To create a new large-scale, location-based AR tour experience for Lichfield District Council, bringing the history and characters of one of England's most loved cities to life on its own streets. 

The brief asked for something that would reach new and younger audiences beyond Lichfield's already strong traditional heritage offer, without displacing what already worked.

The project was awarded Welcome Back funding to invite visitors and residents back to explore the city in a new way.

Core Narrative Development | Interpretation Planning | AR Experience Design | Volumetric Video Production | Digital Experience Design

Working with local knowledge experts and partners, we developed a narrative approach that turned Lichfield’s streets into ‘Time Portals’, where figures from the past could step into the present.

Local actors performed the historical roles, and the full experience, from first concept to live platform, was delivered in four months.

Building directly on the volumetric video approach pioneered at Tamworth Castle (see Case Study), we used an advanced five-camera sensor setup to capture character performances in full 360° three dimensions. 

When viewed by visitors on their smartphones, this allowed them to walk all the way around the historical AR figures in the street. You could event have your photograph taken alongside them as if they were physically present!

Exploring the city became a hugely popular game of finding the geo-located Portals, meeting the AR characters and collecting objects from them.

The goal here was not to replace Lichfield’s existing heritage offer but to extend its reach using novel, interactive storytelling.  

That is a narrative challenge as much as a technical one: finding the stories and characters compelling enough to make a general audience stop in the street and become explorers.  

The technical evolution from Tamworth to Lichfield shows our approach to using technology:  not as a fixed toolkit but as an evolving set of capabilities, refined and extended with every project.

Volumetric video is evolving rapidly. Using smartphone AR to locate it as four-dimensional media in the real world, has huge potential for heritage engagement, accessibility and performing arts.

Client: Lichfield District Council

TGA: Core Narrative Development, Interpretation Planning, AR Experience Design, Volumetric Video Production, Digital Experience Design

Partners: Four Door Productions (Immersive Development), Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum | Erasmus Darwin House | Lichfield Cathedral | Lichfield Garrick Theatre | Lichfield Tour Guides (Local Heritage Organisations)