Various rugs are laid across the floor, lit only by the flicker of candlelight. Strangers join hands together, forming a kidney bean shaped circle. Ludwig kneels at the center, the Ivar family remaining close, but not too close. Ludwig begins speaking in a tongue I cannot comprehend, his breath becoming more rapid, as he opens his vessel, ready to connect to the other side. The girl next to me squeeze my hand tighter, and there’s a gasp—then a scream. The dark feels darker, and when Ludwig speaks again, the voice that emerges is not his own. Hotel Who returns with La Séance an immersive spectacle in the heart of Hollywood.

Hotel Who’s La Séance is an immersive murder mystery and dining experience that gives all players a character in this world and challenges them to engage with others, find clues, and piece together the motive to solve a murder. With five actors and approximately forty participants all playing individual characters (including yourself), this experience is jam-packed full of interaction and complex backstories to uncover. Guests will run up and down four stories of castle stairs, enjoy cocktails, and watch a few scenes unfold—until the conclusion where they will name murderer, motive, and murder weapon. Figure it out and prevent any further bloodshed in the castle (at least for tonight).

The narrative begins when I was invited to attend a 1930’s séance at the Ivar Castle, a four-story home in the heart of Hollywood. The head of the Ivar family, Roman Ivar mysteriously died—and while it’s unclear if it was murder or not, the family believes it was—and they’ve invited you and others over to feast and indulge in ever-flowing cocktails as you try to piece together the story. As new events unfold and a mystic attempts to conjure Roman himself, La Séance becomes much more than a traditional séance.

La Séance – A Four Act Structure

La Séance takes form in four distinct acts: Feast, Explore, Séance, and Sleuth.

Feast

The La Séance Feast begins for only those with a premium ticket purchase. With a smaller guest list, this more intimate hour allows for stronger engagement with the five main characters, the ability to connect with other guests (when there isn’t so many that it is intimidating), and the ability to complete the side missions on your character card. The main characters of La Séance are introduced to you, so audiences meet them in a way that is more personal than simply on cards in your sleuthing kit. People also can interact with these characters and ask them questions and learn their feelings on Roman’s death. This unlocks valuable information that will help you in your quest to uncover the killer.

Beyond this, there’s also the titular feast. The food is exceptional. Prepared by Ani Samuelian, the Little Chef, this dinner feels gourmet through and through. Grilled cauliflower with pomegranate seeds, succulent chicken skewers, sourdough bread with hummus, uncut carrots drizzled in a yogurt sauce, and a decadent salad with sliced green apples, cranberries, and what tasted like a raspberry vinaigrette. It’s delicious and wonderful. It’s all served buffet style, so grab a plate and make your way around the table, filling your plate to your heart’s—or stomach’s—content. Following dinner comes dessert. From soft coconut macaroons to red velvet cake to an assortment of cookies—the desert is to die for.

Guests are able to eat their dinner on the patio balcony overlooking the LA skyline or in the living room on one of their many couches. These seats do fill up quickly—and while we wish there was a true dining table where food was served in courses, we do understand that there are space constraints (and staff constraints) and this was just unachievable. The buffet style was nice too, because we were able to eat as much as we liked until we were appropriately full—and then some more because the food was that good. This is a large step up from the food at the Biltmore experience, and we hope to see Chef Ani at more Hotel Who experiences!

Explore

An hour into La Séance, the general admission ticket holders enter the premises and expands the wine offerings with dinner to an open bar with four hand-made cocktails.

Participants are given an envelope with a 1 or a 2—and this sends them to different areas of the castle to collect clues. To ensure that all guests have the same access to the clues, there’s five piles of clues laid out in various areas of the rooms. Sometimes hidden in drawers or under pillows, but often just sitting on the couch or bed, these clues are to be collected by all players in that area. This design choice has its pros and cons. On one hand, we appreciate the ability for all players to receive the same information; on the other, it does break some immersion to have thirty of the same letter printed out on the bed for people to collect. In future iterations, it would be nice to have a way to secure letters to a location, ensuring that guests can’t take them—but still making them feel in-world and diegetic.

Clues and characters will send all guests up to the third floor where the bar is located. The bar menu consists of an Old Fashioned (whiskey, simple syrup, bitters, and a cherry), a Mary Pickford (rum, pineapple juice, grenadine, and a cherry), a Cape Coddler (vodka, cranberry juice, with a lime) and a Bee’s Knees (gin, honey, lemon juice, with a lemon garnish). These cocktails are presented by Premium Pourers LLC, and with each drink handcrafted by the two bartenders, the drinks were much better than I expected and kept me coming back. The other surprising element was that despite having all premium and standard guests combined, there was never more than a five-minute wait at the bar. Seems like most sleuths preferred clues over cocktails.

