IRIS Interactive | 501(c)(3) Immersive Event Production

About IRIS

A production team built inside fan communities

IRIS Interactive is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit event production group out of Southern California. Our team is 80+ volunteers: cosplayers, performers, event producers, A/V techs, marketing people. Almost all of them came from the fan communities we make events for.

Most fan groups work show-to-show. We run more like a company. Assigned roles, ongoing responsibilities, people who stick around between productions. We care about the IPs, but we're here because we care about the work itself. That's what keeps things consistent no matter which property we're working with.

1,000+

Peak event attendance

15 to 18

Performers per production

85%

Peak quest completion rate

80+

Active volunteers

Featured Work

Six productions across five IPs and counting.

Every show is built from scratch for the property, the crowd, and the space. Nothing carries over except what we learned last time.

SHWA Jul 2–5, 2026 Upcoming

SHWA: Last Seen

An immersive interactive exhibit at Anime Expo produced in collaboration with SHWA. Attendees investigate the disappearance of missing characters through a mystery event with live performers guiding the experience.

TBA

Attendees

Stations

Performers

NIKKE: Goddess of Victory May 2, 2026

Shore Leave

Beach-themed show with a maid cafe, scavenger hunt, and Nerf gun shooting range. Our F&B team developed custom food items for the event. The NIKKE NA marketing team backed us with exclusive merch for giveaways built into the show.

400+

Attendees

Stations

Performers

Genshin Impact Jan 31, 2026

Thousand Lights Festival

A family-friendly festival themed around Genshin Impact's Lantern Rite and Lunar New Year. We worked with the City of San Gabriel to put this one together. Seven immersive activity stations including in-character roleplay, a tasting show, and an arts and crafts station.

1,000+

Attendees

Stations

Performers

Persona Dec 13, 2025

All-Out Holiday

A Persona-themed event built around a meta-story about learning to look out for your friends. We designed a fully themed escape room, built a custom web-based mini-game platform that ran live on-site, and ran an interactive game show alongside crafting activities. The event pulled over 2,400 likes across social media.

900+

Attendees

Stations

Performers

Zenless Zone Zero Oct 11, 2025

Sixth Street Takeover

Five interactive stations with in-character performers, including a live maid cafe, mystery puzzle-solving scenario, and live sword fighting demonstrations. Partnered with local community groups like FIIO (audio) and KRON (sword-fighting) to bring in outside expertise and support the local scene.

700+

Attendees

Stations

Performers

Genshin Impact Aug 16, 2025

Where the Wind Blooms

Our inaugural event as IRIS Interactive. A Windblume Festival celebration with interactive games from Jenga to tier-list creation, live performances, and collaborations with over a dozen local vendors.

800+

Attendees

Stations

Performers

Why We Do This

More than events.
Why we do this.

IRIS Interactive started because we kept going to conventions and thinking "why isn't anyone doing this?" Fan communities have the people, the talent, and the love for these properties, but there weren't enough spaces where you could actually step into the world instead of just standing outside it. So we started making those spaces. Every show we build is designed around one thing: put the audience inside the world, give them something real to do, and make it clear the whole thing was made for them.

Being a 501(c)(3) lets us keep things accessible. Every IRIS production to date has been free to attend. When we partner with bigger events, we bring that same approach. The experience has to be worth it for the people in the room. We don't lower the production quality because there's no ticket price. The standard is the same whether it's 100 people at a community activation or 1,000+ at a city-partnered festival.

Real work experience

Our 80+ volunteers include people who work on larger productions outside of IRIS, alongside students and early-career creatives who are still getting started. The experienced members teach the newer ones through actual shows: event production, A/V, marketing, performer direction, food service, project management. It's real work on real productions, not a workshop.

Community-first events

Everything starts with the people showing up. Free admission, accessible design, and production quality that makes people come back next time and bring friends.

Built to partner

We're a 501(c)(3), so contributions are tax-deductible. Sponsorship, merchandise, venue access, promo support. Whatever the arrangement looks like, it's going directly into community programming.

What We Do

We handle the whole show,
top to bottom

Our shows are built around trained performers who stay in character, interact with attendees live, and walk them through story-driven activities. The food, the props, the marketing sites, the custom tech. All of it gets made in-house and matched to the property.

Experience Design

The concept, the story, the station layout, how people move through it. We design the whole thing so it works as one connected experience, not a collection of booths.

Performer Casting & Direction

Finding the right people, getting them costumed, and running rehearsals until they can hold character in a live crowd and improvise when things go sideways.

Story & Lore

Every event has a story tying the whole thing together. We write it to hold up with fans who know the source material inside and out, because that's who's showing up.

Activities & Games

Escape rooms, scavenger hunts, game shows, live combat demos, crafting stations, puzzle scenarios. The stuff people actually line up for.

In-House Food & Beverage

Themed food and drinks made in-house for each show. Not catering. Our F&B team develops original items matched to the property.

A/V Production

Sound, video, tech setup, custom web tools for live events, and day-of production support.

Event Production & Logistics

Venue coordination, vendor management, scheduling, staffing, and running day-of operations for crowds up to 1,000+.

Marketing

Pre-event campaigns, social media, community outreach, and coordinating with IP holders and local orgs to get the word out.

How We Work

From first call to
day-of execution

A typical show runs 6 to 10 weeks of prep depending on scale.

Discovery

We learn the IP, your goals, the venue, and who's coming. What does a good outcome look like? What are the hard limits? We get aligned on scope before anything gets designed.

Concept Development

We design the experience: the story, the station flow, what people actually do at each one, and how the whole thing feels from the moment someone walks in to when they leave.

Casting & Rehearsal

Performers get recruited, costumed, and rehearsed. We train for improv, crowd interaction, and staying in character when things get chaotic. Because they will.

Production Build

A/V setup, props, F&B menu development, marketing materials, and any custom tech. All developed and tested before the event.

Day-of Execution

Full team on-site running performers, logistics, vendors, A/V, and putting out fires across all stations for the full duration of the show.

Post-Event Debrief

Attendance numbers, engagement data, social media performance, and honest notes on what worked and what didn't. We document everything.

We build worlds
people walk into.

A production team built inside fan communities