Month: December 2022

This marks the Seventh and final-part of this comprehensive International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA’22) convention coverage. The importance of licensing in the amusement mix was also underscored by Apple Industries, holding their 9th annual Keynote Breakfast that they have held to bring operators and show attendees up to speed on the latest developments from the photo capture specialists. The company revealed an exclusive licensing agreement with NASCAR auto racing entertainment brand – the licensing agreement coinciding with the 75th anniversary in 2023, of one of the most popular supported sports in the world. The company developing specialist livery photobooths, based on their platform incorporating the franchise, (one such example on the show booth), complimenting their already established Disney and Marvel Comics property machines. At the same time the Faceplace range saw the entry of a new platform […]

This marks the sixth part of our International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA’22) convention coverage. The crossover between traditional amusement and the interest in immersive technology saw “Immersive Amusement” products appear from many quarters. For example, as seen from LAI Games – the amusement powerhouse, with a major presence in the deployment of VR into amusement. Along with their amusement releases, the company launched the continuation of their partnership with HTC, employing their VR technology. The innovation ushered in by ‘Virtual Rabbids: The Big Ride’ cannot be underestimated in the amusement scene. Celebrating some five-years since its launch, and over 1,000 sales for the system, the latest update to the platform was shown to European attendees at IAAPA-EMA’22 with ‘Virtual Rabbids: Ultra HD’. As reported on during our IBE’22 coverage, the updated platform includes the new HTC VIVE […]

This marks the second part of our International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA’22) convention coverage. Moving into the increased innovation in entertainment and attractions, and the latest investment in “Simulators” and “SimRacing” was on display. The continued popularity of simulators in the amusement scene was reflected from two camps – for example, veteran manufacturer Maxflight presented their ‘VR2002’ range of systems, with their unique 360° motion envelope that still offers a compelling game experience.  Meanwhile, on the other side of the simulation and racing scene, we saw several leading SimRacing seats with motion, building on the popularity of the eSports and tournament racing scene. One of the larger attraction developers to embrace this scene was Brogent Technologies – known for their simulator attractions, the company came to IAAPA’22 with a selection of their immersive experiences. The first was […]

This marks the third part of our International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA’22) convention coverage. What was clearly a major trend on display at IAAPA’22 was the deployment of “Immersive Enclosures”. We would place them in the MR category, with their immersive screen technology, and there has been a growing trend in immersive display enclosures using projection and flat display technology. The enclosure systems using immersive displays were represented from several developers. One of the familiar exhibitors was Axiom Holographics with their ‘AXIOM’ platform, which we have reported on from IAAPA-EMEA’22 and many years of appearance. This is the holographic immersive display company that has seen its platform deployed in Australia.  One of the latest developments was the inclusion of “Computer Vision” to the experience, so able to track the player, and even place their representation into the […]

This marks the fourth-part of our International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA’22) convention coverage. Reporting on the major trends shaping the investment of immersive technology into the amusement and attractions scene, and we have “VR Kiosks”. The development of the “unattended” VR amusement platforms continued apace, with several examples on display, having gathered momentum over the last few months as a popular platform for amusement deployment.  Along with examples on the Creative Works booth (representing the VAR Live and VRstudios platforms), the VRsenal booth showed their new slimline ‘Monolith’ platform. Gone was the VR headset retention system, and it now offers a new sturdy headset cable which the company has specially developed in cooperation with HTC, towards surviving the abuse of amusement deployment without the expensive retention system, as with previous designs. The company is also looking to […]

This marks the Fifth-part of our International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA’22) convention coverage. Another major trend has been “Free-roaming VR” experiences were a serious trend on the show floor, along with the Creative Works ‘LimitlessVR’ there were several other examples being presented. Springboard VR an operation of Vertigo Games, presented their library of content in support of free-roaming platforms, as well as for VR arcades. The company working in partnership with ?? the manufacturers of the enclosure, had installed on their booth a free-roam enclosure running their titles, including a first chance to try the newly launched ‘After the Fall: LB VR Edition’ – the all new full-body 4-player VR adventure, running on the HTC Focus 3, and availability exclusively rolled out across Springboard locations worldwide (as part of their free-roam library of titles). The demonstration proving […]