Meeting (sort of) the world’s greatest footballer at Miami’s new Messi Experience

I am standing in a mocked-up television studio in front of a vast wall of monitors broadcasting mean things Argentine fans have said about Lionel Messi, their national football captain and arguably the greatest player of all time.

“Messi, you once resigned from the Argentinian national team,” says one supporter after the country was knocked out of the 2018 World Cup — Messi’s fourth unsuccessful trip to the tournament. “It wouldn’t hurt to think about doing it again.”

This is our hero’s lowest moment, the emotional nadir of his life’s story arc as witnessed at The Messi Experience, a new “immersive” experience that opened in Miami last week. The nine-room, walk-through extravaganza is an AI, 3D, CGI tribute to Messi’s life and career housed in a hangar — it’s actually called The Hangar — in the city’s Coconut Grove district.

Perhaps it might herald the start of a new era of visitor attractions that, rather than relying on history, art or physical thrills (like the museums, galleries and theme parks that dominate the sector), harness the pulling power of living celebrities — the tech enabling both a sense of personal intimacy and allowing the exhibit to run concurrently in multiple cities around the world.

Or perhaps it might simply be a headache-inducing assembly of too many video screens and special effects.

It is the creation of two Miami showmen, Andres Naftali and David Rosenfeld, whose company, Primo Entertainment, has produced concerts for Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande. Latterly it has expanded into digitally enhanced exhibitions such as Beyond Van Gogh (due to play in at least seven cities in the US and UK this year) and Frida Kahlo: the Life of an Icon (already seen in cities from New York to Sydney and soon to roll out across South America).

For Messi, they’ve teamed up with Montreal’s Moment Factory, a multimedia entertainment company that has also created exterior graphics for Las Vegas’s vast new Sphere arena. Asked about the investment, Rosenfeld will only say the Messi show has cost “many millions of dollars”. It will soon open in Buenos Aires, before moving to Los Angeles and, he hopes, a further 80 cities.

Rosenfeld says the team is “open to doing other people’s life stories in the future”. I can’t help but wonder who might work well — Michael Jordan, Elton John maybe, surely a Taylor Swift spectacular? “But I don’t think there are many football players that transcend like Messi,” he adds. “I think he connects with people in a way that’s different.”

To my surprise, having already been softened up by the show’s immersive technology, I am moved by Messi’s plight as I listen to the fans’ criticisms. Poor Leo, I think, he just couldn’t win. Then I remember: he has won everything.

Half an hour earlier I’d entered The Hangar, exchanging south Florida’s blinding tropical light for the Experience’s blinding electronic radiance. First I’d handed over my email address and phone number, and had my photo taken, so an online profile could be created that would let me interact with an AI-enabled Messi chatbot on my phone as I toured the show.

Then I was ushered into a corridor where the Argentine appeared as a hologram to welcome me. Over the next 75 minutes, it’s clear Lionel Messi and I are due to become friends.

Soon I’m in his childhood bedroom, answering an old-fashioned phone when it rings. It’s FC Barcelona, he’s getting the call-up. His granny is thrilled. While The Hangar suits the TV studio set-up, the child’s bedroom feels fake, lacking the intimacy of the real thing. Part of the problem is the absence of authentic memorabilia. Despite being involved in the project, the famously private Messi hasn’t handed over any personal items.

“We’ll have some artefacts at some point,” says Rosenfeld. “But since we have various different sets of equipment going to various different cities at the same time, it needed to be as technological as possible.”

It’s true that the show is much better when giving full rein to the tech. In the next room I gaze like a god down at a model of Camp Nou, FC Barcelona’s home, as scenes from Messi’s rise to stardom are projected on the pitch. And it is at its very best when interactive. In one area I am guided by projected lights to learn to dribble and shoot apparently “just like Messi”. Or I would, if the group of women ahead of me weren’t so skilled, leaving me embarrassed and in retreat.

The Experience has been launched in the city where Messi now plays, even if he’s most associated with Barcelona. He is with Inter Miami, the team David Beckham — who bought the franchise in 2014 — hopes will capture the heart of a city fast becoming the de facto capital of Latin America. (It will host the final of the Copa América, the South American club football championship, this year.)

“There’s always been a passion for soccer in Miami, but this is a city of immigrants, so it’s always for home teams in home countries,” says Michelle Kaufman, who writes on football for the Miami Herald. “But then Messi arrived, bringing his friends along.” She means veteran superstars such as Luis Suárez, Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets, who give the team the air of a footballing Expendables.

Now the foundations of a new $1bn ground are being laid next door to Miami’s international airport and, according to Kaufman, “You see the Inter Miami pink shirts everywhere. Men who never would have worn pink are wearing pink proudly.”

It feels like the Experience will need to be refined. An AI-generated pep talk Messi gives to a recreated dressing room — “Come closer,” he says — is so low-wattage that I begin to understand why it took him so long to win a World Cup. If this is AI, it’s less HAL from Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and more “Messi” typed into ChatGPT.

However, a recreation of the open-top bus tour in Buenos Aires in which Messi and his team celebrated their World Cup win is genuinely thrilling. I stand on the top deck surrounded by a 3D sea of people, flags fluttering below. It might be stationary, but it doesn’t feel that way. (The true story is that the crowd was so large the players had to abandon the bus for helicopters.)

When I grow too cynical, the friend I’d arrived with tells me off. Issa could have been a pro sportsman, but his parents convinced him to turn down a sports scholarship for academic study. I sense a wistfulness as he says: “This show is a reminder of how sport can change someone’s life entirely. Kids will love it.”

In the last room we have our picture taken with the holographic Messi. He sticks up his thumbs, our buddy now. Then we walk out into the real world and an exquisite Miami sunset, boats floating past in the bay.

It’s the night of the grand opening, but while Latin celebrities mill around, there is no sign of Messi himself. According to Rosenfeld, the footballer “is a humble person, a family man, very low-key”. Well, I’ll always have his avatar.

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