Petrol Ofisi Petroleum Fair
The largest immersive cube of its time — with a ceiling screen, too.
PETROL OFİSİ · APRIL 2018
Brief
Petroleum Istanbul brings together the world's top professionals in the energy sector. The booths are big, the budgets are bigger, and attention spans are as short as always. For a category leader like Petrol Ofisi, "a large booth" isn't enough — what matters is being the one brand people remember when they walk out.
The brief was clear: don't describe Petrol Ofisi's world — from refinery to field to station to consumer — let people live in it. And do that without falling back on yet another giant ad screen at the booth. The world had to close in around the visitor.
“You look at a screen — but you walk into a room when even the ceiling changes.”
Insight
A brand story is something you watch — while looking at it. A brand world is something you only feel when it closes in around you. The two are completely different things. One is an ad. The other is an experience.
Trade fairs are always full of flat screens, banners and brochures. In an hour a visitor walks past dozens of brands they "look at." Our job was to move people from "looking at" to "being inside". And to do that one screen or one wall isn't enough — even the sky above the visitor's head has to change.
The Idea
We placed an 8×8×8 metre cube in the centre of the booth. Not a "square room" — the cube's front wall, left wall, right wall and ceiling were all giant screens, top to bottom. Visitors walked in through one door, the lights dropped, and a world opened up around them.
But four separate screens with four separate images isn't immersive — it's just four screens. The visuals had to behave like one space, flowing from a side wall onto the ceiling, from the ceiling onto the other side wall, with no seams. So we built a bespoke piece of software: an engine that treated the four surfaces as a single coordinate system, distributed the image across them, and held the continuity between them to the millimetre.
For the content, we produced a bespoke 8-minute film telling Petrol Ofisi's story — refinery to field to station to consumer. Throughout the fair, the experience ran in timed sessions: one group walked in, the world wrapped around them, and the next group was waiting as they walked out. For the duration of the fair, Petrol Ofisi's booth stopped being a booth — it became a small cinema crossed with a theme park.
An 8×8×8 Metre Cube
A custom-built 8-metre cube placed at the centre of the booth. One door in — and inside, the front wall, both side walls and the ceiling are all giant screens. A four-surface world around the visitor and over their head.
A Screen on the Ceiling, Too
Back then almost every immersive space used only the walls. This cube's ceiling was a screen, too — and at the time it was one of the largest immersive spaces with a ceiling screen anywhere. Look up, and the sky was Petrol Ofisi's world.
Software That Made Four Surfaces One Space
Four images on four screens isn't immersive — it's just four screens. We built a bespoke engine that treated the four surfaces as one coordinate system, flowing the visual from a side wall onto the ceiling and onto the other side wall with no seams. That software was the real reason the experience felt "real."
A Bespoke 8-Minute Film, in Sessions
A bespoke 8-minute film telling Petrol Ofisi's story — refinery to consumer. Throughout the fair the experience ran in timed sessions: one group walked in, the world wrapped around them, the next group was waiting as they walked out. For the duration of the fair, the booth became a small cinema.
Execution
Structural design, screen system, software development, content production and live on-site operation throughout the fair — all under one roof, produced by Harikalar.
Scope
- Engineering and custom on-site fabrication of the 8×8×8 m cube
- Screen system installation across all four surfaces (front + left + right + ceiling)
- Bespoke immersive software treating the four surfaces as one space
- Production of the bespoke 8-minute Petrol Ofisi film (VFX + audio)
- Session-based operations during the fair, visitor flow management, technical standby
Team
- Director & Experience Design: Atilla Baybara
- Technology & Software: Utku Olcar
- Operations: Yiğit Sarı
- Client Relations: Şaban Yılmaz
- + Build workshop, content production and on-site technical team
Results
- The most talked-about stand at Petroleum Istanbul 2018 — there was always a queue at the cube's door waiting for the next session
- One of the largest immersive spaces with a ceiling screen of its time — at this scale and format, an early one in Turkey
- At Petrol Ofisi's booth, no "ad to watch" — a world you walked into — visitors reacted to the experience, not a banner
- Bespoke software that drove four surfaces as one space — became a technical foundation we kept reusing on later dome and cube projects
- Client
- Petrol Ofisi
- Event
- Petroleum İstanbul Fuarı
- Year
- 2018
- Scale
- 8×8×8 m küp, 4 ekran yüzeyi
- Format
- Session'lı immersive deneyim, 8 dakikalık özel film
- Technology
- Dört yüzeyi tek mekân olarak süren özel immersive yazılım
- Production, Software & Operations
- Harikalar
- Project Lead
- Atilla Baybara
- Technology
- Utku Olcar
- Client Relations
- Şaban Yılmaz
- Operations
- Yiğit Sarı
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