Virtual Arena

The traveling European leg of the mega IAAPA trade show (IAAPA-Europe-Expo) landed in Amsterdam at the end of September 2024 and offered a massive snapshot of the European industry landscape, and how the latest trends are being deployed in the attraction and amusement scene. The international trade association event attracting massive attendance from the European territory, as well as seeing North American and Asian visitation. With VR, AR and MR having been deployed into the amusement mix for this sector of commercial entertainment; and the novelty factor has now been superseded by the realities of which of these applications grabs audience interest and generates reliable revenue. Virtual Reality The virtual reality scene in the location-based entertainment (LBE) sector has evolved from the passive tethered VR experiences of Generation One and Two, and now represents most of the Room Scale – […]

In this latest column, we look at the emergence of immersive audience engagement, using both virtual and mixed reality technologies. Far beyond the limitations of consumer VR applications – the ability of interacting in groups offers a new dimension to immersion, and points towards a possible theater and exhibition-based future of XR. The need for physical engagement the special element that defines the new level of immersive experiences sweeping the international attraction, stage and exhibition scene. Shared VR The technology advantage of “Shared Reality” (SR) applications, offers the ability for groups and audiences to enjoy the experience together sharing the immersion and narrative. While the ‘Big Screen’ consumer VR experiences have proven one of the recuring popular consumer VR applications across platforms. The ability to enthral actual large audiences, beyond low quality disembodied heads, has enthralled audience members to the […]

In this latest column, we explore the new frontier for Immersive Edutainment – the mixture of an Immersive Galleries and Museum exhibits into an audience experience – along with the more general Immersive Adventure catering for large simultaneous group activities. The true engagement of high-end VR has been the ability to transport the user into a synthetic environment. Many observers have seen the explosion in edutainment being a kind of “Museum 2.0” – the only way the new generation of audiences can be drawn into experiencing the wonders of the world, classic art, and history, with their different attention spans. Transportation We have seen the initial immersive edutainment deployed in the form of “Virtual Field trips” placed into the school syllabus, with the likes of the ‘ClassVR’ platform from developer Avantis Education. A school-based VR platform that offers the ability to […]