Séance

Act three of La Séance is a thirty minute séance experience that is the main reason we all were invited to La Séance. While the audience here has little ability to interact and engage, this act gives the five characters the opportunity to shine, showcasing their acting talent. We will discuss the actors below, so we will keep this section light for sake of spoilers.

Slueth

With a surprising development in the case and characters revealed to not be who they said they were, the case shifts and must be solved before the situation derails further. With a clear goal of uncovering the who, the why, and the what, groups of participants must come together to share information between groups “1” and “2” from earlier, find new information, and share backstories.

While in our first Hotel Who experience at the Normandie, we were unable to determine the right killer because we missed a crucial piece of information, we were able to correctly identify the culprit this time by finding the clues that lead us directly to them. This was greatly rewarding, but it came down to a few specific clues that revealed further information when we confronted characters with this information. We would not have been able to solve this alone, as a few different groups had to come together in order to piece together the entire story, but it shows how well crafted and thoroughly weaved the narrative was.

However, it does also highlight a few potential pitfalls with La Séance’s  approach. First, participants that did not interact with these groups, or come together in the end, missed the narrative thread that lead us to find the culprit. Yes, they would learn who it was in the finale, but how we came to that conclusion would be lost to them—and that was how we ended up feeling after the Normandie experience. Second, we noticed that some of the key items (e.g., the murder weapon) was taken by a guest and held onto for the remainder of the experience. Yes, Hotel Who clearly states to not hold onto items, but this guest ignored those rules and potentially could have “broken the game” for others, preventing them from finding it on their own. Third, there were a few pieces of paper that provided essential information (and were the smoking gun for us) that were able to be taken per Hotel Who’s rules. We shared these clues with as many groups as we could, but it did prevent others from finding it too. The only solution to this problem is to either decrease audience sizes (unlikely) or find a way to incorporate clues into “untakeable” items (e.g., instead of placing the will in a book, secure it to the backside of a painting).

La Séance Characters:

Hotel Who and the actors who embody the La Séance main characters create the most memorable, hilarious, and engaging characters in the current immersive scene. Whether they are breaking down, looking for a dollar, or just trying to avoid the drama, there’s so much great backstory here, and the characters and riff for hours with you, never leaving an awkward silence.

August Wise, the Pushy Manager: August (Lisa Stanley) was a delight. From her crass, no-nonsense demeanor to the air of cigarette smoke that seems to follow her like a dark cloud of gloom, this manager is only interested in money. It’s no secret, she will literally not give you the time of day unless you come from money or can connect her to someone who does. But beyond her ambition, her commentary on the overall experience is hilarious and left us in stitches on numerous occasions. “Now, clean this sh!t up,” she barks after personally laying out flowers for her client, Ludwig Gregorian the third.

Ludwig Gregorian III, the Mysterious Medium:  Ludwig (Maciek Batoszewski) is friend to all, always knowing more than anyone else in the room. As a spiritualist (or a conman), he utilizes personal details and memories to quickly gain your trust. And Batoszewski is quick on his toes, creating memories of past adventures—like him and I working together on an exorcism in Spain just a few years back. The details he uses to paint these pictures is impressive and gives these memories a specific tangibility that further grounded me in this world. I could speak to him all night, reliving adventures from the past, engaging in banter that is created in an ephemeral light that burns brightly for a single night.

Irina Ivar, the Wild Spiritualist: Irina (Holly Seidcheck) is more than wild—she’s sassy, spunky, and uncouth. She will berate you for a wrong look, tease you in front of your face, and push your buttons. But find yourself in her favor and she will go to war for you, helping you until every secret is uncovered. She’s a strong ally who draws a deep line in the dirt. I love that Seidcheck continues to get cast in these roles of the wild nonconformist because she excels at them, and I can’t help but associate Seidcheck with sass now.

Anna Ivar, the Glamorous Wife: Anna (Alessandra Perdichizzi) exudes luxury and exquisiteness. She’s emotional and evocative, not afraid to open up about the loss of her father. Her vulnerability makes her relatable. But her beauty, her vulnerability, and her emotion are used to her advantage, as she finds information and uncovers secrets. Perdichizzi embodies Anna, and her relationship with Irina is heartfelt and one of my favorite aspects.

Tom Weston, the Quiet Assistant: While I engaged with Tom (RaMond Thomas) the least during the experience, he was often standoffish and quiet, not wanting to involve himself in the drama. But why would he? He got all the money. He has the most to lose. He has reason to protect the status quo—but did he have reason to kill Roman to get the money? And how did Tom get it—when nothing went to Roman’s daughters Irina and Anna?

