The immersive theater production Sleep No More is celebrating its seventh anniversary in Shanghai with a special bus tour.

Launched on Dec 15, the McKinnon Bus will take passengers on a theatrical journey through downtown Shanghai. As passengers take the one-hour ride from Gucheng Park to the McKinnon Hotel, which is the home of the show, two actors, playing the conductor and a female passenger, will perform a spin-off story of the play. The bus tour will run until Dec 31.

Jointly produced by Punchdrunk International and SMG Live, Sleep No More, Shanghai has presented more than 1,800 performances to 550,000 people since its premiere in 2016, with box office takings amounting to 470 million yuan ($65.9 million).

Created by Felix Barrett and Maxine Doyle, Sleep No More is an award-winning immersive theater experience that recounts the classic Shakespearean tragedy Macbeth through a darkly cinematic lens. Audiences can move freely through the show.

Sleep No More, Shanghai features settings reminiscent of 1930s Shanghai, and the McKinnon Hotel, a five-story building at 1013 Beijing Road West, was redesigned to become the home of this site-specific production.

With the average attendance rate of the show exceeding 90 percent, Sleep No More, Shanghai is currently the record holder among residency performance projects in China.

"I cannot specify the impact of the show to China's immersive theater scene," Ma Chencheng, president of SMG Live, the live show branch of Shanghai Media Group, told media on the opening day of the bus tour.

"But it was obvious that from 2016 onward, when Sleep No More was introduced to China, the theater industry and many other businesses, such as retail and dining, have become more interested in immersive theater and have tried to introduce the idea into their events."

Compared to its New York production, Sleep No More, Shanghai has broken many new boundaries, Ma adds. Aside from the main show, the Shanghai production also has its own themed restaurant, pub and hotel.

Ma points out that the production has, over the past seven years, also had several crossover collaborations with commercial brands.

"If we say that the New York production has made the show known to the whole world, I believe the Shanghai production has pushed forward the idea of immersive theater in this vitally important market. That's why I believe Sleep No More, Shanghai and immersive theater will have even brighter future in the city," Ma says.

It was recently announced that the New York production on the city's West 27th Street will close following its 5,000th performance on Jan 28. In a statement, Barrett and Doyle wrote: "It is the end of an era, but thrilling to know that the Sleep No More adventure is not finished. The production lives on in Shanghai, now in its seventh year, and we are excited to be exploring new productions internationally."