by Carole Towner

"It's a cultural enterprise above all, specifies Yves Durand, President and cofounder of Québec Experience, with Denis Dufour, creator-director and multimedia specialist. The technology must serve the message and not the opposite." Maybe this is what explains the success of that "museum of modern times", a living and virtual museum, fusing art and technology, which aims at providing substance and emotions, and does. All the aspects of the lives of Québec's people are represented using the latest multimedia technology so as to accentuate the realism of these four centuries of our history. But wait..! No effects for effects sake! Québec Experience is not in the arcade business. Nor is Expérience International: "We'll never copy Disney because we'd always be a runner-up. Quite the contrary, it would be a much greater compliment if people were to copy us," says Yves Durand speaking ironically

Propelled by their dream, a core of seven people devoted everything, time and money, to build this small business which is now four good years old. It took one year of production to set up a half hour show which is presented in English and in French, about 120 people including 40 full-time collaborators and a one million dollar investment. Aiming above all at the tourism's client base, the two co-founders first approached the museums in an attempt to sell their product. Following a refusal, they decided to build their own and managed to convince the Société de Développement des Entreprises Culturelles du Québec(SODEC) and the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) to finance the project. Not a single grant, therefore, to build their small business which since its opening to the public, in June 1993, generates about 20 jobs during the tourist season, the personnel being reduced by half during the off-season. The number of jobs will double with the export of the product

Expérience International, a subsidiary of Québec Experience which undertakes the development and commercialization of the "Experience" concept on the international scene, has signed contractual agreements for $ 8 million with the Portuguese, which is for the Centre des Sciences d'Europarque, a mega-project scheduled to open in May 98 and whose business plan will be submitted in September of this year. The Portuguese are completing the construction of the future Centre which has seven exposition halls, with one situated outdoors in theme gardens, plus an auditorium which will present the history of the Portuguese explorers. Also in Porto, they're planning to install a Cité de l'Image. The installation of the Québec product in a foreign country was concluded following one year of dealings - three trips to Europe - and one month of very technical negociations between lawyers, and legal and fiscal advisers of the two countries during which the whole question of copyright protection, more specifically, required sustained efforts .

A UNIQUE CONCEPT WHICH HAS CIRCLED THE GLOBE

After going around the world and touring its counterparts in Europe, in Asia and in America (Epcot Center, Futurscope, etc.) the Expérience International team confirms its uniqueness in the field of multimedia shows. "The originality of the Experience concept is rooted in the symbiosis of medias," explains M. Durand.

Creator of jobs, especially among the youth, Expérience International exports an artistic and technological concept developped in its entirety by a team from Québec. Between next November and March, twelve "techniques" students from Cégep de Limoilou, recruited directly from their classrooms, will go to Portugal to set up the configuration of the halls with the technical and artistic instructions from the company, thus initiating the Portuguese to this cutting edge technology

Each project begins with the following question: what's the story? There's no lack of subjects, or of places. On the international scene, the markets are vast and the cities which are important tourist destinations make prime targets. The productions are aimed essentially at museums, at theme parks, and at outstanding sites of world heritage. "We haven't yet had the time to celebrate our contract with Portugal," says M. Durand. It's because there a many ties between Expérience International and the markets of Europe, the US and the rest of Canada. All major projects, including one in Greece, which will likely make a huge splash. The plan is to recreate, in the Greek islands, the legend of Atlantis....

Still a small company, Expérience International, which has gone almost round the world, continues to be silent about its future productions. We can however quote one production involving the revival of the paleolithic era in Foz Coa, also in Portugal, and another which aims to reconstruct the battle of Waterloo at the exact location where it took place, in Belgium

Experience International's whole development strategy revolves around the tourist industry. It's either the tourists who wish to import the product into their own countries, or the Experience team who proposes it abroad. But to what do we owe this spectacular expansion? Yves Durand states the following: "In the eyes of the Europeans we combine the best of both worlds, embodying for them all of the modern aspects offered by America, with interesting technological advances, not to mention our latin culture and our francophone aspect. And for the Americans, although we have a technological level comparable to theirs, we tend to innovate more. Québec technicians in theatre, cinema and production have a reputation of making miracles with modest means. We're inventive, it's in our genes. We therefore have an advantage not only in technology, but also in productivity, which explains why we're selling more and more in foreign markets."

In order to recreate the moods, the emotions and the environments of the most beautiful pages of history, no effort is too great, adding numerous existing special effects to tactile and olfactory effects. A stage setting worthy of the 21st century .