Councillors also agreed £100,000 to develop an “AI adoption” business case
Stock image of Belfast City Hall(Image: Belfast Live)
The Belfast City Hall Augmented Reality experience is to stay, at a cost of £78,000 to the ratepayer.
Also known as the City Hall Immersive experience, the project in rooms 7, 8 and 9 of City Hall was the result of a collaborative six-month project with BT Northern Ireland, who originally contributed £1million in technology and expertise.
The experience includes Augmented Reality, iPads and video displays to explore elements of the speech, geography and history of the city in interactive ways. When the six-month collaboration ended in March 2024, councillors approved a one-year extension of the project until April 2026.
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At the January meeting of the council’s Strategic Policy and Resources Committee, councillors unanimously agreed to retain the experience at City Hall for another year.
A council officer report states it would cost £78,000, a sum which would include a number of technical changes to the system “to allow it to continue efficiently beyond its original six-month lifespan,” and to cover staffing.
The report states: “The experience received overwhelming positive feedback from visitors and staff, and has proven particularly attractive to younger visitors.”
Figures produced by officials claim over the past 18 months the experience was used over 50,694 times, and that people stayed in the rooms 30 percent longer than previously. Visiting from partners and families increased by 25 percent, with an increase of 14.5 percent for City Hall tours during the period.
The Augmented Reality experience begins in a virtual library where visitors can hear Belfast’s words and accents as flying books tell their stories and portraits reveal a hidden secret. Visitors are then transported to Belfast’s past, present and future through 3D maps.
Through the character Peggy Barclay of Sugarhouse Entry, visitors discover the hidden history of the city’s streets, and see what the city of the future could look like, inspired by Belfast school children and their innovative drawings of flying cars, slides on buildings, and floating bubble houses.
Visitors also get the chance to play interactive street games and create their own works of postcard art with Belfast’s landmarks, ready to share on social media.
At the City Hall committee meeting councillors also agreed £100,000 to develop a business case for the Belfast Council plan to design a £5 million AI adoption programme for the six Belfast Region City Deal councils.
The report states: “The programme, which will be subject to business case approval, will provide funding to the councils to work with AI specialists to integrate AI into aspects of council service delivery that will support organisational transformation and efficiencies.”
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