Spatial Complexity and Lighting Interactions in Emergency Evacuation: Experimental Evidence from Immersive Entertainment Venues

Immersive entertainment venues use spatial complexity to enhance visitor experience, but these design features may impair emergency evacuation, particularly when lighting fails. We conducted a 2 × 2 factorial experiment with 264 participants to quantify how spatial complexity and lighting conditions interact to affect evacuation performance. Ultra-wideband positioning provided centimeter-level tracking. Results showed very large main effects for spatial complexity (ηp2 = 0.976) and lighting (ηp2 = 0.863), but critically, a significant interaction (ηp2 = 0.799) revealed asymmetric patterns: darkness barely affected simple spaces (6.5% increase) but severely impaired complex spaces (36.9% increase), with a nine-fold amplification. The worst-case scenario (high complexity + darkness) increased evacuation time by 115% compared to optimal conditions. Findings demonstrate that spatial complexity and lighting combine synergistically, creating multiplicative rather than additive risk, with the worst-case combination increasing evacuation time by 115% relative to optimal conditions. Findings support prioritizing spatial simplification and emergency lighting redundancy in the design of complex immersive venues.