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Candytopia’s pop-up museum puts AR on display

Written by RetailWire Staff

Source: Candytopia

Already built with interactivity and Instagrammability in mind, pop-up candy museum Candytopia has added an augmented reality (AR) element to some of its candy-themed, candy-based art installations.

With a newly-launched app, visitors to Candytopia can point their smartphones at installations and see on-screen visuals of candy leaping off the walls and figures from the artwork coming to life.

Candytopia features art installations such as statues and classic paintings remade out of candy as well as experiential features like a swimming pool filled with marshmallows and areas that rain down confetti on visitors. 

Early in 2018, after some initial difficulties with launching, Candytopia began opening extended pop-ups in major cities, garnering comparisons to The Museum of Ice Cream and other Instagram-targeted pop-up museums. There are currently two active Candytopia pop-ups, one in San Francisco and another in New York City. The pop-ups can also be rented for private events and birthday parties.

 

For a few years, especially since the brief but fervent public interest in Pokémon Go, retailers, brands and marketers have sought to find the right use case for AR.

Nike, for instance, has launched AR urban scavenger hunt events to prompt sneakerheads to compete for the chance to get limited-edition shoes. 7-Eleven has run in-store augmented reality promotions pegged to events like the release of the second Deadpool movie and the 2018 football season.

Some have pursued less promotional, more functional use cases for AR. Earlier this year, startup Blippar launched an app that enables grocery stores, department stores and larger venues to set up animated AR maps which customers can follow via their smartphones.

And some of the biggest players in retail have expressed a strong belief in AR's future as the next big thing. Last year Imran Ansani, principal manager of innovation at Walmart Labs, claimed that AR would become ubiquitous within the next five years. He saw this coming in concurrence with the adoption of wearable devices like glasses with AR readouts superimposed over a user's field of vision.

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