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Immersive theatre is an emerging theatre style broadly premised on the production of experiences. As this article looks to establish, experiences are rendered an aesthetic site of equal, if not greater significance than the immersive environments which arouse them. But this premise, I believe, is contingent on privileging a particular kind of participation: one that I term 'entrepreneurial participation'. This is a kind of participation based on self-made opportunity. I will be thinking through this suggestion in what follows, theorising how immersive theatre shares particular values with neoliberalism, such as entrepreneurialism, as well as the valorisation of risk, agency and responsibility. Firstly, I will address how immersive theatre is particularly susceptible to co-optation by a neoliberal market given its compatibility with the growing experience industry; secondly, I will expand on this assertion by looking at how immersive theatre mirrors a neoliberal value set, focusing on the audience's perception of risk. These two discursive strands will form the basis for establishing what values are shared between the immersive theatre style and neoliberalism and articulating how that sharing might impact on theorising participation in an immersive theatre context. A more optimistic, but ultimately sobering evaluation of those values will be offered in conclusion.

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