MA Immersive & Interactive Media Design examines how audience experiences can be enhanced through creative uses of technology and media. This innovative programme explores ways to provide audiences with a meaningful, immersive, or interactive presence using cutting-edge technology, scenography, powerful storytelling, and compelling narrative design.
Course details
- Qualification Master of Arts
- Duration 1 year - full time, 2 years - part time
- Location Production Park, Wakefield, WF9 3NR
- Validated by University of Bolton
- Tuition fees Full time - Home £11,500, International £20,000
- Entry Requirements 2:2 Honours degree or above in a relevant subject and/or appropriate relevant work experience.
- Start date September 2025
Make an enquiry
MA Immersive & Interactive Media Design examines how audience experiences can be enhanced through creative uses of technology and media. This innovative programme explores ways to provide audiences with a meaningful, immersive, or interactive presence using cutting-edge technology, scenography, powerful storytelling, and compelling narrative design.
Course Overview
This postgraduate course gives hands-on experience in analysing, designing, developing, and realising projects for a range of performance genres, production scales, and spaces. You will experiment with different interfaces and platforms to create exceptional immersive experiences. Together, we explore how audiences experience events from varied perspectives, including before, during, and after a show.
This programme is distinct from our MA Live Event Design degree course as it focusses on audience engagement and not design management. How an audience experiences an event or performance from different perspectives and narratives is central to the MA Immersive & Interactive Media Design. This is studied using a variety of means including sets, film, audio, lighting, projection, environment, and space.
Students gain practical experience and showcase creative projects to peers, staff and external partners using exceptional facilities. These enhance the live-events ecosystem on campus. Our new Centre for Virtual Production encompasses an XR Studio, the first Extended Reality facility in Yorkshire and arguably one of the best-equipped spaces of its kind in the North of England.
Students can experiment with immersive technology such as video (Augmented, Virtual, and Extended Reality), audio (binaural/3D sound/consumer vs live systems), and lighting (audience interactivity in control and expression of lighting). In 2022, the Academy of Live Technology opened XPLOR - a £7m+ facility which will be the world’s first research and innovation centre dedicated to entertainment technology and production.
This course is offered either full time over 1 year or part-time over 2 years. Our approach to blended learning supports working professionals to engage flexibly with studies.
Academy of Live Technology provides students with a supportive and inclusive environment where students are challenged through praxis – applying critical thinking to practical, hands-on experimentation and reflection. Teaching uses blended learning, combining practical work with online and face-to-face lectures, seminars, tutorials, discussions, guest speakers, and masterclasses.
Students have the unrivalled position of learning in the heart of the live events industry on Production Park. Surrounded by global brands and using advanced facilities and equipment, you will study Immersive & Interactive Media Design in a working creative industry context. You will experience how experiences can be enhanced and developed using hands-on practical experimentation.
Students are encouraged to use their continuing professional practice as part of their research process and build on our close relationships with the creative events industry. Developing plans for new creative projects is coupled with a higher level of academic study and learning. Our expert staff have extensive academic credentials and industry experience that supports your learning journey.
A significant amount of personal study time is expected to be undertaken by students comprising, for example, background reading, online activities, assessment work and preparation for sessions. The course includes three subject specialist modules and two modules that you will share with students on other postgraduate courses. You will benefit from collaborating with peers on these shared modules and projects.
This course is ideal if you...
- are about to graduate from an undergraduate course in a related area.
- are an industry professional looking to upskill, retrain, or further develop your craft.
- want to explore creative use of technology to generate interactive and immersive experiences.
- are a designer or director looking to take your practice in a different direction.
The programme aims to...
- give graduates and professionals in related industries critical insight into principles and practices underpinning innovation and entrepreneurship in creative industries.
- provide rigorous opportunities for advanced study, research, and embedded practice led by field specialists, allowing you to explore your own virtual production practice.
- cultivate your projects and research in collaboration with students from other postgraduate courses, culminating in your final negotiated research project.
- strengthen your transferable skills and offer specialist professional and personal preparation for competitive creative industries.
Key features:
- Students can engage with cutting edge developments at the Academy of Live Technology’s new £7m+ Research and Innovation Centre, XPLOR, and the Centre for Virtual Production.
