Everest: The First Ascent opens under Camden High Street on 30 September. Thirty-five minutes of VR that puts you on the 1953 expedition with Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, from Kathmandu to the summit ridge. Tickets from £20, minimum age eight.
The detail that separates this from the usual immersive fare is where it has come from: it was selected for the Venice Immersive competition and had its world preview there before heading to London. That is a film festival credential rather than a marketing line, and it is the reason to take it more seriously than the average headset-in-a-basement.
What the 35 minutes covers
It does not start at base camp. The experience opens in Kathmandu and with the culture of the Sherpa people, then works up through the high-altitude camps and the glaciers to the final summit approach. The pitch from Eclipso is that you are placed inside the expedition rather than watching it, feeling the altitude and the doubt alongside the climbers and the Sherpas who did the actual work of getting two men to the top.
It was made by Jean Dallac and Benjamin Auriche with a scientific advisory board of Himalayan, mountaineering and cultural specialists, which at least suggests somebody checked the details. It is the third strand of Eclipso’s historical series, after Titanic: Echoes from the Past and its space experiences.
The practical shape of a visit
The whole thing runs 50 minutes: 15 minutes of onboarding and briefing, then 35 minutes in the headset. It is in the basement of 213 to 219 Camden High Street, directly across the road from Camden Town station, and it opens daily from 11am to 8pm. Minimum age is eight.
Our take: £20 for 35 minutes of VR is not cheap per minute, and the honest warning is that if you have done one of these in the last couple of years you know whether the format works for you. What makes this one worth the money is the Venice selection and the decision to open in Kathmandu rather than at 8,000 metres, because the Sherpa half of the 1953 story is the half that usually gets cut. Book an early slot: a basement full of people who have just taken headsets off is warm and loud, and the first sessions of the day are the quiet ones. If you want the real thing instead, the Royal Geographical Society keeps the expedition’s own records five minutes from South Kensington station.
Need to know
- What: Everest: The First Ascent, a 35-minute VR experience following the 1953 Hillary and Norgay expedition
- Where: Eclipso, basement floor, 213 to 219 Camden High Street, London NW1 8QR, across from Camden Town station
- Opens: 30 September 2026
- Hours: daily, 11am to 8pm
- Duration: 50 minutes in total, 15 minutes of onboarding plus 35 minutes in the headset
- Price: from £20
- Minimum age: eight
- Booking: eclipso-entertainment.com
More of the neighbourhood in our Camden guide, more headsets in our guide to VR experiences in London, and the rest of what is on in our what to do in London this week.
