In London, monsters step out of the screens, go-karts turn into video games, and visitors become the heroes of the attractions themselves. Welcome to the IAAPA Expo Europe (International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions), the world’s leading gathering for entertainment industry professionals. In this vast showcase, numerous Walloon companies are shining. They offer technologies that are essential to the thrills experienced by theme park visitors, both in Belgium and beyond its borders.
This is particularly true this year for Alterface Projects, an SME based in Wavre that is celebrating its 25th anniversary. At its booth, there are no giant roller coasters or multi-million-euro rides. Alterface technology is far more discreet. Sometimes it fits into just a few centimetres. Yet it can completely transform an attraction.
“Our technology is hidden inside a wand or a gun,” explains its director, Stéphane Battaille. “The user aims. They shoot. A camera detects the gesture. A fraction of a second later, a character disappears from the screen or the scenery reacts.” The visitor is no longer standing in front of the attraction. They are immersed in it.
An SME born in a laboratory
The story began in 2001. Alterface was founded as a spin-off from UCLouvain. At the time, its founders were working on an idea that seems almost commonplace today: enabling a person to interact with a digital world through their movements.
This was the early 2000s. At the time, gesture-recognition technologies were far from commonplace. Alterface began by working with museums and science centres. The company then realised that its technologies could find a particularly spectacular playground in theme parks.
In a museum, a handful of visitors may try an installation. In a park, the system has to work all day long. It must handle large numbers of people quickly. The setup must be reliable, accurate and, above all, entertaining enough to make people want to try again. “Interactivity has been our core business from the very beginning,” explains Giulia Florian, Head of Marketing and Communications at Alterface.
Making technology invisible
Her summary of the company comes down to two words: “creativity and technology”. The principle is ultimately quite simple. A small infrared transmitter is placed inside an object held by the visitor. A camera detects the signal and determines where the player aimed. A computer then translates that information into an action. All of this happens almost instantly.
“The technology itself remains genuinely tiny,” Ms Florian points out. And that is probably one of the secrets of the trade.
Visitors should not be thinking about the technology. They should be thinking about the story. Alterface therefore works both on the technical side and on how to integrate it into an attraction. In other words, it is all tailor-made. A park wants to tell a pirate story? The system has to adapt. Another wants to take visitors into a chocolate factory? The same applies. “We are in the business of storytelling, of creating something unique,” says Stéphane Battaille, CEO of Alterface. This combination of engineering and imagination has enabled the Walloon company to carve out a place in a global industry.
Mice, chocolate and millions of visitors
Among its many projects is “Maus au Chocolat” at Phantasialand in Germany. Visitors board a ride through a chocolate factory overrun by mice. Armed with a gun, they must aim at the rodents appearing in the various scenes. The result sits halfway between a ride, a video game and a film. That was in 2011… And the attraction is still operating, years after it opened.
That matters to the Wavre-based SME, which employs 25 people. Today, its technologies are used in more than 150 attractions around the world. In 2025, its turnover reached approximately €6 million. For a company born in a Walloon university laboratory, the playing field has become remarkably vast.
TWIST, the connecting link
Alterface is one of the roughly one hundred members of the TWIST cluster. It brings together companies working in Walloon Image, Sound and Text Technologies. Its aim is to strengthen innovation and growth in the audiovisual and multimedia digital technology sector.
Together with the Wallonia Export & Investment Agency (AWEX), TWIST brought several Walloon companies to the London trade show. IAAPA Expo Europe 2026 brings together more than 870 exhibitors. It features everything: roller coasters, rides, safety systems, sets, special effects, software, games, digital solutions… For companies, it is a gigantic marketplace concentrated into just a few days.
In Belgium, TWIST works in particular alongside Attractions et Tourisme, which represents operators of tourist sites and museums—essentially the clients of TWIST member companies. It is worth noting that 220 companies manage more than 250 tourist attractions and museums in Wallonia and Brussels.
“An attraction can no longer rely on beautiful scenery alone,” says Michaël Merchiers of Attractions et Tourisme. “Visitors want to take part. They want to be surprised. They want to be able to talk about their experience once they get home. The sector must keep reinventing itself. The world, and customers’ needs and expectations, are changing so quickly. They always want new experiences,” he observes. The same is true at IAAPA.
This evolution is opening doors for companies that did not necessarily work in theme parks a few years ago. A film company can contribute its imagery. A television company can apply its expertise elsewhere. A video game specialist can transpose its mechanics into an attraction.
“In some respects, the audio and multimedia sector is contracting. These companies are looking for growth in other markets, and theme parks and tourism are clearly growth sectors,” explains Pierre Collin, Director of TWIST.
“Wallonia has a distinctive feature: some of its companies develop their own technologies. They retain control of the IP (intellectual property),” he stresses. In other words, they do not merely sell time or services. They also own technologies that they can market abroad.
A small region, but a global market
What is true of the Walloon market is also true of exports for TWIST companies. The Middle East is a good illustration of this ability to reach beyond national borders. Saudi Arabia is investing heavily in leisure and tourism. Parks, entertainment centres and new tourist destinations are springing up. In particular, Alterface contributed to a “dark ride” project—a highly dynamic and interactive visitor experience—as part of the development of Qiddiya, near Riyadh.
IAAPA is becoming almost as important a workplace as it is a commercial showcase for the Walloon ecosystem. Companies come to find customers, but also ideas, suppliers, partners and sometimes their next collaborations.
The global market in this field is colossal. IAAPA estimates that, in Europe, the sector’s total turnover stood at around €156 billion in 2025. In Belgium, Attractions et Tourisme reports turnover of approximately €375 million in 2024. That is certainly not negligible. For Walloon companies innovating in this field, international markets hold strong appeal. Around fifteen of them travelled to IAAPA Europe this year with the TWIST cluster and AWEX.
by Christian du Brulle, Daily Science