People in Black: In La Séance, there are characters that exist outside of the narrative. In this case, these are people dressed in all black. We understand that these are creators and stage managers, who serve to keep the performance running on time and schedule, set up scenes, move furniture and deliver tasks / envelopes. But one interesting element is that they have the ability to ring a bell, which happens a few times, and all the characters seem to be pulled from the current experience, engaging in dance, and when the bell is rung again, they return, losing memory of anything that happened between those rings. We saw this same element occur in prior Hotel Who experiences, but this was done by characters (not people in black) that existed outside the narrative—characters embodying larger forces at play. I am curious to see if this element will ever be explored in further detail in its own experience, or if this is just a neat Hotel Who signature that adds a style to their experiences.

La Séance Location:

Castle Ivar is gorgeous. It’s definitely a vertically designed location, with four stories connected via a circular staircase at its center. Deviating from the Hotel locale, Castle Ivar feels more like the home of Roman Ivar than the massive rooms of a traditional hotel. We loved that this felt more intimate and personal compared to the other locations in the past. Posters on the wall and décor in the house gave Roman a personality, despite never being a living character in the space.

While not a ticketed option, overnight opportunities are available for those who work it out with Hotel Who, depending on availability. Yet, since some of the rooms are reserved for over-night guests, this limits the number of rooms to explore during the experience. We definitely miss the first year of Hotel Who where we were able to investigate the rooms of all the characters. It would have elevated the experience to be able to see Anna and Irina’s childhood rooms with perhaps dart boards on the walls. This would have been a nice addition.

During the experience, you only have access to four main rooms: the living room on the first floor, Roman’s room on the second, the bar and patio on the third, and the rooftop on the fourth. With the number of people in both premium and standard, spaces can feel tight and crowded, but never so bad that you cannot see the action or hear the dialogue. Further, most of the story takes place in the living room with the majority of the seating, but there is a great stage on the roof and plenty of space; we never saw the roof utilized in any scene. Perhaps we missed it—or were not included in that character’s journey—but this was such a great location, and we were secretly hoping the séance would have taken place up there, under the stars.

Recommendations

So, how do you get the most out of Hotel Who’s La Séance? Here are a few suggestions I’ve learned over attending the last few Hotel Who experiences, including La Séance.

Be a character: Whether you’re doing premium or standard, this is a dress-up experience where you become the character distributed to you prior. Feel free to adjust your character if needed—and dress the part. Violet Rose the Pilot was a fan favorite because she came dressed in full 1930’s aviation gear. We also ran into Darvish who studied up on mountain climbing on the Uber ride over so he could speak the language. While I was a school teacher, I decided to expand my narrative to be a catholic school teacher and a priest, coming in full priest attire. It’s a fun element to add to the séance and allows you to be more easily recognized and engaged with by the actors, elevating your experience.

Engage, engage, engage: While there are clues hidden throughout, most of the fun comes in engagement with not just the characters, but also the community. While Hotel Who’s experience at the Bilmore had 9 actors, La Séance pairs this back to only five for a more intimate storytelling experience—but this means less opportunity to engage and interact here. Thus, some of my most memorable moments were with other guests: standing in the hall with Frank while this man of science made the genius discovery that you could add cheese to a burger and call it a cheese burger, sharing notes with Jay the gardener as we read through all the “1” and “2” notes we had collected, constantly confronting Beatrice about being the murderer, and watching Violet the Pilot name every single participant and their profession in our premium circle before the experience began. The people make this amazing, and we were lucky to have such a strong group. Even if you aren’t an extrovert, play one for the evening.

Bring a satchel: My gosh, we collected so many items throughout the evening. From the sleuthing kit we started with to the instructions of what to do to the five notes found to the clues and wills we uncovered, my hands were too full at times to even hold a drink, let alone my dinner plate, wine and fork. I highly recommend bringing a satchel or something when you come because even with pockets, I became over-encumbered quickly.

Look everywhere: While most clues were out in the open, some of the most important clues were hidden in books, in medicine cabinets, and beyond.

Final Thoughts on La Séance

Hotel Who’s La Séance is an incredible night of dress up, of play, of food and drink, of murder and mystery. It’s four hours of escapism that cannot be found anywhere else. It’s a chance to step out of your own responsibilities and body and become someone else for an evening, imagining and playing with others who have that same desire as you. But you have to give yourself over to the experience. If you sit back and don’t engage, don’t play, don’t suspend disbelief, then you will not find the same level of enjoyment as we did. This is an experience that requires buy-in. But it’s easy to do so if you’re willing. Do yourself a favor and become the who in Hotel Who.

For more information about Hotel Who and La Séance, check out their Facebook, Instagram and website. For information about similar events, check out our Event Calendar.

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