In 79 AD, Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying the Roman city of Pompeii under volcanic ash and pumice, which resulted in the deaths of its inhabitants.

The event preserved the city, offering a unique snapshot of Roman life for future generations.

It is now a UNESCO World Heritage site and a major archaeological park that offers unparalleled insight into daily life in the ancient world.

But now, thanks to a remarkable new immersive exhibition at the Excel Waterfront in London’s Docklands, thousands can bear witness to the events that took place nearly 2,000 years ago through the use of technology.

Following huge international success, the award-winning exhibition makes its UK debut on Friday, 14 November, taking visitors on a journey through ancient Pompeii, using a striking combination of cutting-edge technology and rich, historical narratives.

Spanning 3,000 square meters and over 10 different galleries and installations, including some genuine relics from the period, The Last Days of Pompeii: The Immersive Exhibition is the largest of its kind.

"Pompeii is always a living story, a living cultural story, because thanks to the ongoing advances in the excavations at the Archaeological Park, very innovative things for the time—considering it was the first century AD—are still being discovered. So, you come to learn about the history, but you’re also enriched by everything new that’s happening in the park, and you realize that we still live in much the same way as they did," explains curator Míriam Huéscar.

The format will be familiar to those who saw ‘Tutankhamun: The Immersive Exhibition’ as it is the same team behind the scenes. Jordi Sellas is the executive producer.

“The Last Days of Pompeii has everything. It has history, it has archaeology, it has drama, it has storytelling. We are really interested in this mix between fiction and reality. What was real at that time, working with historians, working with archaeologists, and at that time also in the 19th century when the ruins were discovered, a lot of writers and creative people were like really interested in making new storytelling on Pompeii. So that mix between fiction and reality was something really exciting to us, to go back to that story,” he enthuses.

After wowing 750,000 visitors in Madrid, Vienna, Beijing, Berlin and Oberhausen, The Last Days of Pompeii is in the English capital for a limited 16-week run before departing to Shanghai and Buenos Aires.

“We have cutting-edge technology, virtual reality area, we have a metaverse room, we have immersive room, but that is just based on very interesting and intense storytelling,” Sellas continues.

“We need to make this technology be just part of the experience and make people dive and feel immersed in the story. Make something that's impossible, in fact, which is to travel back in time, and be in a moment and in a period that was so interesting like the Roman Empire and in that moment when the Vesuvius exploded.”

And there’s plenty to learn throughout the multi-room adventure, but perhaps the element that will excite visitors more than any other is the immersive experience with the Virtual Reality headsets.

In the first immersion, guests are seated while being taken through various 360-degree scenarios, but the real fun begins when visitors step into one of Europe’s largest immersive projection halls.

Towering eight meters high, the installation becomes the scene for a free-roaming Metaverse experience recreating the legendary ‘Villa of the Mysteries’. Here, visitors move through its restored spaces, placing visitors at the very heart of the city so famous for the manner of its destruction.

Sellas has been with the project since its inception and knows that scale is the wow factor, but also the challenge.

“One of the biggest challenges here, especially at the Excel in London, is the size of the exhibition. It's the biggest exhibition we've ever built, so it's like incredible for us when now we see the result of how it looks,” he says.

The huge projection room runs a 26-minute video loop and is accompanied by its own original soundtrack.

You can occasionally hear a dog bark, and you are reminded to beware of them by a reconstruction of the famous sign discovered in Pompeii outside a villa.

If you want to practice your graffiti, here’s your chance before you leave the ancient world behind and step out onto stunning views of the River Thames.

AP video by Jez Fielder