- Academy of Live Technology boasts the first XR studio in Yorkshire and arguably one of the best-equipped spaces of its kind in the North of England.
- Academy of Live Technology’s extensive live event industry networks and contacts help students deepen their skills, experience, and creative practice.
- The course offers access to unique commercial opportunities through the Academy of Live Technology’s connection with Production Park and the impressive array of businesses on campus.
- Experienced staff use their extensive industry experience to teach up-to-date live event practices.
- We offer the freedom to explore live projects independently or collaborate with peers from other postgraduate courses, encouraging creative innovation and experimentation.
Why Academy of Live Technology?
- Employability is central to everything – hands-on experience is embedded in all our courses.
- Our postgraduate programmes are designed for, and by, the creative industries.
- We supply sought-after practitioners to one of the largest and most exciting global industries.
- There are phenomenal career opportunities, progression routes, and roles in diverse sectors.
- We celebrate the exploration of research, innovation, and invention through creative collaboration.
- Courses are designed for you to drive your own learning and explore your own specialisms.
- Facilities at the Academy of Live Technology are exceptional and demonstrate a multi-million-pound investment.
- The campus is situated at Production Park, known as Europe’s leading live-industry destination.
- The site is home to over 20 internationally renowned live events and creative businesses.
- Past students have experienced global work opportunities at diverse international live events.
- Our extensive international partnerships tap into the latest technology, funding, and practices.
- Staff are experienced industry professionals with extensive practical and academic knowledge.
- We offer tailored mentoring and individual support owing to favourable staff:student ratios.
- Teaching and research take place in a welcoming and inclusive learning environment.
- The student experience we deliver is award-winning (Educate North Awards, 2020).
- Our campus is extremely accessible via road and motorway, rail, and international flight routes.
Course content
- Immersive & Interactive Media Design: Concept and Contexts - 30 Credits
- Immersive & Interactive Media Design 1: Research and Development - 30 Credits
- Immersive & Interactive Media Design 2: Realisation and Production - 30 Credits
- Working in the Creative Industries: Managing Yourself and Others - 30 Credits
- Major Project - 60 Credits
Entry Requirements
You should have at least a lower second class (2.2) honours degree (or equivalent) in any subject or five years’ relevant work experience.
If you hold an undergraduate degree in a relevant subject, you may provide a transcript or other documentation that details your prior study. Alternatively, you may be able to demonstrate your professional experience via a portfolio of attested work. Please contact the programme leader to discuss your options.
If you wish to gain admission on the basis of five years’ relevant work experience, you’ll be required to attend an online or face-to-face interview and present evidence in the form of a portfolio of work and examples that demonstrate your suitability and aptitude for the course. The evidence should be presented in electronic format and attested by an independent person. The independent person could be a current or former lecturer or an employer who has a more senior role than yourself. The University is looking for candidates who can demonstrate a clear style and commitment to their professional practice and who will benefit from experiencing this area of study.
We'll consider applications where appropriate work experience can be demonstrated in lieu of, or in addition to, the published academic qualifications in line with the University’s Recognition of Prior Experiential Learning (RPEL) procedures.
If English isn’t your first language, you’ll also need IELTS 6.5 with no less than 6.0 in any band (or equivalent).
Please note: it is our practice to interview all applicants.
Assessment
Assessment tasks are linked to the learning outcomes of each module and are completed before the end of the module. Module assessments typically involve written coursework, project work, oral assessments and portfolios.
Our team of academic and professional staff will use a variety of teaching and learning strategies to help you gain and develop appropriate concepts, knowledge and skills. You can expect practice-based enquiry, self-directed study, lectures, seminars, tutorials, presentations and work-based learning.
It’s important to realise that the time spent with a tutor during formally scheduled activities is only a small part of the learning time identified for a module. You’ll also be expected to spend a significant amount of time in guided independent study, such as general background reading, preparing for seminar activities and working on assignments. We are committed to supporting you throughout your learning journey. Over time, our guidance will purposefully become less structured and prescriptive. This will encourage you to develop confidence and independence in your studies and take responsibility for managing your own learning time as you increase in autonomy.
