Prologue

If we met in person at some point there’s a high chance we I eventually started talking about “Sleep No More”. An immersive theatrical experience that took place in a New York warehouse that I stumbled into during a work trip in 2023. I was looking forward to take my partner when we’d visit the United States the next time.

When they announced the show would close in February 2024 I was devastated. Not necessarily because I couldn’t back, but because I my partner wouldn’t be able to see it. We were on a long vacation in Thailand when they announced the closing. It would have been impossible for us to get there.

When they announced an extension we still struggled finding a good date to fly to New York, between starting a new job and other family commitments. The only plan possible emerged: Fly to New York via London on Friday morning, recover from the 6-hour jet lag on Saturday, see the show Sunday at 1pm, and fly back at 10pm. This 48-hour trip costing $2000 was and remains the most financially imprudent idea of my life.

Weekend Trip to NYC

The weeks before our trip were gut wrenching as suddently shows were cancelled because of a building ordinance and then a legal dispute with a landlord. It was very unclear whether we would be able to see it. I was on edge until finally setting foot in the hotel lobby on Sunday.

I personally had no expectations for the show: I felt happy with the two previous visits I had. My goal was for my partner and my friend to experience it.

Well little did I know that this show would be the most intense one I had: got lured into a wardrobe by Mio Ishikawa, got escorted to the second prophecy, saw the finale from the prime spot in the ballroom just to get hugged and walked out by Bret Yamanaka.

Before the show I had imagined how after the show I would walk back to our table in the bar to see if my partner did enjoy the show. But instead, they saw me and asked: “What happened to you, did you see a ghost?” Luckily, they had a great time as well and we ended up talking for quite a bit until my phone reminded us we’d have to catch our flight.

A few hours later we boarded our plane back to Europe. I tried to write down a recap but my eyes were closing and I ended up falling asleep.

Maps and Models

After talking about the show the next day, something didn’t make quite sense to me: “How did I get to the ballroom from the lobby?” And searching through the internet I weirdly couldn’t find any usable map of the hotel.

Luckily, the EXHIBIT(S) of the court case (related to the show’s temporary closure) revealed a lot of details about the building, including floor plans! So I tried to clean them up and posted them to /r/sleepnomore/ to see what other fans thought about them.

A message appeared in my inbox, inviting me to a Discord server where more fans were gathering. I might be able to find more detailed maps there. And indeed, the fandom had already drawn very detailed maps. So my work was kind of redundant.

I also noticed that a few fans were looking into rebuilding the hotel in Unity (a 3D game engine) or in the Metaverse (RIP). They had two or three rooms partially done, but they would have to build six floors, each with dozens of rooms.

Briefly I contemplated if and how I would contribute but realized that I held a non-constructive opinion: trying to capture the atmosphere of the hotel in a highly detailed digital model seemed counter-productive. Kind of similar to the uncanny valley effect, the more details you add, the more it would feel wrong. Additionally, this seems like an impossible project to do in a reasonable amount of time.

What I had in mind was more of a diorama, a snowglobe if you will. Maybe I drew a bit of inspiration from the Miniatur Wunderland in my hometown Hamburg. A place you could see the whole hotel, but not be able to zoom in on the details. Maybe with a bit of tilt-shift to really evoke a miniature effect.

I mostly wanted to “quickly” draw a digital floor plan of the hotel and then convert that into a 3D model. But the tools that I found wouldn’t really allow me to do that. Even the ones that costed some money wouldn’t have allowed me to do what I envisioned.

So I shelved that idea. 💀

Closure and Travels in 2025

The show finally closed in January 2025. Between our trip and the closing, work brought me back to New York two more times and each time I dragged a few colleagues into the show.

After the show closed, a 3-night party was held in the hotel. No, not the 72-hour-kind of party you might find in Berlin. Just three individual nights of chaos created by the cast and crew. In decided to visit some friends for a week. No regrets.

Additionally, I took a sabbatical later in 2025, which took me to Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. Sleep No More is actually running in Shanghai and Seoul and… that’s just a little detour, isn’t it? So I was also able to catch it in both places. And I highly recommend you do too if you’re nearby.

While the show can inhabit different buildings, the aura of the McKittrick Hotel was quite unique, with years of history, hundreds of residents, and an ever-shifting shape. Being exposed to the other variants, the thought of creating a digital model kept coming back to me. But still, I couldn’t find the right tools to do it, so I kept shelving it…

By the way, I highly recommend you go check out the stories of Louis Butelli about how he stumbled his way into becoming a performer of Sleep No More in 2015. It’s an ongoing series with more than eight nine parts so far.

The Tiniest McKittrick

Okay, we’re back to now. This year was a bit of a rough start for me. An acquisition of my employer and the subsequent restructuring left me out of a job. Health issues in my family required my full attention. My original travel plans for March and April were also completely derailed, so I spent time neither traveling nor sitting in front of a screen.

End of January, Rachel Kowert and Betsy Sullivan published The Psychgeist of Pop Culture – Sleep No More book. One chapter was written by the creator of the show, Felix Barrett, and I stumbled over this quote:

Is there a version where Sleep No More evolves and enables you to operate inside it? Wouldn’t it be interesting if Sleep No More evolved to become a more game mechanic driven iteration of the Scottish play?

One thing for sure is that whatever happens with SNM - even though it shifts to fit a vast, cavernous 10-screen cinema in Seoul or hypothetically shrinks to a yet undisclosed city that I cannot talk about - the core heart of it, one that’s ridden with superstition, paranoia and creeping dread, and a sense that you can’t quite control the events that are taking place, that will stay the same.

Because he mentioned game mechanic and shrink, I briefly got worried they would create a VR experience. What a stupid thought. Since then it has been confirmed that the Shanghai production of Sleep No More will move to Shenzen.

But on my way to the immersive circus Walk My World in Budapest 🇭🇺 the thought became too loud to ignore…

Read Part 2 to see what happens when you let an intrusive thought like that take over your brain for a month!