The Practical Otherworldly Repair and Trading Alliance, Ltd (P.O.R.T.A.L.)
Come on down to P.O.R.T.A.L, your premier source for all your magical portal and ethereal doorway repair needs. We promise nothing will go wrong this time.
Got an unruly doorway that refuses to take you where you want to go? Call us. Get lost walking through the veil? Call us. Are you hearing whispers in an ancient forgotten language wafting through the space where an bramble-encrusted gateway once stood, but now, even after you had the doorway removed, you still get a shiver every time you walk through the space it once occupied? Call us! (928) POR-TALS. That’s (928) 767-8257.
P.O.R.T.A.L. was a collaboration between more than 30 immersive artists from the Bay Area, taking over a converted church to turn it into an explorable world and playable story for a one-night audience of 150 people.
Walk into our magic portal repair and quarantine workshop, and behind every door is another dimension. In Shadesmar, the universe appears in shades of grey until you shine a flashlight on it to reveal the colors. Birdland is overrun with bird-creatures. And of course, single socks disappear into Lintmarch.
Sifting through employees’ lab notebooks, intake receipts, voicemail system, and characters, guests piece together a prank designed to ruin the night’s celebration. Luckily, it also leads them down the path to fix it.
Michael was the co-lead, producer, lead story designer, and lead writer for P.O.R.T.A.L.
Explore the multiverse
Some of the most prolific immersive artists in the Bay Area took over rooms to transform them into new worlds and new experiences with puzzles to solve, mysteries to unlock, illusions to dispel, and
Step through the creaking doors of P.O.R.T.A.L. and find yourself immersed in a fantastical world where some of the Bay Area’s most prolific immersive artists have transformed each room in the house into intricate passageways, whimsical worlds, and mysterious puzzles. The stunning visual displays and interactive installations bring the magic workshop to life. Explore, interact, and lose yourself in the multiverse.
Discover the story
Scattered around the workshop, throughout the extra-dimensional worlds, and on the voicemail system, you can find the lore of P.O.R.T.A.L.’s work throughout the years, the artifacts on display, and a little about the comings and goings of P.O.R.T.A.L.’s regulars. Dig a little deeper, and you might find a password to the vault or hidden stashes of contraband.
Artifacts and Interaction
The workshop is full of inter-dimensional artifacts.
A semi-sentient miniature newsstand trapped inside a larger news stand, communicating through tiny newspapers.
A crown that projects voices into your mind.
A coin-operated vending machine trapping an extra-planar super-intelligence in a tiny capsule.
An impossible hallway that shrinks and grows in pitch darkness. A control panel for navigating the multiverse.
And, of course, a series of glowing keys to open magical doors
