#tbh my favorite part of the experience was improv-ing a conversation with phillip the scoops ahoy employee actor

[boydykedoctor]

i wrote this immediately after i got home from the NYC stranger things experience so it's kind of shitty but here's a summary:

you basically come in for a “sleep experiment” in the rainbow room as a test subject. the position of this event in the timeline of ST is super fuzzy and unclear and that's because it would make no sense if it was part of the actual story. it's basically an opportunity for self-insert fanfic in which the party members, Owens, and Brenner have one-sided conversations with you.

everyone in the sleep experiment group happens to have “powers," and we're sorted into three sections: I think they were physical (red), psychic (blue), and intuition (yellow)? Or something? Physical ppl (me) had telekinesis, psychic people could freeze things, and intuition could create visions (like kali) and mess with lights if i recall correctly. one by one, each group gets to do a little pose--like El holding up her hand--as a special effect, like a coke can getting crushed or "vision" spiders crawling around on the wall, occurs

Brenner finds out we have powers and tries to capture us by sending us off for more tests. (there's an actor who plays the scientist running you through the experiment, but then there's a hologram-like screen that shows the real Matt Modine talking to us and doing his creepy Papa thing)

When we move deeper into the lab, we hear Dustin and Erica in a vent, and they say that their friends El and Max are in danger in the Upside Down. Max went in by herself (i genuinely can't remember why. someone help.) and El went in after to rescue her. Now everyone else has to rescue them. The typical stuff. Will, Mike, and Lucas are in some other room of the lab, able to see what’s happening with cameras and tell us what to do/how to use our powers. there's a very cool effect with frosted doors and demodogs throwing themselves at the glass/blood spattering/doctors dying horrible deaths/etc. we run around for a bit as the party members mess with electronics to help get us out, and then we open a portal and go through to the UD.

we eventually find Max in the Upside Down (the woodsy part) and she talks to us, tells us she shouldn’t have gone off exploring on her own. El shows up but has trouble using her powers against the demodogs and demogorgons bc she’s been fighting for so long. we all give her our ~magical power energy~ (which feels odd and not like something that would be possible in canon but whatever). she's able to fight off the monsters and close the portal.

somehow this boots us out of the UD and into the normal Hawkins woods. everyone in the party shows up and thanks us and tells us we’re friends now. it’s cute. will is the only one who basically doesn’t do or say anything interesting, which is because we're strangers to him and he's shy but he's my fave okay :Y

all the scenes with the party are played by the real actors! they do some fun 3D stuff in the UD to make it look like everyone is standing in the room with you. except for at one point El is an in-the-flesh actor who has to lipsync to MBB's voice. i don't know why they did that but they did.

Oh i forgot one of the doctors who did the intro bits was extremely funny bc her only job was to stand there and stare at you creepily while her more gregarious counterpart explained what was going to happen. loved her.

there were a bunch of fun little details but i didn't get photos (phones were illegal. shout out to whoever got that shot of will, mike, and lucas) and my memory is shit :/ anybody else who went can feel free to add onto this post or correct me!