after weeks’ worth of tickets had already been sold, something seemed off about Van Gogh’s visit to the City Beautiful.

Now, guests who are finally seeing the attraction (at its not-so-historic, not-at-all-downtown location inside the convention center) are fuming about the lackluster experience. One Reddit user called the rather expensive lightshow “the biggest scam … I’ve ever attended,” saying the event amounted to standing in one room watching videos before being shepherded into a large gift shop with poorly made reproductions of art on various items.

Over on the event’s Facebook page, several commenters left less-than-stellar reviews. “I paid $300 to sit on a 1/2-inch-thick cushion on a marble floor and watch a 30-minute movie. I can’t comprehend how anyone would appreciate this, unless it was free,” said one Facebook commenter. “Walking from the parking lot to the event space took more time than the entire experience,” noted another. Many of our readers shared similar views — but not all!

@Nicholas Calvelli Definitely expected multi rooms. It was still pretty cool to see but even the music and presentations were not really contextual. It was all kind of random. Also I was really disappointed with the venue.

@Katherine Hoffman It was such a letdown and felt like a money grab. I wish they would have included more rooms with installation pieces. Also having to pay for additional parking even with VIP tickets and then a mile walk through the empty convention center was not a fun start.

@Cecilia Harbach As someone who may or may not have done drugs while being in this “immersive” experience I will say it’s still subpar, with not having projections on the ceiling and having way too many people walking around and flashing their cameras.

@Frankie Messina Sorry so many had a bad experience. I asked for my money back the moment I saw the location was at the OCCC, just knew the mystery and uniqueness would be lost in such a generic large space, and I-Drive surroundings. These national touring art expressions come through every now and then like snake oil hawkers. … Sorry many of my friends had a bad art experience. Was some great marketing on their part … got to give ’em that. Wow.

@Hillary Lawlor It looks so cool in Emily in Paris!

@Tracy Myz Gonzalez I loved it. I went to the one here in Orlando. It was beautiful and even peaceful to watch with the music playing along with it. I appreciate the artist that brought all these paintings to life.

@Barbara Emrys The whole point of Van Gogh’s art is its dense color and intense feeling. Both are lost in blowups.

@Lili Gilbert Ughhhhhhh. I have three tickets totaling $150 for next Friday.

Send your bouquets and brickbats to feedback@orlandoweekly.com.