The assessment strategy for the programme is designed to help you achieve the overall aims of the curriculum, as well as the learning outcomes for individual modules. As well as assessing your achievement, it helps to organise and develop your learning. Assessment feedback can help you develop your skills and an understanding of your strengths and weaknesses.
The types of assessment you’ll be required to complete fall into two general categories: formative and summative. Formative assessments help in learning and developing knowledge and skills. Summative assessments, on which grades are allocated, reflect the quality of the learning that has been achieved. Formative assessment will take place via tutorial discussion, group workshops including peer and tutor review, and guidance on work in progress. Formative feedback will be provided face-to-face via discussion, online or in written form. Summative assessments consist of both practical and applied theoretical work. These will include a range of assessments including practical projects, written work, presentations and portfolios.
Employability
Graduates will gain a competitive edge as immersive & interactive media designers in the dynamic and developing creative industries. This is a career-focused postgraduate degree that will support you to develop advanced knowledge and skills. The skills training is combined with project-oriented creative education and will enable you to adapt and develop your practice throughout your future career.
We’ll guide you to make clear plans as to how you will use your expertise to progress your career during the course. As a graduate of this MA, you will be well prepared to seek employment, promotion, or become self-employed using the professional skills you’ve developed as part of the course. This qualification also forms the basis for doctoral studies if you wish to pursue a career in academia or research and development.
The course will equip you with a range of transferable, interpersonal, technical, and non-technical skills allowing you to capitalise on diverse career opportunities that exist. Fields could include theatre, themed entertainment, immersive experiences such as escape rooms, interactive art installation, exhibition design, architecture, AR & VR, alternative reality gaming, sound engineering, and many other creative areas.
Equipment / software
Students at the Academy of Live Technology benefit from having access to a wide range of specialist equipment, software and technology in line with the latest industry developments - much of which is made possible through our partnerships with some of the industry’s best entertainment technology manufacturers and distributors.
Depending on your programme of study, this may include:
Sound equipment such as:
- Desks from Allen & Heath, Avid, Midas and Soundcraft
- Sound Systems from D&B and KV2 Audio
- Microphones from Audix, Sennheiser and Shure.
Lighting equipment such as:
- Wide range of lighting fixtures including Art2000s, Powercubes, moving lights, Source 4s and blinders from Avolites, Chauvet, Chroma-Q, Clay Paky and Prolight
- Lighting control from Avolites, ChamSys, GrandMA and Hog
- TitanNet processors from Avolites.
Video equipment such as:
- Media servers from Avolites, Disguise, Green Hippo and Isadora
- LED video wall from ROE Visual and Prolights
- Laser projectors from Epson and Panasonic
- Video switcher and cameras from Blackmagic Design
- Networking from Luminex.
Communications equipment from Riedel.
Software such as: Avolites Ai & Titan, Blacktrax, Disguise, Green Hippo Zookeeper, Isadora, Notch, SketchUp, Smode, Vectorworks, WYSIWYG, Adobe Creative Cloud package and Microsoft Windows 365 suite.
Rigging equipment such as:
- Truss from Prolyte and Sixty82
- Motors from CM Lodestar
- Load cells from Broadweigh.
Mature / International students
Academy of Live Technology welcomes students of all ages to study on our degree programmes.
We accept applications from international students to study full time. For further information please visit our International Students section.
How do i apply?
Applications for our MA Immersive & Interactive Media Design are made directly to Academy of Live Technology.
Please click on the link below to start your application.
FEES AND FUNDING
Home full time - £11,500, Part time - £5,750 p/year
International full time - £20,000 per year. We do not offer this course to international students on a part time basis.
To find out more about fees and funding, please visit our Student Finance page.
International & EU Students
The Admissions Team provides support through the visa process, but it’s ultimately the student’s responsibility. We start issuing CAS numbers about 3 - 4 months before courses begin, typically from late May for September starts.
Student Visa costs vary by course length and
include the mandatory Immigration Health Surcharge for NHS access, even if you
have private insurance. More details are
available on the government website.
Different
rules may apply if you're already studying in the UK — check UKCISA for guidance.
Make an Enquiry
Please complete our enquiry form via the link below and one of our postgraduate team will be in touch.