Dead Good Venues

Exploring the cultural heritage of northern music venues with immersive technology.

Dead Good Venues is a prototype VR experience created by Pittswood that explores the cultural heritage of northern music venues.

Combining traditional documentary techniques along with immersive VR game engine technology, Pittwood and XR Stories created a hybrid grassroots cultural heritage storytelling experience unearthing what it takes to create a vibrant live music venue via stories, artefacts and reconstruction. The experience focuses on The Duchess (1988-2000), its community impact, the famous bands who passed through and the characters who frequented and made this space into such a culturally important venue. These venues operate on a shoestring budget with often no major backing and are often in threat of closing. This project aims to highlight the importance of grassroots venues both on a local community scale as well as a further reaching major industry level.