Britain’s most popular attraction? You probably haven’t heard of it

The Outernet claims an annual visitor count of over six million
The Outernet claims an annual visitor count of over six million - Frat Caglayan Yurdakul/Anadolu via Getty

What are the most popular tourist attractions in London? Easy. The big museums. They have dominated the visitor numbers forever. If you check the latest stats with the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA), you find the Natural History Museum leads the pack with 4,654,000 visitors in 2022, followed by the British Museum, Tate Modern and the National Gallery. These big cultural hitters battle it out at the top of the table year after year.

But there has been a mischievous challenge to this traditional hegemony. Though it is not a member of the ALVA, an upstart called the Outernet may have seized the crown, claiming an annual visitor count of over six million.

Never heard of it? I’m not surprised. Though it’s quite possible that you might even have visited without realising what it was. The Outernet, which opened just over a year ago is an arcade at the base of the new Now building at the corner of Tottenham Court and Charing Cross roads. It’s open to the street, just opposite an exit to the tube station, and is covered in giant LED screens showing what it calls “immersive arts and cultural programming”.

Outernet's Christmas-themed display - but how many people just got sucked in after leaving the tube station?
Outernet's Christmas-themed display - but how many people just got sucked in after leaving the tube station? - Frat Caglayan Yurdakul/Anadolu via Getty

When I visited there was a 3D trompe-l’oeil video, “The Butterfly Trail”, which depicted “magical” butterflies fluttering around a giant Victorian glass house. And around the corner in another walk-through arcade leading to Denmark Street, was a more abstract psychedelic display called “Tessellations” which aims to help you “transcend the discordant everyday and arrive at the beauty of the present”. (It just gave me a headache.)

Do these installations count as an attraction comparable with our greatest museums and galleries? Not in my book. How many of those six million actually looked up the sight and planned a visit? And how many just got sucked in for a few minutes as they left the tube station or explored Oxford Street? Outernet wouldn’t tell me the average “dwell time” for its visitors, but from what I witnessed, it can’t be terribly long. And they probably don’t want it to be. The floor space is quite limited and it is numbers, not the duration of the visit, that seems to be most valuable here.

Outernet wants, in its own words, to use “state-of-the-art technology to provide audience engagement and demographics data, ensuring unparalleled performance metrics for brands and advertisers”. In other words, it creates an audience for adverts by distracting the passing crowds.

There’s no harm in that. And there may be, as Outernet claims, some interesting stuff among its ever-changing installations. Sadiq Khan is clearly a fan, using the screens to deliver campaign messages. “I’m proud of the work we have delivered with Outernet, showcasing innovative content to Londoners and visitors on world-class screens,” he has said.

But for me, Outernet is a sideshow – a clever way for the owners of the site, which also contains a hotel and a concert venue, to generate attention.

Tom Hanks’ The Moonwalkers is the current display at the Lightroom
Tom Hanks’ The Moonwalkers is the current display at the Lightroom - Justin Sutcliffe

That is not, however, to denigrate the surge of interest in immersive art. It’s becoming a serious thing, which is attracting the attention of major artists. David Hockney – always quick to absorb technological change – had a huge success last year with Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away), which was projected in the Lightroom in King’s Cross. The current show in the four-storey space is Tom Hanks’ The Moonwalkers.

Not all have endured. The London version of the BBC Earth Experience, operated in Earls Court under licence from BBC Studios, shut on Feb 1. Narrated by David Attenborough, it dramatised “an unforgettable journey through the natural world”.

But Chris Michaels, the former director of digital communications at the National Gallery in London, believes it is only a matter of time before the big museums will be buying into the possibilities and appeal of immersive experiences and technologies.

In a recent article for The Art Newspaper he celebrated some of the high-profile installations and immersive experiences which are wowing visitors around the world, from the 365ft-high Sphere in Las Vegas to the Atelier des Lumières in Paris. And he cites new spaces due to open this year in Abu Dhabi, Hamburg and Shanghai.

Even the most refined and recherché centres of cultural excellence are buying into the possibilities. Trinity College Dublin has just opened The Book of Kells Experience, a new exhibition that transforms the famous ninth-century illuminated manuscript and the university’s wonderful Old Library into a 360-degree immersive journey. Bright shiny imagery intended to bring a story to life? Those ninth-century artist-monks would surely have approved.