Of course all of Santa’s reindeers are enchanting, but let me introduce you to the most magical of them all. His name is Norbert and he has an extraordinary and very wonderful secret.
Norbert and the Polar Expedition
an original Christmas experience developed for intu Trafford Centre
In 2016 we developed a truly unique experience ‘Norbert and the Polar Expedition’ .
This experience was completely bespoke in both design and content and the first Christmas grotto event to incorporate Augmented Reality with an interactive, theatrical puppet character as part of the journey to the North Pole!
Eskimo Jo Events created the character of Norbert, a magical baby reindeer with a heart-warming secret! We developed the narrative and puppeteer script to be able to offer a wonderfully interactive story to prepare the families for their Polar Expedition journey to meet Santa.
We visually designed the Norbert puppet with adorable qualities and characteristics along with controllable facial features including magical glowing antlers! All controlled manually by the puppeteer from inside Norbert’s head, ensuring that Norbert could interact with the children with as many emotional facial expressions as possible, enhancing both believability and likeability of the character.
Norbert has proven to be an incredibly well loved character and after 2 successful seasons at intu Trafford Centre he was invited to make his debut appearance in Milton Keynes at The Centre MK within a stable themed story telling performance space and at intu Lakeside as an interactive queue pacifier, both pre Santa visit.
Norbert is incredibly versatile and always well received.
