I went to Liverpool's immersive Beyond Van Gogh experience and it wasn't what I expected

Staged at the Exhibition Centre Liverpool, from July 15 to August 15, Beyond Van Gogh offers a new way to appreciate the incredible artist, through an immersive experience. We headed to the venue on Sunday (July 27) to see if it was as good as everyone seemed to be saying.

The experience began with a timeline of Van Gogh’s life and works, detailed through letters mainly written to his brother Theo. The timeline was spread across various boards, with frames hanging from the ceiling allowing us to take photos of different quotes through them.

After learning more about Van Gogh, we headed into a large room for the main event. I wasn’t expecting the majority of the experience to be in one room, but it was truly mesmerising. Once we realised we’d be in one place for a long time, we sat down on the floor and watched the magic unfold around us, with Van Gogh’s incredible works brought to life on the walls and ground.

Accompanied by music and the occasional speech, more than 300 of the post-Impressionist icon’s paintings - including The Starry Night, Sunflowers and Terrace of a Café at Night - were projected all around using cutting-edge technology.

We saw Van Gogh’s self-portraits move and blink, while his beautifully-painted stars sparkled and his swirling brush strokes danced around the room.

The whole experience lasted around an hour, with thought-provoking quotes introducing new segments and the audience watching as ‘Vincent’ was slowly written at the bottom of some of his most-famous works.

We weren’t quite sure where the main exhibition was supposed to start an end - as we just watched from when we walked in until we were back at the same point - but I don’t think it really mattered. I enjoyed that we didn’t know what was coming next and loved watching the beautiful transitions between each section.

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Once we had watched the full loop, we were guided to a room filled with giant sunflower sculptures and hanging frames for photo opportunities. We then exited to the shop which was filled with Beyond Van Gogh and Beyond Monet merchandise.

We left the experience feeling very calm and having discovered new art we had no idea Van Gogh had created. I’d highly recommend for any art lovers but would say that it probably isn’t the kind of activity children would enjoy.